"The language of nonthought."----Lionel Trilling

[2010 Jan] Polly Tommey of Autism File Magazine on "Discredited Defamation of Dr. Andrew Wakefield"   At around the time of World Autism Awareness Day this year, I appeared with a colleague on the Wright Stuff television chat show on Channel 5. Before going on air, the host Matthew Wright joined us in the "green room" and said that he had been told by the show’s lawyers that if Dr. Wakefield’s name was mentioned, he had to say that Wakefield was "discredited." We questioned why, but Matthew said that he had no choice these were his lawyers’ instructions . . . .When I was on GMTV they said pretty much the same thing, and we have all read the same in many newspapers.

The Curse inside Dictionaries.  In the old days, 1970's, pagan was just someone with NO religious beliefs. Today, in 2006, a pagan is someone with OTHER religious beliefs.

Monopoly Media Manipulation by Dr. Michael Parenti Labeling Like all propagandists, mainstream media people seek to prefigure our perception of a subject with a positive or negative label. Some positive ones are: “stability,” “the president’s firm leadership,” “a strong defense,” and “a healthy economy.” Indeed, not many Americans would want instability, wobbly presidential leadership, a weak defense, and a sick economy. The label defines the subject without having to deal with actual particulars that might lead us to a different conclusion.
    Some common negative labels are: “leftist guerrillas,” “Islamic terrorists,” “conspiracy theories,” “inner-city gangs,” and “civil disturbances.” These, too, are seldom treated within a larger context of social relations and issues. The press itself is facilely and falsely labeled “the liberal media” by the hundreds of conservative columnists, commentators, and talk-shows hosts who crowd the communication universe while claiming to be shut out from it. Some labels we will never be exposed to are “class power,” “class struggle,” and “U.S. imperialism.”
    A new favorite among deceptive labels is “reforms,” whose meaning is inverted, being applied to any policy dedicated to undoing the reforms that have been achieved after decades of popular struggle. So the destruction of family assistance programs is labeled “welfare reform.” “Reforms” in Eastern Europe, and most recently in Yugoslavia, have meant the heartless impoverishment of former Communist countries, the dismantling of what remained of the public economy, its deindustrialization and expropriation at fire sale prices by a corporate investor class, complete with massive layoffs, drastic cutbacks in public assistance and human services, and a dramatic increase in unemployment and human suffering. “IMF reforms” is a euphemism for the same kind of bruising cutbacks throughout the Third World. As Edward Herman once noted, “reforms” are not the solution, they are the problem.
    In April 2001, the newly elected prime minister of Japan, Junichiro Koisumi, was widely identified in the U.S. media as a “reformer.” His free-market “reforms” include the privatization of Japan’s postal saving system. Millions of Japanese have their life savings in the postal system and the “reformer” Koisumi wants private investors to be able to get their hands on these funds.
    “Free market” has long been a pet label, evoking images of economic plenitude and democracy. In reality, free-market policies undermine the markets of local producers, provide state subsidies to multinational corporations, destroy public sector services, and create greater gaps between the wealthy few and the underprivileged many.
    Another favorite media label is “hardline.” Anyone who resists free-market “reforms,” be it in Belarus, Italy, Peru, or Yugoslavia, is labeled a “hardliner.” An article in the New York Times (10/21/97) used “hardline” and “hardliner” eleven times to describe Bosnian Serb leaders who opposed attempts by NATO forces to close down the “hardline Bosnian Serb broadcast network.” The radio station in question was the only one in all of Bosnia that offered a perspective critical of Western intervention in Yugoslavia. The forceful closing of this one remaining dissenting media voice was described by the Times as “a step toward bringing about responsible news coverage in Bosnia.” The story did note “the apparent irony” of using foreign soldiers for “silencing broadcasts in order to encourage free speech.” The NATO troops who carried out this repressive task were identified with the positive label of “peacekeepers.”
    It is no accident that labels like "hardline" are never subjected to precise definition. The efficacy of a label is that it not have a specific content which can be held up to a test of evidence. Better that it be self-referential, propagating an undefined but evocative image.