Decoding the right-wing lexicon

Choo-Choo: Dismissive term for high-speed and light rail used by right wingers who are so backward in their thinking they associate these 21st century wonders — fueling commerce and transit systems from Paris to Beijing — with the 19th century locomotive chugging into Petticoat Junction.

Class Warfare!: Howl of hypocrisy by the powerful and their paid media hounds when anyone dares to ask why there is such shocking inequality, poverty and dead-end despair in a land that promises opportunity for all but makes only a tiny fraction of politically connected people insanely rich.

Collateral Damage: Memo from the “Defense” Department: “Ooops, sorry we dropped those bombs on your wedding … your school … your hospital,” etc.

Creation Science: Biblical fantasy.

Death Tax: Taxes levied on the estates of filthy rich dead people to prevent their lazy-ass descendants from becoming Masters of the Universe in perpetuity because of an accident of birth. See: Plutocracy. 

Entitlement Reform: Stealing the Social Security and Medicare insurance that workers have been paying into for their entire lives and handing it to Wall Street speculators.

Fetal Personhood: Anti-abortion legislation based on an unproduced Ed Wood horror movie. In the script, creepy fetal “persons” suck the life out of unwilling female hosts, mate with other fetal persons, buy angora sweaters and move to suburbia.

Free Speech Zones: Gated corrals into which militarized police herd and detain protesters so no one will hear or see their message. Free speech zones are utilized most often at political conventions and international economic summits.

Free Trade Agreement: Corporate license to maximize profits by exploiting foreign workers, destroying their native crops and industries and despoiling their environments without regulation. See: Trans-Pacific Partnership. 

Plutocracy: A society controlled by a small number of its wealthiest citizens, tolerated by masses who are convinced they will win the lottery and are anesthetized by talking screens. See: Telescreen.

Regime Change: Overthrowing a government because we can. See: Iraq, Libya, Guatemala, Iran, Chile, Congo, Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada, etc.

School Vouchers: Public subsidies of private, mostly religious education with no oversight of school facilities, teacher qualifications or student achievement. The Afghanis call them madrasas. Madrasas produced the Taliban.

Security Contractors: Mercenary armies of hired killers.

States’ Rights: The battle cry of modern-day Confederates who won’t grow up, who want to deny rights to any group they fear or despise, and who are building up scads of bile and weaponry to launch the Second War of Secession.

Telescreens: First predicted by mid-20th century authors George Orwell and Ray Bradbury, these ever-present interactive video monitors — from pocket size to IMAX dimension — have become the most effective means of social control in societies worldwide. 

Three Hours Hate: Real-life version of George Orwell’s “Two Minutes Hate” from 1984, hosted by Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, et al., on a radio station near you every afternoon. Orwell sensed our capacity to hate on cue but underestimated how long some people are willing to revel in their hatred. 

Tort Reform: In a slam-dunk work-around for those pesky liability lawsuits, corporations can now write off punitive damages as business expenses. Liability? What liability?

Trans-Pacific Partnership: International coup, dictated in secret by corporate interests, that places multi-national firms above the influence and regulation of any sovereign nation and its elected representatives. TPP is soon to be considered by the U.S. Senate.

Wise Use: Euphemism employed by western state property and mineral rights militants to rationalize their theft and exploitation of Indian and public lands.