Winning back the words: a subversive's work is never done

Reading this rather revolting story from Dr. Dawg. Our old friends at the Toronto Sun are up to their old tricks, led by the venomous loser Sue-Ann Lyons. Er, Levy. Whatever.

The good Doctor's summary and deconstruction speaks for itself, so no point in going through it all again. What's worth noting is the smirking, self-congratulatory tone permeating the braying, faux-populist tabloid. They're getting all full of themselves because their boy's heading for victory.

That tone's certainly evident in the latest steaming pile from Venomous Loser. But smirking or shrieking, one of the things that's a virtual constant in every hateful little screed she tosses off is her characterization of everything and everyone she hates as "socialist."

Like her fellow hacks, she panders to the lizard-brains by reducing language to clichés and simple-minded notions that appeal to the gut and the emotions rather than the intellect. Central to that is the tactic of throwing words around so carelessly that they lose all connection to their actual meanings, and are transformed into epithets. I've written before about the need to reclaim the discursive turf, so let's add another benchmark to the campaign: "socialism."

Yes, it's a biggie. A loaded word, to be sure. We need to reclaim it and make sure that its meaning is clear and easy to grasp, so that it isn't loaded any more and can't be used as a rhetorical cudgel to shut down debate. Once that's done, the Venomous Loser can stand on top of the Sun building and scream it till she's blue in the face.

To arms, comrades!