Words most abused by the right

June 5, 2013

Morgan Freeberg had a great idea, but mislabled it.  I’ve started a corrected list here, below.  More corrections will need to be made, and a few additions will be in order.  I already added a tiny handful.  To start out all the links go to Morgan’s site, so I can’t vouch for any of his definitions.  Feel free to suggest explanatory links for any work or phrase, in comments.

First draft,”Words Most Abused by the Right”:

  1. Tolerance

    Tolerance t-shirt design from Northern Sun

    Tolerance t-shirt design from Northern Sun; t-shirt will certainly tick off members of the Right Wing.

  2. Fairness
  3. Equality
  4. Vote
  5. Democracy
  6. Capitalism
  7. Free market
  8. Economics
  9. Jobs
  10. Family
  11. Marriage
  12. Contraception, and Family Planning
  13. Inclusion
  14. Science
  15. Open-minded
  16. Egalitarian
  17. Stereotype
  18. Oppressive
  19. Non-threatening
  20. Diversity
  21. Everyone
  22. Skeptic
  23. Nuance
  24. Progressive
  25. Constitution
  26. History
  27. Science
  28. Religion
  29. Environment
  30. News
  31. Journalism
  32. Hate speech
  33. Tea Party
  34. Abuse
  35. Torture
  36. Greed
  37. Assault (weapon/rifle/gun)
  38. Wealthy
  39. Any tangible noun that ends with “ist,” or intangible noun that ends with “ism.”
  40. Undocumented
  41. Working (family)
  42. Worker
  43. Labor
  44. Right(s)
  45. Ethical
  46. Transparent(cy)
  47. Landmark
  48. Theocracy
  49. Common sense
  50. Safety
  51. Fascist/ism
  52. Communist/ism
  53. Socialist/ism
  54. Mainstream
  55. Forward

Morgan also “cross-posted” his list at House of Eratosthenes and Right Wing News.  Hilarity ensues, I’m sure.

Leave a Comment » | Humor, Politics | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Now they reveal the monsters that live within their breasts . . .

May 11, 2011

Just let ’em ramble, they’ll spin enough rope to hang themselves.

Do you ever wonder what are the fondest dreams of tea partiers (tea baggers) and the rash, radical right?

Here, they confess, in “Post-Constitutional America”:

The idea of raising a governing majority to actually roll back the New Deal is quixotic fantasy. Even in the most fiscally conservative moment in recent history, the idea of simply removing all the social democratic infrastructure of the New Deal is not even being broached by GOP politicians. Not even Sen. Rand Paul proposes it.

They shouldn’t take Quixote’s name in vain like that.

Seriously, what is left of the New Deal?  For a few examples,

  • There is the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which saved countless banks in the past two decades.
  • There is the Securities and Exchange Commission and the rules on honesty in trading in securities.  Only a fool would wish a repeal to those.
  • Vestiges of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration remain, keeping small farmers from going broke and losing the family’s inheritance and heritage to speculators in the prices of commodities — not that it doesn’t work some evil these days supporting big corporations (but over at What’s Wrong With the World, they prefer the latter, one might think)
  • Tennessee Valley Authority
  • Social Security

Why would anyone want to roll back those programs?

Outright rejection of the “progressive agenda,” the pro-democracy, pro-American, human-rights friendly political movement of the late 19th and 20th century, is one of the uglier manifestations of conservative politics of the past decade, and especially of the past year.  When confronted with the things they actually propose, those who make the proposals usually sputter that they don’t mean to do that, that they have been misunderstood.

The misunderstanding is in thinking that positive improvements in our laws are, somehow, deserving of roll back.  Why shouldn’t we bring back Jim Crow?  Why shouldn’t we bring back child labor, unclean food, unclean water, tainted meat and non-working, damaging pharmaceuticals?  They don’t know?

Have logic and common sense suddenly died?

28 Comments | History, Politics, Progressive Era, Social Security | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Insanity at Texas state school board – economics, geography and history

May 27, 2009

Tim Ritz cartoon, for Americans United

Tim Ritz cartoon, for Americans United

Texas Freedom Network’s Insider blog reports that embattled chairman Don McLeroy is working to create a panel of experts to review studies curricula.  The experts he has proposed so far are all well-known cranks in academia, people who bring their axes to grind on the minds of innocent children.

This panel is a bold insult to Texas’s community of economists, historians, and other practitioners of fields of social studies, not to mention educators.  A more qualified panel of experts could be assembled in the coffee break rooms of the history departments at most of Texas’s lesser known state colleges and universities.

Why does Don McLeroy hate Texas so?

I’ve been buried in teaching, grading, planning and the other affairs of the life of a teacher, and had not paid much attention to the movement on this issue (“movement” because I cannot call it “progress”).  My students passed the state tests by comfortable margins, more than 90% of them; this news from SBOE makes me despair even  in the face of the news that our achievements are substantial in all categories.

The panel lacks knowledge and experience in economics, geography and history.  The panel is grotesquely unbalanced — at least two of the panel members remind me of Ezra Taft Benson, who was Secretary of Agriculture for Dwight Eisenhower.  When he resigned from that post, he complained that Eisenhower was too cozy with communism.  Barton and Quist lean well to the right  of Ezra Taft Benson.  Quist has complained of socialist and Marxist leanings of Reagan administration education policy and policy makers.

Samuel Morse sent the first telegraphic message on May 24, 1844:  “What hath God wrought?”

Sitting here on the morning of May 27, 2009, I wonder what rot hath Don.

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Bogus history, Curricula, Economics, Education, Education assessment, Education quality, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Hoaxes, Politics, Social Studies, State school boards, TAKS, TEKS, Texas, Texas Freedom Network, Voodoo history, War on Education, War on the Constitution | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell