The “S” Word

By Jimmy Reed —— Bio and Archives August 29, 2010

Comments | Print This | Subscribe | Email Us

I believe life is a continuous learning process, so a few years ago I drove Loretta — my Dodge pickup with more horsepower than Fords or Chevrolets — to a nearby university campus, listening contentedly as she ingested dinosaur-derived fuel and belched its aftertaste melodiously through dual exhausts. I had an appointment with a graduate school functionary to discuss furthering my education.

After a gelid greeting, she condescended, “We normally don’t receive inquiries from a person seeking acceptance to graduate school when he or she has succeeded in advancing to your senior status,” … instead of saying, “old like you.” I condescendingly clarified her uncertainty about my gender by saying, “I’m a he.” Glaring at me through politically corrected bifocals as if I were antediluvian leftovers of Loretta’s lunch, she said, “Your transcripts indicate you were a graduate student here in the early Seventies. The academic landscape has evolved dramatically since your day, Sir” (biting her tongue to avoid addressing me as ‘old geezer’); we’re much more progressive now.” “Oh, but my mental capabilities are still in great working order, albeit the obvious decomposition of the surrounding flesh,” I said, countering her stony stare with a jackass-eating-briars smirk. “That’s not what I meant at all,” she chided. “What I mean is, we are now … well … we’re more progressive … that’s what I mean.” Being the unprejudiced, progressive professional she was, my counselor would never have dared intimate syllogistically what I inferred: “Old Southern males are conservative; you are an old Southern male; you are conservative.” I thanked her, asked directions to the he or she restrooms, and departed. I was undeterred, and even more determined to find alternative means to continue learning, despite my geriatric status. “Progressive” is one of many doublespeak terms with no meaning — or opposite-than-intended meaning — that now dominates political vernacular. It is especially useful to ultra-liberal leaders, the kind who believe the National Anthem is too violent and should be more pacifist — something along the lines of “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony” — and to global village acolytes who won’t wear American flag lapel pins because they believe Old Glory is a divisive symbol. Progressive is just one of countless say-one-thing-mean-another terms New Age leaders will use incessantly. Others may take the place of such words as patriotism, freedom, justice, and equality, all of which will be redefined according to doublespeak vocabulary more compatible with the “S” word: socialism. If such leaders ever ruled this nation, so many new terms may evolve that the slouching-toward-socialism bureaucracy will have to publish a glossary so that citizens can learn to converse meaningfully (i.e., meaninglessly) when discussing such issues as social democracy, leftism, welfarism, and progressivism, as they metamorphose into proletarians dependent on government. After all, a proletarian must understand what his audacious change-making mentors mean (i.e., don’t mean) as they attempt to dismantle freedom and replace it with an oppressive ideology known by a term they won’t use, but mean: The “S” word.