There was a
lengthy discussion last night on “All In” with Chris Hayes regarding former
Education Commissioner for Florida, Tony Bennett. It seems that Bennett had changed the grade
for a charter school while he was still in Indiana from a C to an A. It turns out that the owner of the school was
a Republican who had donated extensively to Republican candidates, and to
Bennett. His mantra had been, and still
is, that he believes in accountability.
That is fine when the word is a noun, but when it becomes a verb it is
transitive. That is, there must be
something at the other end of the word.
He believes in accountability, but for whom or for what? In this case, it seems he believed he was
accountable, not to the children or even the entire school, but to the wealthy
owner of the school. But what he
apparently has never been asked is to define what he means by “accountability”.
Which brings
me to what drives me crazy about these new so-called Republicans. I used to be one in the good old days of
believing in fiscal responsibility in order to have the necessary funding for
social and/or environmental programs. I
call them “so-called” because they have abandoned the traditional rationale of
the Republican Party and embraced what even some of their own members call
crazy. It drives me crazy when I hear or
read about one of them changing the meaning of words to suit their own
purpose. As with Bennett, he touts his
love of accountability, but to whom or for what is he accountable?
John Boehner
is the master of this misuse of words.
He constantly says the Democrats need to “get serious” in Congress so
that the Republicans can get work done.
That sounds good, but what does “getting serious” mean? It used to refer
to the Senate and the House passing individual bills, then sending the bills to
reconciliation, then going back to each for passage. Now, with this new philosophy, it simply means that the Democrats need to
abandon their own opinions and expertise and do whatever the Republicans want
them to do, or else. I have never heard
anyone ask Boehner what he means by “getting serious”. That would be a really interesting answer,
if, in fact, he actually answered it using traditional words.
Another word
that the neo-cons misuse is the word “patriot”.
When I was young patriots were
people who loved their country and
worked to make it the best it could be.
Now, to be a patriot one must be a Tea Party Republican who adheres
strictly to their party line, even though it changes from person to
person. Now since I do not adhere to
their party line, I particularly resent the misuse of this word.
“Conservative”
used to mean, and I quote from my old Webster’s, “Disposed to maintaining
existing institutions; opposed to change”.
Considering that this bunch of wackadoodles want to entirely dismantle
our government institutions such as Social Security, the IRS, Medicare, the
Environmental Protection Agency, etc., they hardly fit the traditional
definition of “conservative”.
Another term
that is distressing is “fiscal responsibility”.
This used to mean that one used one’s income very carefully so there
would be enough for things that really matter like education for children,
taking care of the elderly who couldn’t work anymore, paying a fair share of
taxes, donating to churches or other charitable organizations to help those
less fortunate than oneself. Now being “fiscally
responsible” is to cut all social and/or environmental programs in order to
give tax breaks to the already wealthy or corporations to help them stash their
profits overseas to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
The list of
misused words is endless. What we need
to do at every possible opportunity is to demand definitions of words so that
we are all talking about the same things.
And then, because I’m from California and we had Arnold Schwarzenegger
as our “Governator”, I have decided to call these obstructionists in Congress
the “Destructionators”, because that’s what they are.
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