The forbidden words are
"vulnerable," "entitlement," "diversity,"
"transgender," "fetus," "evidence-based" and
"science-based." These
are the 7 words the Trump administration has advised the CDC (Center for
Disease Control) shall not be used in any official documents being prepared for
next year's budget.
There
have been other lists of forbidden words.
If you are of a certain age you will recall the seven dirty words”.
These are the seven English-language words that American comedian George
Carlin first listed in
1972 in his monologue "Seven Words You Can Never Say on
Television".[1] The words are: shit,
piss,
fuck,
cunt,
cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.
According
to a former U.S. Secretary of State, “Censorship gives power to dictators and tyrants; it allows
them to mask the truth, to propagate false narratives that play to their
self-serving interests.”
In the 18th century, an author known as Voltaire offered the
following exposition to those who would practice censorship. “As you have it in your power, sir, to do
some service to letters, I implore you not to clip the wings of our writers so
closely, nor to turn into barn-door fowls those who, allowed a start, might
become eagles; reasonable liberty permits the mind to soar — slavery makes it
creep.
Had there been a literary censorship in
Rome, we should have had to-day neither Horace, Juvenal, nor the philosophical
works of Cicero. If Milton, Dryden, Pope, and Locke had not been free, England
would have had neither poets nor philosophers; there is something positively
Turkish in proscribing printing; and hampering it is proscription. Be content
with severely repressing defamatory libels, for they are crimes: but so long as
those infamous calottes are boldly published, and so many other unworthy and
despicable productions, at least allow Bayle to circulate in France, and do not
put him, who has been so great an honour to his country, among its contraband.
You say that the magistrates who regulate
the literary custom-house complain that there are too many books. That is just
the same thing as if the provost of merchants complained there were too many
provisions in Paris. People buy what they choose. A great library is like the
City of Paris, in which there are about eight hundred thousand persons: you do
not live with the whole crowd: you choose a certain society, and change it. So
with books: you choose a few friends out of the many. There will be seven or
eight thousand controversial books, and fifteen or sixteen thousand novels,
which you will not read: a heap of pamphlets, which you will throw into the
fire after you have read them. The man of taste will read only what is good;
but the statesman will permit both bad and good.”
Napoleon claimed that the censorship was
based on stopping, “the manifestation of ideas which trouble the peace of the
state, its interests and good order.”
Is Trump and/or his administration troubled by the words he has banned
from use by the CDC?
I hear you, let’s just pull back on the
reins for a moment. I’m only talking
about words banned from use by 1 agency.
Surely this is not a particularly urgent moment in history.
Were this the only case of censorship or attempt
to intimidate and control functions of the government and public it certainly
would not be noteworthy. However, and
unfortunately, that is not the case.
He (POTUS45) has made extensive use of his
bully pulpit to do just that, bully. He
wants to control the narrative in such a manner that he can control all action
and reaction. He has proclaimed the
media to be the “enemy of the American people”.
Any reporting which does not reflect favorably upon POTUS and his
administration favorably is proclaimed to be “fake news”. This proclamation has nothing to do with
truth or falsehood, but is strictly about image. If your inauguration crowd is not as
impressive as you desire just present “alternative facts”. “This was the largest audience ever to
witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe,”
according to Sean Spicer back in January of this year. Now, once committed to the lie, he attacked
the contrary reports. Sean accused the
press of “deliberately false reporting.”
Staff at the U.S. Department of Agriculture were instructed to
censor the terms "climate change," "reduce greenhouse
gasses," "sequester carbon," and "climate change
adaptation" in their work. In
March, the Department of Energy's international climate office had
instructed staff not to use "climate change," "emissions
reduction," or "Paris Agreement" in "memos, briefings, or
other written communication."
Because, if you don't say the words, the problem doesn't exist.
If Trump is sincerely concerned about his
image and legacy, I would recommend he consider banning the following; tyrant,
demagogue, narcissist, defaulter, sexual predator, and adulterer. This list is not to be considered comprehensive
but merely to provide a guide.
When George Carlin engaged in adolescent
humor by uttering “dirty” words in a public forum, that can be considered either
humorous or in poor taste. When the
President of the United States engages in censorship of government offices and
attacks upon a free and unfettered press, that is of much more serious consequence.
Whaduyathink?
