Wonderful! Thank you.
5
They should use alternate terms: feotus; observable and repeatable results; anthrogenic global warming; etc. Scientists have many more words and far better words than DJT and his lackeys. Go ahead and use them, the administration will have to spend time looking up all those unfamiliar words in order to know they have been plunked.
10
It's not just a science thing, although it is certainly that. It is a Republican fear of reality, an inability to think and talk about what exists in the world, and in ourselves. They can't face life as it is, so they twist creation to the breaking point to "prove" down is up, no means yes, two plus two equals five, and on and on and on. Telling adults they can't use certain words because the toddlers in the room don't recognize those words might be comical, were it not so sinister in intent.
7
"What oft was thought but n'er so well expressed." Thank you for your always terrific writing.
4
What a pathetic old man Trump is.
Trump is just being run around like a puppet and does't have a clue.
1
Best written article I've read in quite a while...love it. It's very smart and insightful based.
Clearly, much of the Republican world has returned to the blissful forgetfulness of toddlerhood. If we could somehow prohibit everyone from saying "President Trump" do you think perhaps he might disappear along with the vulnerable fetus destined to become a person with an evidence-based sense of entitlement?
12
We need a George Carlin skit, "The Seven Words You Can't Say at FDA."
10
Honest and nuanced communication is the key to bringing our polarized sides back together, something that is, in turn, a key to our healing. But banning words disrupts our communication. It inhibits healing.
By banning the simple words listed, we already run aground since all of science rests on a foundation of evidence. And since many of our budget debates hinge on entitlement programs that are a lifeline for the most vulnerable parts of our society. And since you can't discuss abortion without the word fetus.
Can the tentacles of the Trumpian agenda twist our language into a perverse form of the game Taboo?
4
A wonderful article, Ms Boylan--humorous and extra deep. Your "peekaboo (baby) doctrine" offers an instant epiphany that, once learned, can never be forgotten.
6
It all reminds me of little kids with their fingers in their ears loudly saying "I can't hear you, I can't hear you!" Someone should tell those grown ups it doesn't work anymore, past age 2 anyway.
5
The sad fact that a large portion of the voting population has the cognitive abilities of 2 year old children is evident by their candidate of choice. A steady diet of Fox News pablum will nourish these people and keep their delusions alive. We must fight to keep this from normalization. It is neither normal nor healthy for America.
9
Good black comedy. Giving credit where due; Orwell, the godfather of analysis of bad government, coined "memory hole" for his dystopian novel 1984. This from Wikipedia, which btw is rather desperately seeking your donations should you like to help keep this amazing informational flame lit. If we lose Wikipedia, we are all in trouble:
"A memory hole is any mechanism for the alteration or disappearance of inconvenient or embarrassing documents, photographs, transcripts, or other records, such as from a website or other archive, particularly as part of an attempt to give the impression that something never happened.[1][2] The concept was first popularized by George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, where the Party's Ministry of Truth systematically re-created all potential historical documents, in effect, re-writing all of history to match the often-changing state propaganda."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_hole
3
When will the book burning begin?
7
Wasn't it the comedian Lenny Bruce who was arrested numerous times for using obscenities in his acts? Well now the CDC will be prevented from using certain terms in their proposals. We know that our fearless leader Trumpty Dumpty, or for that matter any of the folks in the administration, never use vulgar language or perform vulgar, un-Christian like acts. Wow, what a bunch of liars and hypocrites. I hope that the democrats win back the congress and the white house in 2020 so we can overturn these absurd, egomaniacal rules being put in place. It's really starting to feel more like his buddy's country, Russia. It's time for folks to start organizing a nation wide pro-democracy march for the Spring. One in DC and one in Austin? Let's organize it and show these idiots in the WH and Congress that they stand by themselves, almost.
3
When will they attempt to round up intellectuals, i.e. "elites" and start sending us to re-education camps??? Does just a subscription to the NYT qualify??? Beware.
9
This is amazing that our country is being run by a bunch of brainless politicians. We are supposed to have separation of church and state and yet the religious right is running the country. The man in the White House is making George W look like a genius. He doesn't want to insult his voter base of right-wing uneducated gun-toting bible thumpers. Evidence-based is an alien word to his voters because for them if it isn't in the bible, it's not worth knowing.
Trump always likes superlatives. We are now the biggest laughing-stock of all western countries. How could we have sunk so low, that science is now a dirty word? Time to talk about the "I" word.
11
But it's true; there is no climate change now. Trump said there is no climate change, so there isn't climate change.
Furthermore, why all the gloom and doom. As Monty Python would sing, "Look on the bright side of life, de dumpty dumpty do!"
And I already have. See levels are rising, so I don't have to travel as far the the beach. Plus, that's a climate change win win. I burn less gas to get to the ocean and produce less CO2. Everybody is happy.
So let's hear everybody sing, "Let's look on the bright side of life, de dump de dumpty do!"
2
Object permanence! Love this. If they can't see or hear us, we must not exist - it's also like sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting Lalala! to avoid hearing unpleasant truths. Let's consider just how insane this governing philosophy is amid he rapidly growing pile of deleted tweets, banned words, denials of things that were definitely said, and outright petty peek-a-booing (if you bar LGBT journalists from the White House Christmas party, then poof! They no longer exist. Same for failing to acknowledge that the death toll in Puerto Rico may have been far higher than reported. See? That hurricane wasn't so bad!). Again, it's up to the rest of us to ensure that words, history, evidence - and people - aren't simply erased to prevent yet another tantrum.
7
This reminds me of don't ask don't tell. That said I am really sick of people identifying by their sexual preferences or skin color and I hope I live to see the day we grow up and move past this, perhaps sooner rather than later. I do acknowledge that where legal rights are at stake various descriptive terms for what are essentially all like human beings must be maintained. But unlike my PC en-cultured fellow Liberals, I look forward this institutionalized prejudice ending. It has to happen via children, a good argument for quite a bit more liberal humanist fundamentals taught in schools and the further distancing of superstition from our institutions.
3
A very witty well-written column. I wish it wasn't true.
5
Isn’t it obvious why this administration opposes anything evidence-based?
8
As we all know, Trump is extremely unintelligent. His ban on words just demonstrates it, but he's so unintelligent, he doesn't realize there's an easy way around the ban. All the C.D.C. has to do is use different words, like this:
"Vulnerable" = "susceptible" or "defenseless"
"Evidence-based" = "based on evidence"
"Diversity" = "diverse in nature"
"Entitlement" = "earned benefits"
"Fetus" = "Zygote" or "one in the oven"
"Science-based" = "scientific" or "based on science"
"Transgender" = "The T in LGBT" or "someone who is changing/has changed their gender"
See, it's easy to foil the fool. And I'm sure he can try to stifle free speech all he wants, but our country will resist him, and eventually, our country will hurl him out of power and destroy him.
7
Correct, not saying a particular word will not make a situation disappear, nor will saying that a he is a she will make a person another gender, nor will using "undocumented" in place of "illegal" make it more legal, no matter how many times you say it. Kind of works both ways.
5
It's the Newspeak Dictionary being written as we watch. Sadly for Trump and his frightened minions in the GOP, government, and the Right, they can't eradicate thinking from the rest of reality. Only from themselves. Which makes being a Trumpist self-enfeebling. If they achieve the depth of willful ignorance they seem to want, they'll require care and feeding from the America they tried to end.
5
This is so spot on, it hurts. Colbert used to accuse climate deniers of this ages ago on his Comedy Central show. Peek-a-boo-ologists.
4
My attempt to use all seven of the forbidden CDC words in a single sentence:
There is no evidence, based on entitlement, that a transgender fetus will be any less vulnerable to science-based policies than a white, male, cis-gendered politician.
Can you do better? Points for natural expression, humor, and irony.
3
Somebody was probably just trying to be helpful. In the world of grant-getting, which I knew as a university researcher, it is vital to know what are the good words and what are the bad words to use. And they change from time to time and from agency to agency. What is worrisome about the CDC's list of no-sayums is what they tell us about the perceived mentality of the current congress. It ain't pretty.
7
Well written. So true about the lack of object permanence. His behavior speaks to his elevation of self, lack of empathy and understanding, limited scope of one’s world, absolute reliance on loyalty, actions based on emotion and not logic, refusal to accept commonly accepted objective reality, ignorance of his shortcomings, one could go on. Narcissistic Personality Disorder aside, one lens is his childhood development age. The only question is whether the Boy King is 6 or 2. More at http://freedamerica.com/the-boy-king-is-naked/
5
When it comes to describing this administration and its "leader" George Karlin's 7 words are more relevant.
3
I'm so old that I remember when the "Seven Dirty Words" referred to actual dirty words.
7
Seems like we need to use the words knowledge based to make sure it is not myth based. Let's see if they can get around that.
3
Trump loves Putin because in a dictatorship the leader has the power to control the thought process of the populace. Putin is a Communist dictator who has murdered Russian journalists critical to him to achieve that goal, and this CDC foolishness is a small step in that direction for Trump. No I don't think he plans to murder a journalist, but in every dept. of the federal gov't. his administration has tried to stop the truth from being told and fire the truth tellers. Just look at the EPA - pitiful. And we've got 3 more years of this...
5
Sadly just covering one's eyes or refusing to say a word will not make it disappear. I know because I have refused to say dt's name for over a year and still he's here!
9
This kind of censorship is dangerous to our democracy.
5
The people chosen to give Trump information each day censor it so he doesn’t
Go into melt down.How far are his eyes closed and who’s in the presidents position to respond to anything any more? Do we really want two or three
Generals to make decisions for us?At least Two of them need basic education on the civil war and white supremacy!Who has the codes for the nukes?
Trump hasn’t got the sense given a dung beetle.How long before congress has
The guts to use the 25th amendment?Trump is Not worth DYING for.
3
May we know the names of the GOP individuals behind this edit, please? In fact, as a taxpayer, I demand to know their names. That way I know to highlight their now-tedious hypocrisy when they inevitably turn to breakthrough diagnostic technologies and life-saving medications enabled by science- and- evidence-based innovations.
8
*edict
The next ban Trump will put in place will be that of everyone who is not a white male. As we know only white rich males count now with the Republicans and the Administration
8
Oh, wouldn't George Carlin have a full-bore comic routine on THESE seven words that Trump administration doesn't want the CDC to use. For those of you too young to remember his early 1970's routine on The Seven Words You Can't Say on TV," from his Class Clown album. And yes, you can find it at youtube.
This also reminds me of the Bush43 "faith-based" programs. The simple fact is, it's not just TeamTrump. Defying the power and legitimacy of science and scientists (you know, the ones NOT employed by Big Oil, Big Pharma, and BigTobacco), has been the marching orders for the Republican Party for more than 40 years.
The Party of Lincoln and transmogrified into a crime syndicate working for those eager to maintain a Gilded Age in America. Shareholder returns are in charge of water quality, air quality, voting rights, public education, the fate of our National Forests and National Parks, and wildland management, and, of course, the fate of the quality of life for Native Americans.
There are so many foxes in the hen house, the foxes have nothing left to eat but each other (see stories of survival and dismissals inside the West Wing).
What the Republican voters have yet to grasp is, their party would be better suited as a Third World oligarchy, instead of what they should be: partners in our democracy, partners in legislation — not a secret organization with behind-the-doors secret handshakes.
This will not change with Trump's impeachment. But its a start.
9
In 1956, Ray Bradbury said he wrote the novel "Fahrenheit 451" (the temperature at which paper burns) "... at a time when I was worried about the way things were going in this country.... where I could comment on what would happen to a country if we let ourselves go too far in this direction, where then all thinking stops, and the dragon swallows his tail, and we sort of vanish into a limbo and we destroy ourselves by this sort of action." We should again be very worried, as Bradbury was with Senator Joseph McCarthy's hunt for communists in the USA 64 years ago, as all thinking appears to be stopping when terms such "evidence-based" or science-based," are not palatable to Congressional ears.
Imagine, "CDC fire departments" whose job will not be to stop epidemics, but rather to torch those universities and research institutions who provide the "unpalatable" scientific evidence for these epidemics. Think polio, influenza, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and Zika virus infections....just kill the researcher and all will be well! No treatment or immunizations ever needed!
This would be laughable as theater of the absurd. But it not laughable. It is calculated, insidious, and driven by a determined and well-funded vocal minority who would be delighted to see the removal of "natural science" and "evolutionary biology" and the insertion of "creation science," "intelligent design," and "flood geology" into the curricula in our schools and funded with taxpayer dollars.
9
Just because you can silence someone does not mean that you can force them to agree with you.
8
But it's a start!
2
Of course, there's the obverse (also frrquently employed) - 'The Greatest Inaugural Crowd EVER!". Because if you conjure it up often enough, it must be real.
4
I've successfully forbidden myself from writing or saying two words in succession: "President" and "Trump".
4
Two comments:
1. Not saying "Voldemort" isn't what made him go away.
2. There's a word we need, not to ban, but to use more: "Orwellian."
6
Idiots on one side and reactionaries on the other. Have been writing Federal budget justifications since the Reagan administration. There is always a list of buzz-words and no-no words, the list varies depending on the composition of the the Hill and the objectives of the current administration. The problem here started with our current administration, titans of business but don't know how to organize junior staff meeting in the government. You tell people what the objectives are, what the problems being faced on the Hill are, and then let the folks who have been doing this for 30 plus years do their job. Anyone writing up a budget document with the current composition of the Hill and uses the word "entitlement" or "fetus" is either trying to get their budget cut or is a fool.
It's not a subsidy, its a "cost sharing measure." Why call it a loophole when you can say ""investment inducement." its called wordsmithing.
To go on the record and "ban" certain words justifiably causes concern among the staff because you have broken the golden rule "It is better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you are a fool than open it and remove all doubt."
4
Another example is the CDC is not allowed to study gun deaths.
Thanks Republicans and NRA.
12
This is really just another example of false propaganda of the type used in Russia, China and Venezuela. The only freedom that Republicans seem to cherish is freedom from the truth.
7
An Ode to Trump's CDC
An Ode To Trump's CDC
"Evidence- based", "science-based"used no longer,
As Evangelical power grows much stronger,
Add to the list "transgender" and "fetus",
Christian Shariah continues to beat us,
The words "vulnerable", "entitlement", "diversity" also taboo
Because Mike Pence and his ilk love censorship too.
6
I find it hard to believe that #45 will be checking the CDC's reports for usage of the 7 banned words when he can't communicate beyond 140 characters...
3
I believe it is time to reign in the CDC. President Trump is the man to do it. Thank you.
"rein in"
3
Am I misreading something here? It seems to me that the article implies that the CDC is shading it's verbiage to get funding from the fools in Congress.
I'm not against that. If you want to call Global Climate Change say, ice cream because the people in Congress aren't smart enough to figure it out, I'm good. Let them fund Ice Cream and the rest of us will study Climate Change.
It's truly amazing we've lapsed into such stupidity. It's like we are run by an inbred and deficient aristocracy we can't remove. How did we even get here? We the People have been asleep at the switch far too long.
6
This story is not evidence based and is Fake News.
Where is the original memo or directive? (A hit piece in WaPo doesn't count as evidence.)
Nope. There isn't one.
1
“The assertion that H.H.S. has ‘banned words’ is a complete mischaracterization of discussions regarding the budget formulation process,” an agency spokesman, Matt Lloyd, said in an email.
NOTE: a "mischaracterization", not a denial that it took place...
2
We could also refer to white evangelical faith as “peek-a-boo” theology. The evangelical way denies much of reality. Perhaps this commonality is why white evangelicals like Trump so much, they see themselves.
8
This take is far kinder and gentler than these authoritarian, extremist right-wing monsters deserve. They aren't just pretending something that offends or might cost them doesn't exist, they are acting to eradicate ideas, people, and things they disapprove of.
First they'll disappear words and ideas, then people.
We have a very, very big problem here. We will not be able to write, think, or share our way out of it. We have been coup'd by brutalist monsters with a hatred for POC, the LGBTQ community, Muslims, Jews, immigrants, women, and intellectuals. Those of us who fall into these categories are at grave risk.
We need to be worrying about genocidal mayhem. These people are monsters, illegitimately placed monsters, who will stop at nothing.
4
Once again, I repeat: Vote for Democrats Vote for Democrats Vote for Democrats. It's the only way to save our nation.
3
George Orwell-1984, communism, fascism, they are all the same. Control the message. Where is the gutless Congress? Its time for a million person march on Washington to protest such inane censorship. Surely the US can muster
1 million scientists. And what about the legal challenges and the rights of professional government scientists to freedom of expression? This demands a strong response otherwise Fox will win the day again. Its time to take down Murdoch and his machine.
6
Cute. But Trump and his class see the rest of us as surplus. We occupy the planet they believe that they own, and there are far too many of us to serve their needs, what with automation and all. They would just as soon reduce our numbers.
Why should they invest in curing our diseases of cleaning our air?
4
Words matter. If we allow the erasure of words and concepts from our speech and writing, we denigrate our thoughts and limit our imagination. Resist being muzzled!
6
There's so much ignorant, bigoted nonsense coming out of the Whitehouse that I actually forgot about the trans military ban. I really need to start a list.
5
It’s a lot worse than peek-a-boo. It’s Stalinist. Remember all those pictures of the May Day parade in Red Square, where one of the dignitaries who was reviewing the troops simply vanished? One day the dignitary was in the photograph, and the next, they he wasn’t. He was a nonperson, erased from politics and history. (He was probably also dead or, if he was lucky, in Siberia.)
So now, words which refer to important concepts of science—and that are connected to life-saving research—are also to be erased. Which is worse, deleting a Communist politician (whose own hands were probably far from clean) or relevant scientific and medical concepts, which are used in research that saves lives?
7
I was thinking the exact same thing, and submitted a post at almost the same time you did.
2
Well the Perk-a-boo prez had better get realistic fast.
Infrastructure, for example: part of an Amtrak line just collapsed south of Seattle onto Interstate5 during rush hour, train going 80 mph.
Stop stirring needless pots, and start fixing infrastructure,
4
So if we ban the name Trump, will he disappear?
7
One wonders how far we are from alerting images and videos, erasing people and god knows what else (a newly-extinct species of wildlife, a destroyed wetland, a newly-polluted body of water....) Soviet- and Chinese-style.
http://www.openculture.com/2017/08/long-before-photoshop-the-soviets-mas...
4
Beautifully said.
This next attempt by trump/pence to make transgender people nonpersons will fail, just like it did under the Naziis.
2
This is the kind of doctrinaire idiocy that got Galileo imprisoned. Tell us, Republican senators: When there's a pandemic, whom do you call for an evidence-based plan of action? The CDC or an aroma therapist?
4
Think of the tricks in early Nazi Germany, where the regime, with the support of many in the medical community and the press, began devalue the lives of those with disabilities or congenital conditions in state run institutes by publishing ugly photos of them, often suggesting they were Jews. The ultimate argument was that since they provided no help to society, why should society help them. They were then relieved of their agonies, sometimes subjected to horrific experiments.
4
Cute metaphor, but not really accurate, except to the extent that toddlers have nuclear weapons at their disposal. Um, they know very well what is really there - WE are the ones having hands placed over our eyes. That is the point.
3
Ask Winston about the Ministry of Truth
7
In 1996, Bill Clinton signed a Republican bill that had the effect of banning the CDC from collecting data on gun violence just as the annual death rate due to gun violence was about to overtake highway deaths. Republicans may be the worst in this regard, but they have no monopoly on willful blindness.
1
That is true. But the ban was instigated and requested by the Republican Congress. If Clinton wanted to get the CDC funded, he had to sign the bill.
See this:
In 1996, the Republican-majority Congress threatened to strip funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unless it stopped funding research into firearm injuries and deaths. The National Rifle Association accused the CDC of promoting gun control. As a result, the CDC stopped funding gun-control research — which had a chilling effect far beyond the agency, drying up money for almost all public health studies of the issue nationwide.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/10/04/gun-violence-rese...
4
The NYT itself, refused to use the word "gay" until 1987. It was linguistically problematic to write in the perspective of those who placed same sex attraction in a positive perspective. Ironically, these days, I'd much prefer, at least when heterosexuals speak of me, that they call me a homosexual. There's something about that more clinical and awkward expression, that is more difficult for people to use these days, and gay rolls off the tongue so easily. I'd rather that it be difficult when heterosexuals talk about my sexual reality, that they be aware that they are talking about me as being different from themselves, and for the language to give them the correct sense that they are talking about something which is none of their business.
3
Big Brother Tump and the Inner Party have implemented all aspects of 1984- who knew he read maybe he had the Ministry of Truth read aloud. The Orwellian actions this individual implements has a impact on the many public servants who work for the government will need to make moral choices to blindly follow or lead with their head and hearts.
2
1984 here we come: censorship, propaganda and revisionist leanings. A steady drip-drip-drip of gas lighting, mistruths and lies. It really is astonishing to witness the speed of such a blatant remaking of America. People - don't be lulled into complacency. Stand up and make sure your vote is counted in the next go around.
3
How nice it would be to play Peek a Boo, and look up to find this administration and the Republican congress had gone away.
9
Rational people generally assume that information is developed, and then policy is sensibly based on the information gathered.
But in the Trump administration, and organizations like it (to pick an example closer to home, the North Carolina legislature, which forbade coastal development regulation from considing the level of sea rise truly likely to occur from global warming), policy is formulated first, and then information is either suppressed outright, or tortured to fit policy.
The mind of the human ape is capable of inventing almost any excuse or "justification" for doing what it has already decided to do.
5
Trump is attempting the Big Brother (circa 1984) move of elimination of language to restrict thought.
3
This is not so "peekaboo" as censorship and double-think. As a commentator noted in response to another column several months ago, "1984" is a novel, not an instruction manual.
4
We are on the edge of a dangerous slippery slope. Personally I find the most insidious notion to be that these words weren't included because of "budget considerations." Namely omitting words from the budget is described as a technique/strategy to secure Republican support for the 2019 budget. This seems even more terrifying than an outright ban because it suggests that we don't need Trump to literally ban words, "we" will change our language in the name of securing support for a budget... enough to make one shiver. In 2014 students from my high school alma mater in Jefferson County, Colorado protested after the Koch brother's slimy tentacles influenced the local school board elections, placing buffoons into power who sought to remove words relating to civil disobedience from our American History textbooks. Students protested and an article appeared on the front page of the New York Times. That was an attempt to literally ban words outright and it spurred serious outrage. But beyond outrage it took the efforts of parents and teachers to elect a new school board and save ourselves from going down the scary path of knowledge erasure. Students and teachers and parents recognized the stupidity of it all but recognizing stupidity is only the first step. What happens when we change our language to placate the fascists in order pass a budget? Clearly the CDC can delude themselves into thinking that they can utilize corrupted language without corrupting themselves... Can we?
54
I am a cranky old lady who is absolutely fed up with the stupidity of this administration. I am going to find irritating ways to annoy the GOP and Trump every day of my remaining life. The first one is to publicly use 'fetus' every day.
8
Jack Winslow, absolutely correct. So how about it, ladies? We're the only ones (at least so far) who can have fetuses. Aren't you worried about being marginalized? About having your bodies, yourselves, and your future children diminished?
2
It is clear by his actions and words that he has not idea what he is doing but simply doing what other's tell him - often with competing interests. He ends up looking like a feckless dunce - the job of the voters is to determine if this is accurate enough to remove him from office.
3
This says much about both the Administration and Congressional Republicans. Words matter to them but not facts? Avoiding evidence and science is not smart based. I really do worry that the CDC will be reduced to praying stuff can be figured out when the next epidemic occurs since all that science stuff is not preferred. Now to be fair they are banning words. That could not possibly lead to say banning the work, or could it? I do not like germs but they in fact do exist and my requiring people to call them oranges does not change their impact.
8
Where is George Carlin when we need him?
(Remember his “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" routine?)
7
Trump and Fahrenheit 451, perfect together.
9
Back to the USSR? They had long lists of banned words and expressions. But even they did not try to prohibit “science-based’. To me this development is far more ominous than the tax bill. I am over any compassion for the red America that elected Trump out of hatre, xenophobia and ignorance. If the tax bill impoverishes more inhabitants of rural areas, that is what they voted for. But muzzling scientists is the beginning of an end for any advanced society. Just ask Russians how well it worked out for them.
9
The morning television news today is all about a secret Federally-funded UFO research program, Amazon spreading Christmas joy, middle-class tax cuts, and the selling of the Carolina Panthers NFL team.
Since most Trans people like myself live well below a middle class income, cannot afford the cable bill so we can watch NFL games, and don’t qualify for the credit cards we need to shop for Christmas gifts on Amazon, my holiday wish is that flying saucers from other planets are real and they take us to a place where the defense of Trans rights doesn’t rely on a George Carlin stand up bit or a George Orwell science fiction novel.
Maybe this is what it’s like when a young country is in the last throes of its adolescence.
5
Trump's version of trying to take on Galileo.
7
The anti-science prejudices of this administration are astounding for a super power in the 21st Century.
8
Trump may be anti-science or anything that he doesn't like but he and his buddy Vlad are the masters of fake news and their little lovein on the weekend is a beauty. It made my heart swell with pride to learn that the CIA is helping the FSB against ISIS. But it is just too cute to be believable. Waiting to hear some confirmation that it was the first of many efforts by the WH to mend all the fences with Russia that the nasty Obama and his even nasty woman Clinton
4
Way back when, Sen Proxmire had the "Golden Fleece Awards" that included NIH and NSF applications that had funny names. Scientists working on "worms" or "fruit flies" had their institutions pour over their grant application titles and abstracts to "smith" words to avoid the ire of Republicans who took great pleasure in making fun of things they had no idea about. The combination of arrogance and ignorance seem to be a requirement for being a true Republican.
12
In general, I agree with your characterization of Republicans, especially the current crop. Nevertheless, Sen. William Proxmire of Wisconsin was a Democrat.
3
It was striking that the hoo-hah and right-wing outrage surrounding the bathroom laws centered around hypotheticals while ignoring the basic human need for LGBT persons, including teens and children, to be able to use the restroom. And it illustrated that even there common sense was working better than any of the Republican solutions didn't it?
2
Caving in to more darkness and the lowest intellects,
8
As often is the case, the comments section contains a much deeper analysis of the issue, its history and consequences than does the editorial. Words matter, Hitler knew this. As with much of the censorship being applied by the current administration, adequate coverage (i.e. focused on the issue, its history and its implications) by mainstream media is sorely lacking.
7
Every day, the rest of the world and the world markets move on as the US is dragged backwards by this administration.
8
This is one of the most ludicrous mental pathologies we've ever heard from a Presidential Administration. Banned words! So, what, we'll fire the people who use them? Like mid-20th Century Communist or Fascist regime selecting the acceptable news.
The best route to success is to recognize both the facts that you agree with and the ones you don't. If you plan for a risky research endeavor, a debate, or a plan for a war you do so with probable difficulties, or abilities of your opponents in mind. Successful plans understand what can go wrong as well as what can go right. In this case it is Republicans who are sweeping repugnant thoughts under the rug, but it is a critically bad idea regardless.
Sweeping thoughts of failure under the rug is a guarantee of failure, because there is no consideration of how to deal with the opposition.
Trump. He creates the truth that he wants by lying and covers up uncomfortable facts by calling them "fake news" or just ignoring them completely. A recipe for utter disaster.
4
The adage states that, in America, anyone can grow up to become president. Trump's election proves the truth of that old saying. Too bad Trump forgot about the growing up part.
7
Wow! You nailed it. I wish I had said that.
3
Look this is what we wanted; at least we don’t Have Hillary sending emails, right Bernie bros?
9
This is beyond frightening! I am honestly asking this question, how is this nonsense allowed to take place? How is the CDC, the NIH, the AMA and really any body of science, plus really any human who has completed the 5th grade, not standing up and saying this is enough! What is the CDC doing if their work is not science based?!!! As Nora M writes, this type of censorship is dangerous for one and all! Not just for Americans; but for the entire planet. The article reminds me further of when a little child does not want to hear something they cover their ears and go I am not listening, LALALALALA! Which is part of what is at work as well in terms of how polarized we all are! Imagine if Making America great again wasn't the slogan? I am thinking of a new one,# Lets revisit the dark ages! That seems to be where we are heading! How absolutely bizarre to have so much knowledge at hand and only the wish to obliterate it. Thankfully, though, the important issues such as the war on Christmas are being managed.
4
IS this not a flagrant violation of the First Amendment? "evidence-based?" "fetus?" No more research on fetal pigs in high school -oh, they don't teach science anymore.
2
With each day that passes, with each assault on truth and Science, it appears that the George Orwell novel was not fiction but....prophetic!
We should all be greatly disturbed that certain words have been censored for the CDC!
3
When did the U.S.A. become the home of the coward instead of the brave? We are scared of everything these days; refugees seeking asylum from wars and natural disasters, children of undocumented workers, facing the hard truths about our consumer habits, the creeping inequality that is beginning to define our Nation, and Middle Eastern cults.
Our system is not rigged. It is broken.
6
Is it possible that our current president is the most ignorant and stupid of all who have held the office? It is impossible to believe that science and scientific thought is endangered in this country because of religious extremists who believe the world was created in six days and if it isn't in the bible it can't be true. Trump was never religiously observant before but is willing to kowtow to his voter base; the ignorant, uneducated and right-wing Christians who can't understand scientific facts if they were explained on a third-grade level. Telling a scientific organization that they can't use scientific terms is so outlandishly ridiculous it is hard to believe this is 2017.
The CDC can't use the term "evidence-based" because the right-wing Christians can't prove their uneducated theories with any evidence. They love to misinterpret the theory of evolution because they don't understand the scientific use of the word theory. Next, we will read that children are being taught that the world is flat.
Trump loves superlatives. The US will be known as the biggest laughing-stock of all western nations, with the stupidest, most uneducated running the country. We are headed to 3rd world status with their ignorance.
5
Did anyone else catch the reference to “Mayor of Puerto Rico”? She is Mayor of the city of San Juan.
1
Reagan used the same tactic. So did George W. Bush. They refused to collect and publish information that demonstrated the truth that conflicted with the political and social theories they were promoting.
Given that the collection and publishing of facts and the conclusions of math and science practitioners are under ongoing threat, it seems to me that government institutions, subject to immediate political influence, should no longer be relied upon as the primary institutions of expertise in these areas. Rather, they should be acknowledged as politically influenced entities that must be held accountable by non-governmental organizations.
Such a shift risks putting science under greater control of big business and political lobbying organizations. However, it has become excruciatingly clear that this is happening anyway, with help from the inside by anti-science administrations as well funding decisions by corporations sponsoring research at private institutions and universities. Coming clean about the situation would invite greater participation by businesses and non-profits interested in true and effective science while encouraging concerned citizens to contribute to funding research that is free from Orwellian influences.
Greater availability and awareness of researched produced independently from government influence could and should be valued when comments are made during the formal process of regulatory review. It is one of the last hopes for truth in government.
4
As a mathematician and scientist I've written many grant proposals.
I always use the language that will give me the best chance of having my proposal funded. If the CDC thinks they'll get more money my avoiding those 7 phrases, that is what they should do.
Some of the phrases like "science based" and "evidence based" don't really belong in the CDC budget proposal since everything they do should be based on evidence and sound scientific practices. They shouldn't have to say it.
However, I don't understand what is objectionable about "vulnerable," it seems like a pretty useful word if you are a CDC scientist.
I've attended some CDC talks at scientific conferences, and a lot of what they talked about is how to decide which population is most vulnerable or susceptible to which threats. Those are the words they use.
7
Time where possible for synonyms: vulnerable becomes "at risk", "susceptible", "high statistical incidence populations",etc.
Gestation ages for fetus.
1
Were the words you used in your grant proposals dictated to you? Were you free to choose which words were most instructive of the ideas you were presenting? Were you denied a grant because you didn't use the "right" words? Were or are you a government entity providing data to be used to determine the fate of a nation?
Your situation was/is different.
2
Sometimes an articulate barrage of the truth serves a purpose just in itself. This is such a statement -- you can't say it any better than this.
5
See no evil, hear no evil is not a new concept. When Reagan was president the land management agencies could not use the term acid rain or global warming. Of course, the substitute term for the latter, global climate change, is now forbidden at NASA and the EPA. *sigh*
5
According to the source, "evidence-based" or "science-based" can be replaced with the phrase "CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes". That's a bit cumbersome, when "ignorance-based" or "prejudice-driven" would cover all the bases.
Within an agency devoted to science, the seven deadly phrases are likely just the tip of the iceberg. The Republicans could save themselves some work and come up with a new name, to reflect their agency's true mission. Centers for Data Censorship would work. Or Centers for Diversity Control. Let Pence decide.
5
Well said, but of course "fetus" is banned while "unborn child" is perfectly OK to placate those who equate (almost) all fertilized cells with people. And speaking of "transgender" people, their existence isn't just inconvenient for religious fundamentalists; it's a repudiation of the Adam and Eve story, which requires fixity of the binary division between male and female as well as denial of all physical attraction between those of the same sex. If there's no word for it, it can't exist.
8
It reminds me of the incompetent Turkish admiral that was ordered to conquer Malta and when he could not find it declared that it does not exist.
4
Trump's Vision of Progress
Ban Words
Ban Sentences
Ban Paragraphs
Burn Books
9
It's also called killing the messenger.
Unfortunately, killing the messenger does not change reality. Accompanied by vile draconian cuts in knowledge, wisdom, kindness, cooperation, collaboration, and the like, it is degrading our civilization at a rate none of us would have believed possible a year ago.
Now they're using EPA funds to pay for a firm to pursue any employees who speak the truth.
Truth is not welcome in this government, nor is the voice of the people they are supposed to serve. There is only one opinion they care about, the billionaires who pay for them to get re-elected and keep feeding at the trough.
Causing pain and death doesn't matter to them. Promoting conflict is their means to stay on top.
12
First the banning of words, then books, then the press, then individual speech. The ugly road to fascism. So much for Merry Christmas! Bah Humbug!!
8
I would suggest a set of Forbidden Words not to be spoken with regard to the Trump administration. For starters: truth, integrity, decency, America.
15
one hundred times yes!!!!
2
Bravo. Beautifully expressed...and true.
4
Trump has installed agencies heads whose sole agenda is to dismantle the agency they head. Autocratic dictates abound denying facts ,reality and scientific input and allowing only activity approved by Bannon/Trump agenda using Orwellian truth telling to fit their policies not the truth. Banning words ,scientific research is a dictatorial approach to government as Bannon /Trump seeks to install Trump as out Putin style dictator aided by a complacent GOP only interested in pleasing the new oligarchs they work for. Trump/Bannon is not a populist but a con artist witness "his tax plan" where he benefits by a billion or so denying it of course as he lies all the time. Trump/Bannon want to shut down free press except FOX news as the media is calling these two con artists out all the time . Media is not the enemy of the people as per Stalin/Trump it is the institution that will maintain our democracy and help prevent a Trump/Bannon dictatorship akin to Putin. Trump attacks our institutions like the FBI, INTEL and Justice as they stand in his way using distraction like any good con artist waving the flag and the cross to win over the low info voters . We will not be fooled we are onto their game to replace our democracy with an oligarchy protected by Trump/Bannon police state assisted by a complacent GOP out for a buck anyway they can get it.
7
I think a pretty large chunk of Americans, essentially white evangelicals, do not see the need for the word “fetus” (it should be “child”). Likewise they don’t believe that homosexuality is a natural phenomenon. And finally, and most frighteningly they don’t believe that evidence-based analysis leads to the truth. So it is no surprise that the Republican controlled government is trying to alter our language in the hope that it alters our perception of reality. This stuff is right out of Orwell (and Putin and Trump).
4
Then there's the Congressional ban on the CDC studying gun violence, which in every way except its means emulates an epidemic.
But we can't offend the gun manufacturers and their marketing arm, aka the NRA, and its PR agency, aka Congress.
8
My understanding is that the "banned words" consist of guidance to the CDC officials regarding wording in their budget documents. The way the budget game is often played: If you want your budget to pass in a politically-charged atmosphere, in the budget request, avoid words that are likely to put your budget on the chopping block. This is essentially advice to the CDC to obfuscate in order to get the budget through. Purists may not like this approach, but it is necessary - if you want the agency budget to get thru - and has been done under both liberal and conservative administrations. It is unfortunate, in my view as a scientist and supporter of the CDC, that this has been publicized. Things are not always what they appear to be.
3
Although you are right in a certain sense, ever wonder how it came to be that the words and concepts of "evidence-based" and "science-based" are now seen as such political no-nos that even scientists can't use them?
3
Unfortunately there is no meaningful alternative word to transgender. If any hint of researching trans people will cause it to not get approval, what are we to think of our government?
1
And where does it stop? What happens next? Is there such a thing as a "slippery slope" even given the need to pablumize the wording in budget requests to the idiots who decide on them? Where do we take a stand? How long do we wait?
Haven't we already seen the outcome? Have we read the history of Germany in the 30s?
Not. One. Inch.
1
The denial of scientific knowledge, of science as a way of knowing, is terrifying. At a time when some seem to long for the Dark Ages, no one can be complacent. We must set aside our political labels and orientations, ideological differences, and "pet" issues, so that we can all stand together on the side of science.
5
Ironic that the people who complained about “PC” are now dictating language to us.
12
The C.D.C. missed a few words:
bananas
bonkers
certifiable
cuckoo clock
meshuggah
postal
unhinged.
I would also have banned insane-in-the-membrane.
8
Some additional words that have already lost the light of day:
Integrity
humanity
respect
diversity
empathy
inclusiveness
actualization
globalization
peace
impulse control
thoughtful ness
facts
generosity
humility
graciousness
attunement
women
elite
intellectual
environmental protection
2
When Adolf Hitler came to power and denounced the Jews as the enemy of the German people, he told the public that many members of this group were in key positions in the finance industry: banking, insurance, and investments. Their removal opened lucrative career opportunities for loyal party members. There may be painful truths disguised behind publicized fables.
Oligarchs, beware.
8
Dear POTUS,
We have evidence-based research that when you were a vulnerable, entitled fetus, a science-based intervention was used to create a transgender-phobic mysoginist who has no heart for diverse people. SAD.
EnEsEl
8
A carping editorial comment on a lovely column, but you probably mean "the mayor of San Juan," or "that mayor in Puerto Rico," not "the mayor of Puerto Rico." We are ignoring a lot more than one city of our fellow citizens.
3
Minitrue making sure we proles can only goodthink and duckspeak.
7
This too will become part of the backlash against the most egregious, incompetent occupant of the white house ever. It begins with women lashing out at sexual predators in their environment as backlash to the Groper-In-Chief as president. Winston Churchill famously and more or less correctly said: "the Americans always do the wrong thing before they do the right thing." The other real issues of our time such as climate change, immigration reform, education and just maybe even sane gun control will receive a great awakening as the trump regime bans the words diversity, science based, transgender, entitlement, fetus, etc. in hopes of pleasing the least educated, most backwards portions of the electorate. But no doubt THEY own tons of stock, have multi- million dollar estates, or are commercial real estate tycoons like trump and family that will surely benefit from the so called 'tax cut' bill he and the republicans are ramming through.
4
So there are words that the White House doesn't want the CDC using.
I think that these words should be banned from the White House, INTELLECT, INTELLECTUAL, INTELLIGENCE, INTELLIGENT and COMMON-SENSE because nobody in this current White House has shown anything close to those words, especially the big moron running it.
9
Isn't this the same thing they do in Iran? I remember the Irani president at the UN claiming there was no such thing as homosexuality in his country, but of course it was a lie. Deja Vu American style.
6
Germany 1930
5
Well at least the CDC can still use blowhard, narcissist, liar, and idiot.
9
A page right out of Mein Kampf. Wake up folks, fascists are literate.
9
The game of words that the GOP is playing seems patterned on what was done in the Third Reich with regard to science. Back then, the work of Jewish researchers was either banned or attributed to others.
If it looks like a Nazi and sounds like a Nazi, don't give it the benefit of the doubt, but call it out. Sadly, in this country this is no longer possible as most Americans never learned about what went on then, and those who survived it are dying off.
5
Is the word "Nazi" banned at CDC, EPA?
2
What the heck is this: a moistly Orwellian sweet dream? Here we have a president who railed incessantly against Obama's disinclination to say "radical Islamic terrorism" whose administration censors "science-based." Go figure.
Any regular schmuck off the street would be tempted to think he's on the express train to crazy town, but the retrograde lords of language in the White House know what they're doing.
5
This op-ed got ne thinking, if I play peek-a-boo and cover my eyes whenever I see an image of the president of the United States, will he no longer be there? Let's all of us at least try it.
9
This administration looks every day more and more like “1984” with Big Brother played by Facebook, Instagram and Tweets. America, you are being watched and only 18th century thinking will pass the litmus test of intelligence. Only a matter of time before this administration recommends a Cabinet level spot to determine appropriate subjects for thought.
6
This editorial is most value, and I prize the New York Times as an expert on the subject. After all, nobody has been as practicing as the Times in pretending that unborn babies are not human, that we cannot use the word "unborn child," and that there is a pro-life movement in America. Yes, I cannot think of a better source to certify that by playing with words and making them vanish, one hopes the reality does, too.
Saturday evening last from Baltimore 'have you seen seven words banned by the C.D.C.'
New York 'No, will check it out on the web. Watching Midsomer Murders and recommend'.
Baltimore 'It's not a movie. It's the Center for Disease Control'...(pause). New York 'America is in trouble'.
Baltimore 'we could move to Waterford in Ireland where my grandparents met'.
New York 'This is not the time to decamp. You are an international Public Health expert and we need your water engineering skills. Most of the Country is unaware that there is a water crisis'.
The insufferable shallowness of this Presidency and its Administration appears to be bottomless. Thank you, Ms. Jennifer Finney Boylan. Forwarding this latest 'Peek-a-Boo Doctrine' to those who know better.
3
Wise words. Denying the evidence is a most stupid endeavor, but apparently the modus operandi of a highly ignorant thug in the White House, and a complicit enabler, the republican party, with it's awful propaganda outlet, Fox Noise. If the ignorance were just that, there might be remedy by studying the facts, and naturally reaching an Eureka moment when the truth, based on empiric evidence, shows it's beauty and power and the freedom attained in knowledge; and knowledge moving up to understanding; and understanding to wisdom. But no, Trump's (and republicanism) ignorance is willful, hence, malevolent, a choice they have made long ago, a lie that is coming back to bite them. Climate change is already upon us, as science and the facts are showing us day in and day out. These thugs in power are a disgrace for the country and the world, an institutionalized violence having a grip on progress and even our survival. Could we possibly be this stupid to accept these changes as the new 'normal', however repulsive? Time will tell, no doubt about that.
2
Stack the language. Stack the courts.
Mug a supreme court justice nominee, then insert your own crony into the seat. Gerrymander and electoral college "democracy" out of the picture. Suck the money out of the country and into your own pocket. Take health care away.
Steal the social security COLA. etc etc etc
This is Trump and the republican cartel.
4
This is insanity, banning certain words like evidence-based. Our democracy is in deep danger, folks. Trump is a Liar, a Bully, a Woman assaulter, and prefers to believe Putin over our own intelligence agencies. That endangers us. I am demanding that Trump resign now. He is destroying everything good about America.
3
I see the rapid backpedalling on whether this is a "ban" or "instructed not to use these words". That is just semantic deck chair moving on the Trumptanic.
In fact, it might be worse if the CDC did this without pressure from the administration. If they are caving now--without direct pressure--imagine what happens when they are pressed? But I suspect it wasn't from them. They are champions of public health and I don't really believe the true health professionals threw transgender folks under the bus.
But we better get to the bottom of this, or it will be a very dangerous 3 more years.
1
Beautifully and movingly written, Ms. Boylan. Thank you.
2
This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard! What is going to do, go through the Oxford English Dictionary/Merriman, and remove words that he doesn't like or cannot pronounce. For goodness sake this is going from the sublime to the stupid.
3
Is there no solution to getting rid of this fool of a president. He has made us a joke to the world. Respect for America is at it's lowest.I'm 69 and have never felt so ashamed of my government. They promised tax relief for the poor & middle class then brag when their bill passes that only the rich will benefit.it took one mistake for Bill Clinton to be removed and he helped this country. Yet trump lies, cheats and has 20 sexual accusations and nothing happens . i don't like reading the paper so much anymore
3
“Where’s the baby?” “There he is!”
Pretty much sums up the entire Administration.
1
The hypocrisy and clueless of this clown and his lot are abysmal. The nation's fate rests on Mueller.
1
To keep the base of course fetus must become "future baby", evidence-based will be "faith-based", same for science, entitlement does not exist except if it refers to "welfare queens", diversity of course is a done deal and hurts white people and transgender is a liberal concept. Welcome to 1984+33 (or plus 34 as we near the end of the year.
1
Lumpy is just the perfect - science based - distillation of all things republican.Young voters - your eyes should now be completely open.
7 BANNED WORDS . . .
"They're not bad words - discriminatory words - misleading words - unethical words - or any type of words which would be banned from any newspaper or news organization (well - maybe Fox) -
They're just the correct words to use when making a point regarding disease and heath issues about; Science Based - Evidence Based - Entitlement - Diversity - Transgender - Vulnerable - Fetus - ISSUES !
"WHEN DOES THE BOOK BURNING BEGIN" !
3
Add to the list that LaPierre of the NRA attended a Christmas party hosted by Trump on the anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre, an event that went unnoticed by the Republican administration. Sarah Huckabee Sanders was dismissive. After all, LaPierre was only a guest and had no conversation with Trump.
I am not sure who wins the award for worst person in the panoply of idiots running (ruining) our country. I do know that the Sandy Hook children could have been anyone's children in this gun happy country. Beyond Sad....
1
Although this comment is merely an attack on Trump and is somewhat off-topic, I will point that the MSM has banned the term "gun control" in favor of "gun safety", much like they abandoned "liberal" in favor of "progressive" years ago. If "liberal" and "gun control" are dirty words, which side is winning the culture wars? Hint: it's not yours.
And if the trump administration had CDC remove the words cancer, heart disease n Alzheimers they would cease to exist too?! MAGA Mr. Mueller
1
The War on Xmas stopped in its tracks
During the Cultural Revolution in China the millions of the Red Guards waived the little red book and chanted that we must all study Mao thought. We are now in our own cultural revolution. I sizable minority has seized the government and used the megaphone of the presidency to create a post-truth, post-science, post-evidence, alternative facts world where Trump thought (not in a book, he neither reads nor actually writes books) communicated in Tweets now structures reality. China eventually removed those who had created this hell, I have my doubts that we ever will.
1
The dumbing down is going Nuclear. That's Nu-que- lur, for GOP fans.
2018, hallelujah.
1
During the 8 year reign of Bush the 2nd, I found that when reading a newspaper or online news, if I came across something that Bush said, the odds were pretty good that the opposite was true. Keeping that thought in mind somehow made it a little easier to digest the sputtering utterances that issued from the White House and eased, slightly, the anxiety caused by doublespeak .
I felt protected and respected during Obama's tenure, as though I would be welcome, theoretically, to join him at dinner regardless of my transgender status, particularly when the word transgender was spoken during the state of the union address in 2015. Oh happy day, I thought. I went to work the next day and one of my colleagues smiled and asked if I had heard the speech. It felt pretty damn good.
Now Trump and his allies are trying to drive the car in reverse. They have surpassed, incredibly, my cynical view of Bush and company as doublespeak agents and have gone so far as to actually attempt to edit language. I think of GWB as an awful president, but possessing a sense of decency. I cannot say the same of Trump.
Maybe at some point in the future, the name Trump will be co-opted to describe this utter lack of decency and humanity. I wish George Orwell was here .
This administration behaves in a most fearful way. One has to think long and hard as to which "proclamation" is the most threatening and ominous. I would put this latest "Doctrine" right up there. It is insidious; it is sneaky. It brings us closer to a ruthless Banana Republic with a dictator who ranks with the worst of the worst, from Nero and Caligula to, dare I say, Hitler and the ilk who followed.
When we deny science and reality, we are a lost civilization. The "fetus" is only a "fetus" when abortion is threatened. On the flip side, the "transgender" are not people until an amoral and unhinged Trump and his sycophants attempt to deny them the right to serve in the military or, for heaven's sake, use a public bathroom.
Reality is reality. To deny the existence of what is factual and exists is an affront to creation and the evolution of the human species. We the people, Black, White, Brown, LGBT, the poor, the Muslim and Jew, scientist and physician, are here, are now, are not phantoms. All of us together need to exclaim this relentlessly to a demonic president...indeed, a sad, sad reality.
2
If we all closed our eyes and tapped our shoes and prayed hard, will the Donald disappear?
2
Right-wing playbook alert: always score cheap political points at the expense of people who don't support you and who are relatively powerless.
2
Banning "vulnerable"? Seriously? But of course, it makes perfect sense, as the Denier in Chief, continues to crush anyone with a sense of humanity under the jackboot of his unbridled narcissistic entitlement and rage.
1
Guys, we should not get confused as to who is pulling the strings here: it is the evangelical ayatollahs!
V
1
Go a little deeper Jennifer. Read Orwell.
Oh it's much worse than pretending not to see. It's actively muzzling the voice of the CDC. It's using the power of the budget to limit research.
Remember the NRA via Congress has used the budget to prevent gun violence research by the CDC for the past 20 years. And it's the CDC budget that these seven words are banned from.
Banning words as "vulnerable" and "diversity" will harm the most people. It's economic inequality that is the common denominator in disease and death. If the CDC can't use these words in their budgets, then there will not be data collection on the economic barriers to health.
Timothy Snyder ("20 Lessons") tells us European democracies die when people "obey in advance." In this case, news reports of CDC's response to the banned words indicate acquiescence. They submit all too soon.
Remember Obama directed the CDC to resume their gun violence research after Sandy Hook. But to no avail: CDC still feared budgetary punishment and so the CDC self imposed their research out of fear.
Fight, CDC, fight.
3
As much as I want to agree with Ms. Boylan, I'm more pessimistic, and can't give this administration the benefit of the doubt and write them off as simply wanting objective truth to disappear - they are making it disappear. It's an Orwelian strategy that is unfortunately more effective than we want it to be.
"Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it."
4
The legitimacy of the this thesis notwithstanding, I somewhat buy the CDC's justification. People in the DOE are doing the same thing - changing words in order to avoid scrutiny from the lunatics Trump has installed in these agencies. We had a $3M award that's been "put on hold" precisely because the title of the FOA was written with words that relate to climate change. Companies and research labs rely on Federal sources of funding. Employees work at the risk of government shut downs and cuts to research funding hanging over their heads. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to play the game to keep people employed.
2
All that right-wing demonizing of "political correctness" in the campaign last year, saying Dems were ruining our own chances by limiting allowable vocabulary, has me wondering how these budget request no-nos are any different.
Does not a scientist self-identify as having a worldview shaped by that which is science-based or evidence-based? Should a fetus have the ability to understand and communicate, would it not self-identify as a fetus?
This is being done for no other reason than to give the religious right an easier way to make their points. After all, for these fools it's a lot easier to vote for legislation that bans aborting "unborn children" rather than fetuses.
Get ready for mad-scientist-quackery to be elevated to the same importance and truth as actual observation and interpretation!
3
I disagree with the article. What the Trump administration is doing is civilizing language by removing controversial and provocative terms. Besides what does the word "fetus" have to do with disease? A "fetus" is not a disease. Nor is a "transgender" person. A transgender person deserves the same rights and respect as any person. I am against using words inappropriately and disproportionately? Thank you.
1
controversial and provocative? So - conservative correctness then?
2
So what you're saying is that if there's a particular bacterial organism or communicable disease that can have a negative impact on the health of a fetus, the CDC should just look the other way and let the public handle things on a survival of the fittest basis? Kind of like the Republican's economic philosophy.
2
Words count. We don't call it an inheritance tax, it is a death tax. In this White House, we label people, call them names, "little Marco," "Rocket man"because words count.
So now when we inform Republicans in Congress of our vital funding needs, it is important that we use certain words and avoid others. So we can't say "fetus", can we say "unborn?" or perhaps instead of saying "science based" we should use Mr. Trump's style: "A lot of people are sayin!" Words count.
Words count because they lead to ideas being expressed, when we control words, we control ideas, we control lives. Words count.
115
What you have written cannot be said enough.
This column is disinformation. As reported by the NYT (buried deep in an article, of course), these words were cautioned against as part of the budgeting process, i.e., to sell it to Republicans in Congress. Very different from Trump gagging agencies.
1
You can only see what you can say. You can only say what you can see.
We need reverse "Beetlejuice."
Say Trump's name 3 times and he disappears.
4
Nothing happened!
This is a good indication of the "dumbing down" of America as well as a very silly game these conservatives are playing here by denying provable science as though that would make global warming go away. I don't think Mother Nature will think that it's amusing at all.
How do you spell I-G-N-O-R-A-N-C-E ?
1
We need to be careful here. There might be an element of Plato’s “noble lie” at work. Maybe this is the way the question should be posed: “If you worked for the CDC, and your research project stood a better chance of getting funded if you deliberately avoided terminology that inflames congressional Neanderthals, would you avoid that terminology?”
I think I would. With a clear conscience.
1
This topic was a front page article in the Taipei Times. [Dec 18, 2017, attributed to AP, New York]
From the AP story: An anonymous source spoke to the Washington Post. An unnamed CDC official ("she") confirmed allegations. "She" spoke on condition of anonymity as she was not authorized to talk about it.
An unnamed spokesman at the US Dept of Health and Human Services also had something to say.
Then, named talking heads from academicia were quoted. The end of the article was a jump to editorializing that posited "since Trump" conjectures that may or may not have something to do with the story.
My, my, my - the anonymous, the unnamed and the unauthorized are our new journalistic sources for articles!
2
This is reminiscent of the “gag rule” where birth control programs abroad cannot discuss abortion in any way, mean or form. This was instituted during the GWBush administration, rescinded during the Obama administration and re-instituted under Trump. Obviously the Republicans think the first amendment freedoms apply only to them (especiallly religious “”conservatives”) but not to scientists and physicians.
5
I wish I could cover my eyes and make this whole administration disappear. If only just pretending could delete Harvey Weinstein and Roy Moore. If we could just imagine that our Congress actually worked for us and not for their millionaire donors and fashioned a tax plan that was equitable and fair to working families. But no. The American people have to face up to a Congress that works for just a few of the richest among us, and we cannot make the administration disappear by blinking our eyes. If we have to deal with them, then Trump and his cronies will just have to uncover their eyes and look at what really exists in the country--transgender and gay people really truly exist. Abortion is legal. Trump lost the popular vote and had a smaller inaugural crowd than Obama. CNN, MSNBC, the NYT & Washington Post are not fake news. The ACA works for millions of families. No matter how much he may want to hide from these truths, they will still exist.
5
Just like Venezuela, which now forbids the use of "died of hunger" by physicians.
5
I'm reminded of the last line of the Martin Niemoller quote "then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me."
The transgender community makes up such a small portion of our country that most Americans will go their entire life without ever knowing someone who is transgender. The concept of being transgender is confusing and most people don't like confusion. They prefer black and white concepts rather than shades of grey.
Going after marginalized communities is right out of the authoritarian playbook. Start taking away the rights of a misunderstood, barely tolerated minority to see how people react. If no one makes a fuss keep taking away rights and by the time the public wakes up and realizes what has happened it will be too late.
We must not be complacent or complicit. Regardless of how you feel about transgender people, understand that standing by and saying nothing is a slippery slope backwards to a time when no one has any rights. Stand up and fight back while you can. If we value our democracy and the belief that we are all entitled to our version of the American dream then we cannot let this stand.
126
Exactly this is what fueled the Nazis. Identify small populations as "other" and before you know it you're marginalizing, transporting and then exterminating gypsies, gays, and Jews. Six million of them.
And the focus on Newspeak language rules brings me right back to "self-deportation" and "alternate facts".
5
This is the American way, after all. It started with the white people eradicating the American Native population and continues today. Until we have a leader and a Congress and Senate with a conscience and not an agenda based on Religious beliefs and greed it will continue.
4
I agree . But this well-executed perfect metaphor directly targets the over-all approach of the current 'conservative' movement; deny or ignore the effects of their policies from the gender, legal and economic realities of ordinary citizens.
Hopefully, it and others like it, will come to mind for that citizenry when the opportunity for ending this political nightmare occurs next year.
1
Perhaps Mr. Trump should try to eliminate the word "Impeachment" while he's at it.
6
"capricious, arbitrary, and unqualified.”
That sums up the Trump administration...
6
If anything defines ‘political correctness’, it’s the policing of terminology deemed offensive to those who might find insult in the punch of ill-fitting words. The accusation has been levelled at the ‘left’ for decades to ridicule their perceived conformity of thought and intolerance of dissent, purposefully distorting the intention to broaden a public sense of fairness by portraying it as a restriction of free speech and/or, comically, outright fascism. The disgustingly stupid irony of this administration, and those who support it to their peril, in supporting such an assault on the language of public policy — another transparently evil effort to root out every whiff of human decency — will be lost on pretty much all of them.
The remedy, sadly, remains uncertain.
1
Trump gets to mark it up as an 'accomplishment'. His first year as president has been the mostest accomphishest presidency like, for ever, or at least in the past 500 years.
Everybody says so.
3
George Carlin would be having a heyday with this!
3
Banning words does not make the concepts disappear. We will just have to find new words to describe what the issue is. Here is a suggestion for synonyms:
Vulnerable becomes defenseless, as in: This tax cut hurts defenseless children.
Entitlement becomes legal claim or rightful claim, as in: Social Security is a legal claim.
Diversity becomes multiplicity, as in: Housing must serve a multiplicity of residents.
Transgender becomes God given sexual mis-assignment, as in: Bathrooms also have to serve those with a God given sexual mis-assignment.
Fetus becomes microscopic person, as in: Abortion of microscopic persons must be legal.
Evidence based becomes proven, as in: Climate change is proven.
Science based becomes shown to be correct, as in: The conclusions about climate change have been shown to be correct.
8
It's not as though the left, with its 'safe spaces', doesn't do the same kind of thing. Indeed, the left more or less invented this new censorship. It's just that the right does it more, and in a far more damaging way.
We don't have to stand for this. I hope that courageous members of the CDC will continue to use the banned terms, when appropriate, and sue the bejeebers out of the government should it retaliate.
And we the public need to weigh in, fiercely. Like the $100,000+ the EPA is wasting spying on its employees email, these are our tax dollars, and this is being done in our name.
35
I disagree. In the few examples I can think of where people on the so called left "ban" words (not really though), its a self effort to not say certain things that may offend, hurt, or actively work to discriminate or exclude. That is why it is dangerous to equate the two, which is a trap the general public has continuously fallen in to the last couple of years.
6
Would someone please explain to me what "safe spaces" are? And if there are certain forms of speech we object to, why isn't that just considered good manners? And isn't being truthful and honest a good thing? How did we get to this place where people can actually believe that God would send Trump, thrice married, multiply bankrupted, convicted of fraud (Trump University), etc. to do His work? That fetuses are holy while born children are on their own? That deaths from guns are just part of the price of "freedom?" Where the proverbial camel through the eye of the needle is replaced with "greed is good?" Where "suffer the little children to come unto me" is shortened to suffer the little children? Where columnists (see Douthat's Catholic guest) bemoan the fact that European countries are becoming more "secular" although their citizens are better cared for by their fellow citizens and inequality is lower? More and more down is up and up is down!
3
Indeed the left does things that are cringeworthy and need to be called out (and they are without fail by the right and the left) This administration has set its course to reverse everything that the previous administration put in place at such a dizzying pace as to test, at least, my ability to keep track. This is not necessarily because they do harm to the economy or the environment, but because of Trump's well-documented antipathy toward former President Obama, to fulfill promises to his religious, zealot, bigoted, racist base, every Wall Street bigwig, and the people who bankroll him and the Republicans.
1
It's akin to Congress' Dickey Amendment banning the CDC from collecting gunshot wounds and deaths data: no statistics, no means of describing the issue, it muct not exist!
4
Pretty soon we will be told that the world truly is flat and anything contrary to it is not allowed.
1
keep a close eye on what they are doing with the 2020 census.
Alas we are coming very late to this problem, and it is indeed a problem. Language and labels shape our thinking, how we characterize things, and what we consider a problem. For years our increasingly amalgamated media sources have referred to a pregnant woman who was involved in an assault of some kid, as Mrs. Jones and her unborn child, not Mrs. Jones who was pregnant. The fetus was granted separate news mention, news personhood, and also named in the report if the parents had chosen a name already. Fetal personhood has been slipped into our narrative.
We fought for years to have adult females referred to as women, not girls. But the girls are back. Every police show refers to the adult rape or murder victim as a girl. To quote a character on on Special Victims, there is a girl on that slab in there.
Mothers have been downgraded to moms. Is it to save headline space by omitting a few letters, or is it about minimizing mothers and motherhood? Think about it. "Soccer mom" -- are we now defined by the sport our kids play? Is that our narrative? Let's get control back over our language! IT is all the more important since money and social policy is involved.
Karen Greene
2
Many believe that by calling it "gun control," the NRA gets to scare both its followers and those who want guns but who don't march lock step with the NRA. I think it's an impossible goal to have "gun control," but I think the more realistic, less fear-instilling phrase "gun safety" could cover a lot of ground for everyone without stoking the fears and resulting itch to hoard guns and behave irresponsibly with firearms. Progressives MUST find word smiths to help them fight the undermining language used by hard-line conservatives and the deplorables hiding behind the benign sounding term "alt right."
Europa has always been at war with East Asia.
4
Trump's administration is baring the term 'science based' and its meaning as much as possible yet he claims he wants to go back to the moon. Magic?
Current American "leadership" relies on the Tinkerbell Effect, empowered by "faith-based" magical realism designed to short-circuit critical thinking. Just say the magic words, people. Poof...making a "new reality" (thanks, Carl Rove).
This isn't new in our country. Isaac Azimov saw it many decades ago:
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
3
George Carlin is rolling in his grave right now. And George Orwell looks as relevant as ever. Sad.
4
"In case you were keeping score at home: In Donald Trump’s America, you’re allowed to refuse to make me a cake, because pastry is free speech. But if you’re a researcher studying medicine at the leading national public health institute of the United States, you can’t say 'science-based' in a budget request.
Because science, apparently, is a less protected form of communication than buttercream frosting."
And that, dear reader, is just one of many reasons our country is hurtling towards third-world status, courtesy of your neighborhood Republican Party and its billionaire leaders.
235
Hurtling towards third-world status? Take a look at data on poverty levels and infant deaths; we are already there.
1
Words matter but not as much as actions. Most of us will not be distracted by the move toward authoritarianism that trump is taking. We are hyper aware of his every move, from banning the use of certain words, to discrediting the fourth estate. We are watching this scandalous charade of an administration every single day and we will reflect our disdain at the ballot box in 2018.
By banning the words "evidenced-based" and "science-based", the Trump dictatorship is making it patently clear - in case anyone had failed to realize this - that all policy decisions would be made based on money and money alone.
I'm very deliberately using "money" and not "politics". If it were politics, then one might assume that you would make a policy decision that would be backed by the majority of Americans. Instead, all policy decisions must be vetted by the plutocrat and oligarch class that now inhabit the White House and Cabinet.
2
The march toward authoritarianism is not lost on many Americans. Banning the use of certain words does not erase their existence. New phrases will arise to replace them. The disparagement of the fourth estate, who work tirelessly to tell the honest truth is being promoted daily by state tv: Fox News. Once again, the majority of the electorate will not succumb to this 1984 style administration. 2018 will free us to express our pent up rage and disgust at the Republican Party and its leader. The wave has already begun.
2
Actually, this article misses the point. The administration tried to muzzle the CDC from using those word in their BUDGET--that is, their request to fund certain programs. So yes, when they are prohibited from requesting funds towards certain things, the CDC is essentially forced to prohibit their public health activities towards such things. That's a BIG deal.
5
I couldn't for the life of me understand what the issue could be with respect to the terms "evidence based" and "science based." And then it dawned on me; it's to appease the anti-vaccination zealots. Recall how, in the GOP primaries, Trump joined Bachman to describe made up tales of normal children coming down with autism weeks after receiving a vaccine. That, and Republican general mantra that science is bad for business.
1
After mischaracterization of the government doing its job, the new administration is seeking to redefine "deep state" to cover their priorities.
This toxic stew of lies (not "falsehoods) "will not serve the people.
During the Stalin era, it was hazardous to express not only certain words but also anything that could be termed "subversive."
But it wasn't enough to suppress thought and communication. It gave rise to some of the best satire the world has seen.
The people's will is indomitable and will always win in the end.
Sorry, but I thought this was all about the words to avoid when trying to squeeze money out of a deeply Conservative Congress.
We Liberals should learn a lesson here: emote less, manipulate more. The Conservatives have been doing it to us for decades. And they've been very successful.
3
The five-year-old in the White House and company, seem to be of the belief that if you don't pay attention to it, it will go away. So following this premise, I suppose that they also believe that if someone is hungry, all they have to do is ignore it and it will go away.
BTW, ignorance is the act of ignoring something that is there.
I understand the tendency of commenters to go after Trump for this inane directive. But perhaps the more legitimate target is the Republican Congress. If you believe that the word restrictions were created so as not to jeopardize the CDC's budget, which of course Congress needs to approve, then perhaps it makes sense to be cautious about words or phrases that would offend the sensibilities of GOP lawmakers.
Still, one cringes at the whole idea. As an elderly American, I'm fairly certain that the term "elderly" will also be stricken from the CDC lexicon because, well, the government doesn't want to have to deal with the problem of the aging population. Better just to leave programs for their benefit out of the budget, right?
107
The buck stops with the president regardless of whether or not he was the primary instigator of this attempt to remove words to assuage the Republicans in Congress.
1
I think that's why 'vulnerable' was also on the banned list.
1
Oddly, I see this differently. I see some unnamed official giving CDC scientists tips on how to navigate in a hostile political environment. From what I can infer, the directions are not to quit doing research in these areas or to quit doing real science. The directions are to avoid using language that provokes a backlash against the CDC. Yes, it's shocking and depressing, but it's also sensible advice. When you swim with sharks, don't wave bloody chunks of meat in the water.
2
Ms. Boylan, you might very well be the most admirable writer the New York Times has ever had the privilege to host. I look forward to every contribution of yours, but this might be the finest yet.
1
Yeh, in the age of what we hoped would be acceptance and inclusion, intolerance won a foothold with D Trump and the folks that got him there.
Do American still hold onto the ideal that justice will prevail? The harsh politics of the time have rattled American faith in legimacy of the political system as well as faith that justice will be done.
The Department of Health and Human Services has issued a statement debunking the fake news that the Trump administration has banned certain words. According to the department, "The assertion that HHS has 'banned words' is a complete mischaracterization of discussions regarding the budget formulation process," the HHS statement said. "HHS will continue to use the best scientific evidence available to improve the health of all Americans. HHS also strongly encourages the use of outcome and evidence data in program evaluations and budget decisions." The department doesn’t want certain words used in its budget request because some congressmen might find them objectionable. The department doesn’t want its budget request derailed by congressmen eager to appeal to their base by objecting to the words.
Why doesn't our literati prepare a list of books that can be read to Trump during mealtime; starting with Orwell's "1984" (it's still not outdated for Trump) and "Animal Farm" (so far, Trump hasn't announced an agricultural policy for the US.
It is easy to see where they are going with this. If you can control the language, then you can control the perception, and ultimately, the world.
2
On inauguration day, "climate change" was purged from EPA documents. We have an example of the opposite of "peek a boo baby" on that same day when something that didn't exist - large crowd sizes - was created out of thin area. We need to tracik the things that the Right says exist (even though they don't) as well as the things that really do exist that they say don't. Both types of lies have a devastating effect on politics and are attempts to gas light the public.
2
Disallowing words is absolutely no different than the creation of "Newspeak" in "Nineteen Eighty Four". Though not unique to Trump, his administration has applied it to a much greater degree than other presidents.
Isn't it obvious at this point that we are well on the road to a dystopian society? Trump is just the figurehead at this time, though the planning has been going on for decades, after-all, how long has Limbaugh and Fox been preaching their dogma? When did Reagan fire the air traffic controllers because they created the anti-capitalist sin of going on strike?
Using a cutesy name like "The Peek-a-boo" doctrine, writing op-ed after op-ed complaining but not preaching doable (peaceable) actions. Writing ad nauseam if Trump will fire Mueller (I'd say yes), and giving Trump the opportunity to ultimately declare Marshall Law, under the guise of some fear-mongering. When that happens, the game is over, the experiment which started with our revolution and the creation of our constitution a decade later will have been in vain. Big Brother will have arisen.
Perhaps Karl Marx was right??
I've said it many times, and I'm not a raving conspiratorial nut, but we are watching a well orchestrated takeover of our country. Everything else, from the Rubio "ultimately voting for the Tax Bill" to the McCain last minute ACA vote change to the Trump tweets, all performance art. And poor art at that.
Please someone, offer an alternative explanation that makes sense...I'm listening.
2
So now it starts. The Word Police are telling the CDC what is acceptable and what is not. Next we'll have the Thought Police. And Congress continues to sit by and let this administration destroy "evidence based" medical research by the CDC. Absolutely disgraceful.
1
I find the ban in the military ridiculous. Transgenders should have the same civil rights that everyone else has, but not more. Most people I know, mostly middle-class NYers do not want to see anyone shut out from society, ridiculed or stigmatized. But, they also want people who see a big difference between men and women unable to speak or make choices either. For example, the Obama gov't used the weight of the federal gov't to force its view of transgenders (with which I largely agree) on everyone. That too is repulsive to me.
But, I don't want to see gay people counted in the census either. Not b/c that way they don't exist. I don't think we should be counting anyone but citizens and non-citizen residents. There are counter-currents going on in society. On one hand, many people want not be stigmatized or described by superficial factors of their race, gender, orientation, etc. On the other hand, they demand that they are. The spirit of victimization, separationism and coercive acceptance is fighting to replace the message of MLK, Jr. that we should judge each other by our character and not skin color and that civil rights are not won with violence, but with sacrifice and moral behavior.
The peek-a-boo doctrine aptly describes this this administration's support for the antiabortion crowd too. They think if they make abortion illegal, as they're clearly trying to do, abortion will go away. But it won't. It'll still be there because women continue to get abortions. They always have, through the centuries and all over the world, because way too many women find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy from lack of birth control or from having sex forced on them, sometimes when they're children themselves. All the administration and the "pro-lifers" will succeed in doing is making abortion dangerous and even deadly again. They'll have the blood of women on their hands. But they don't care. They don't see women as human beings who also have a right to life.
2
The NYT article on the death of children in venezuela from severe malnutrition revealed how physician's and hospitals there are not allowed to use "malnutrition" or "starvation" as a cause of death or diagnosis. The Venezuelan government won't allow outside aid groups to bring in infant formula. So they censor doctors and scientists as if denial of the deaths of thousands of young children will prevent it's existence. The censorship of american scientists is no different. Prevent people from speaking about what they see or learn and pretend the issues of climate change doesn't exist. It is horrible and deeply disturbing. How many other issues are being stuffed in a box across the federal government. At the CDC? The EPA? Other offices of public service? This is were we need the press at it's very best. We must make sure that the gagged have voice!
166
SO, if a virus like ZIka comes into the country, which it surely has is the CDC not
be permitted to say that said disease causes "fetal" abnormalities according to "scientifically based" information?
2
Another ban: the CDC is prohibited from studying the epidemic of gun deaths in this country.
I think that in most cases the truth evidence is being suppressed not out of disbelief but out of clear-eyed strategies to protect the holders of political and/or economic power. This applies to the oil and coal industries (denying climate change and causes), the firearms industries as represented by the NRA (don't let gun death statistics effect gun and bullet sales), Alt-right religious groups (don't efface our righteousness by elevating the human status of "others" including those of different religion, color, sexual orientation, etc.).
I remember at the beginning of Trumps term someone made a comment about how career civil servants would serve as a check on Trump. This one is a great example. There are many conscientious people in the civil service ranks.
2
He also believes if he says there was no Russiqan collusion there would be none/
3
It's quite rich when trump and his disciples who rail against (largely fictitious) politcal correctness enshrine their version of the real thing in government agencies.
12
Jennifer:
I support the rights that transgenders do in fact possess and I certainly support your right to be you and not suffer for it.
However, the simple truth is that transgenders, even after the doubling of their estimated population to 1.4 million last year, still represent only approx. 0.4% of the U.S. population. That's about as close to "not existing" as it's possible to be and still just barely be on the radar.
At approx. 12.6% of the population, blacks have a heckuva stronger case to be angry at Omarosa Manigault Newman.
7
If there are so few transgender people then it seems a waste of time to forbid the CDC from mentioning them.
If there is one transgender person in the United States, that person has as much right to be counted as anyone else. As far as I know, there is only one Richard Luettgen in the United States and I don't think he would like it if the government allowed him to be murdered, robbed defrauded or otherwise harmed without recourse to the courts or the protection of the police, fire department or other agencies.
2
Another simple truth is that stoking and exploiting fears about transgendered people is now standard practice in Republican political campaigns and conservative culture wars. A group that makes up only 0.4% of the population doesn't quite the have the power to destroy civilization as we know it, but it makes for a convenient enemy du jour.
6
There is nothing in the Constitution that stipulates that people matter in the United States in proportion to their numbers. Following your "logic", and considering the aging of the Baby Boomers, there would be no talk of "entitlement" reduction.
4
It's all disturbing although what jumped out at me initially was the ban on 'evidence based,' a term used in treatment protocols for mental health in general and addiction in particular. How can the White House claim to be developing strategies to change the course of the the opioid epidemic and reject this terminology?
63
Jk: Draw the obvious conclusion. I'm afraid that under Republitrumpicon governance that's the answer to many questions like yours.
5
Profit-based science.
you're right.
The Orwellian impulse by this administration to control language and redefine problematic terms and institutions is the next logical step toward autocracy. From the imposition of “forbidden words” to the ludicrous charge that the FBI is a criminal cabal, there seems to be no depth to which Trump and his Fox enablers will not sink.
164
You can forbid the words--though that's horrible, horrible!--but you can't stop people from talking about the things. The language has plenty of work-arounds, and I think the CDC should, at least, use them all. Plus maybe they could distract this incredibly distractable president by substituting common four-letter words for other terms they use in documents.
Race to the bottom, here we come.
Let us not overlook Trump's Congressional enablers! They are more directly due condemnation than Fox News.
I'm transgender and recognize my life is in danger, in part due to American religious extremism now. It subtly urges people to commit acts of hate of violence against me in the name of tradition. While I think they can believe what they want, they do not grant reciprocity, and want to erase me. It might occur to religious people that violence begets violence and is the very opposite of what Christ or Ghandi or King counseled. This is Galileo all over again where religion puts its head in the sand.
226
Stand your ground.
4
For this alone, Trump should be impeached. It is enough evidence of his derangement, twisted mind and decidedly authoritarian tendencies.
100
Glen, I doubt Trump himself has given this even one nanosecond's worth of thought. It's the entire Republican party that has been playing with language in an Orwellian "Doublespeak" way for many years--so they give names to laws that are the exact opposite of their function. For example, the Defense of Marriage Act did not promote or protect marriage among Americans, but ended up prohibiting marriage for millions. The Republicans have done this with anti-environmental protection laws for years, but I can't come up with the deviously reverse language they used to get an example just now. Things along the lines of "clean and safe water" act which don't protect water but rather undo the protections in the original Clean Air and Water Acts.
But Trump has given cover to the Republicans for whom no aspect of public life is too small to control once they are in power. So, cake baking becomes a big issue deserving more protection than real people's ability to commit their lives in marriage.
1
@ Paula: Agrred. All goood points. Trump seems to take it the an even more twisted level.
Does anyone in the American population realize that all humans were fetuses at some point? Plus most animals (not sure about the smallest, like worms, etc.) What is wrong with the intelligence of the people who work in HHS? You are going to have to execute me in my front yard to shut me up. I am an old lady and this is superb entertainment.
38
Given the percentage of Americans who think the sun revolves around the Earth (+/- 20% I believe?), I'd be interested to know the percentage of Americans who deny they were even a fetus!
2
Beware overestimating the intelligence of the average American.
1
I'd like to think that the reason we are banning the words"evidence based" and "science based" from the government agency tasked with protecting our health, preventing pandemics and responding to epidemics is because we have a toddler in the White House. After all, we have a toddler in the White House.
But it is far more likely that the impetus comes from authoritarianism and propaganda and iron fisted attempts to control the flow of information. Dictator's tools.
We all know that the wedding cakes and the war ob "Merry Christmas" are weapons of mass distraction. We can subjugate science and bad news and no one will be paying attention. After all, Omorosa just got fired.
It takes two to play peek-a-bo. Voters have to stop being toddlers too.
85
“Peek-a-boo Baby Doctrine,”
I know it doesn't work, I've tried it over and over again. I cover my eyes every day, twice a day. The nightmare is still there in the Oval office.
307
If only two cases were before the Supreme Court at the same time: the one that is where a baker in a shop open to the public claims First Amendment protection based on the new notion of "religious liberty"allows him to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple and then a liberal's fantasy - a case where the government claims First Amendment protection to prohibit one of its own agencies from using real, accurate words to describe facts in describing public policy. Ticketmaster and Scalpers could sell tickets and call it the FAFO - the First Amendment Face Off - and advertise it with a brain splitting in two before the viewers very eyes.
16
Seven words you can't say -- reminiscent of George Carlin, except this isn't funny. I have my own list of seven words I'd like to see disappear.
1. Trump
2. Pence
3. McConnell
4. Ryan
5. Pruitt
6. Jarvanka
7. Bannon
261
This is excellent - if I can use the word.
2
The premise is good, but sadly the list is too short. I'd also like to disappear DeVos, Mnuchin, Carson, Zinke, Sessions, Mulvaney, and Ross.
1
1. Zinke
2- Jared
3. Ivana
4. Melania
5. DeVos
6. Sessions
7. Carson
And the beat goes on.
1
This is not the first Republican administration to muzzle scientist at the CDC. The Bush II bunch did the same thing. There was a researcher who conducted a study on HIV prevention who was told to change the title because it contained the word "homosexual". The Reagan Administration before that would not allow their public health scientists to state that HIV was transmitted by oral and anal sexual contact (I guess using the word "syringe" was okay). Instead, they had to say "bodily fluids", which had the result of fanning the flame or fear higher as the general public became afraid of sneezes, tears, and kisses. I blame the HIV epidemic on Reagan who refused to act when it still may have been possible to contain the disease, as they did for Legionnaires disease a few years earlier.
This muzzling of science presents a danger to us all. If we cannot talk about what is happening, we cannot protect ourselves. There is no early warning, only mystifying disaster.
Republicans reflect the bigotry of their religious base. We mustn't say words that offend them even if they and the rest of us die for it. They reflect the criminal greed of their donors when they deny climate change; we die for that, too.
Tell me, America, is the Republican Party really worth dying for?
442
The Republican Party is plain and simple : EVIL !!!
1
My answer to your last question, rhetorical tho' it might have been, is a resounding NO!
What is happening to our country today is part and parcel republican dogma....industry first, last and always, regardless of the consequences. They (the current congressional incarnation) seem to have lost all sense of integrity, personal honesty, as well as a fundamental belief in our Constitutional form of government.
Bush II also muzzled stem cell research. Way to go, boys.
1
When I want to know what this administration means, I am NOT going to look to Democrats who will give me a hostile interpretation. If Trump sneezes, they are not going to say, "maybe he has a cold". They will say, "Look how he is trying to infect people!"
And then the New York Times will have a headline, "Trump trying to infect America!" (smile).
4
Thanks for the example of "Peek-a-boo Baby Doctrine".
4
You probably don't need the NYtimes to point out how corrupt, ineffective and deceptive this administration is. You can just open your eyes and see it for yourself.
1
Alas, he has done it already![lol]
It's insane. We are living under insane 'governance' that is heading straight to an authoritarian, autocratic wannabe dictator Trump. President? Nah, he wants to be EMPEROR.
Stop him. We must stop him before it's too late.
Insanity.
69
No, he doesn't want to be an emperor. He doesn't want to be a Pope, an absolute monarch, a king, a dictator, or a tyrant. He wants to be God.
All levels of the federal government have been warned against using 2017's Word of the Year, Dotard.
35
I don't like being a citizen of crazyland
57
At what point do we storm the castle and remove this crazy person from the white house? We must be getting close.....
36
I think you are so right!
If we never say "Trump," will he cease to exist?
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Don't we wish! But I have managed never to say his name with "President" immediately before it. He is a president, but I refuse to give him the title. It doesn't help much, though.
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Actually, I imagine Trump lies awake at night wondering the same thing. Then gets up at 5:00 am and tweets to prove he exists.
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"Nothing to see here, folks. Just move on."
Next we will eliminate all reference to gender (no sexual harassment) and race (no discrimination). We will eliminate poverty by eliminating any reference to the poor and homeless. We will eliminate disease by stopping calling people sick.
And come January 20, 2021, we will have eliminated the ... what was it called? ... administration.
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Not if he elimates elections. Which is coming next year. Has already been poll tested.
it is almost as if the president want's to wish US all to the cornfield.
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Is this an allusion to Jerome Bixby's short story "It's a *Good* Day", later on "The Twilight Zone"?
How soon before Trump's mob starts burning books?
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If one doesn't read then books are reduced to door stops.
De facto book burning has already begun. The mob is rewriting textbooks to include creationism, to call evolution a "theory", and to sanitize American history of the violence inflicted upon indigenous peoples and slaves.
The undoing of net neutrality may be prelude to a modern form of book-burning. Physical book-burning or book-banning today isn't effective, because as long as just one copy made it into digitized form and was distributed via the internet, books can make it out of even the most repressive country and around the world.
However, once you start providing means to constrain the free movement of information on the internet, we're enhancing the ability of authoritarians and the rich to control what we the powerless are allowed to access.
I wonder if Trump thinks the world disappears every night when he turns off the lights in his bedroom.
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And then he wakes up in the middle of the night and has to send tweets just to prove to himself that he still exists.
I suspect he sleeps with the lights on and a mirror on the ceiling.
"1984" - the truth is whatever the party holds to be true.
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Ronald Reagan forbid talk about AIDS. He forbid anything about AIDS - research, which delayed treatment, which created death. It was as if AIDS was supposed to be non existent if it wasn’t mentioned. Just ask thousands of family members who lost loved ones because of Reagan.
But then Republicans who love Trump probably loved Reagan even more.
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The real question is, does it work? If so, banning the words, "Donald", "Trump", "Donald Trump", or, especially, "President Donald Trump" ought to make everything alright again.
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"But trans people are just as real as climate change, or science or fetuses. Or diversity. Or science-based research."
A Universal Truth: As the mind wanders: The thought of sub atomic physics where a sub-atomic particle can be a particle, a wave, or both simultaneously plants itself. A particle then is, in effect, 'trans-gender'.
Trump: if you can't understand it, it does not exist.
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Maybe that's why money, insane greed guides his every perverse action. They're all he understands.
Just having seen the Shape of Water, your writing is spot on.
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Trump likes to speak of "political correctness". So can this be called "conservative correctness"?
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"The administration seems to believe that if researchers can’t say “transgender,” then transgender Americans don’t exist."
Really? Just how do know what they believe? They may well believe that by now using the words there will be less publicity but it is, frankly, bizarre for you to conclude that they believe that transgender doesn't exist.
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It's hardly a stretch to say Republicans deny that transgender is a real thing. They're pretty open about it. Google is your friend:
"Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say that whether someone is a man or a woman is determined by the sex they were assigned at birth, most Democrats and Democratic leaners (64%) take the opposite view and say a person’s gender can be different from the sex they were assigned at birth."
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/08/transgender-issues-divid...
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What is bizarre, is that they won't use the word transgender, etc. No matter their motives. 1984 is coming.
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It's not that they believe it, Amy, it's that they wish it.
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Oh if it were only Peek-A-Boo. My family and I have been threatened with death because of my support for transgender service members. This is a cute, even interesting op ed, but in some ways it trivializes the evil that is rooted in this administration.
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Now, instead of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," we have "Don't Say, Don't Think."
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George Orwell described this phenomenon years ago: Newspeak in "1984."
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Object permanence! Now there is a blast from the past. I haven't heard that term since 1985. But yes, this pack of dogs (no insult meant to dogs, just metaphorical) pretty much exhibit the intelligence of a 2 year old. A one page document touting the potential benefits of the tax plan from an agency that has at least 100 phd level economists and researchers on staff! Horrible. The three greatest science agencies in the world, muzzled. (EPA,DEA,CDC) The only question I have, how far into the barrel must they go to find people who will do the bidding. Sarah Sanders is scrapping the sludge. Who else will degrade themselves for unknown future benefit. And conservatives think porn is degrading.
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I think you have it wrong. Trump and his lackeys don't believe that, having devalued and denigrated transgender people, among many others, they will cease to exist, or 'go away'.
Trump and company believe they are creating a climate in which they are free to do to them whatever they want, even unto violent extremes. And the base will cheer.
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As a descriptor of the Trump doctrine and method, Peek-a-boo is a good beginning but it only goes so far. One must factor in the "nyah-nyah" element, and take into account the Draco Malfoy-like delight he takes in hurting and destroying everything and everybody. Then we need to consider the Carrollian rabbit hole/Orwellian dystopia he seems to reside in, or at least tries to impose on we the people.
Given that he's skated on a multitude of serious violations of protocol, decorum and law, and gotten away with it to date, I conclude we're suffering from a pandemic of mass PTSD, shell shock, if you will. He's not just compromised our ethics, ethos and constitution, he's compromised our national mental immune system. Rationality, empiricism, common decency and responsibility have succumbed to an onslaught of invasive, opportunistic infection. History is being rewritten in a double helix of revisionism and pure fantasy. Agencies are being shredded fine than you could with a vegematic and 4 ginsu knives. Each blunder, gaffe and faux pas is a claymore set deliberately to ensnare a critic or fact checker so they may be wrung through the rollers of Dunderbeck's machine, sprinkled with derision and served up to the masses starving for revenge with a side of innuendo and a drizzle of grated resentment. It's not just the LGBT community, we've all been chopped.
11
One is not surprised that the administration of a man with the maturity of infant adopts policies reminiscent of a baby's peek-a-boo game. It is not surprising, but it is sad and frightening. These policies are not simply a child's game; they are the realization of George Orwell's dystopian fantasies about revision of history: "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."
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Problems do go away. There's long been discouragement of studying gun violence. Thus the people who support gun control have less evidence. For example, how many people diagnosed with mental illness have access to guns? I don't know nor does anyone else.
If there's little data on the LGBT popoulation, people proposing policies or programs will have to start, not by debating the merits of their proposal, but the existence of a significant population in need of it.
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Censorship, maybe especially self-censorship, doesn’t change reality, of course, as is pointed out here. However, words express thoughts, and if the vocabulary is missing, awareness of the now nameless facets of reality slide out of view. That is the ultimate sorry result of this little exercise.
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Reminds me of newspeak in 1984's INGSOC. Removing these words from official documents serves to limit vocabulary and in effect, limit though.
While this may seem trivial now, this could have subtle long term ramifications that aren't immediately obvious to us.
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Look on the bright side. A move away from evidence-based decision making opens up a world of possibilities.
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Who is coming up with this? Trump is mean-spirited enough, but he doesn't have the interest or attention span to even look into it in the first place. Someone is working the White House against the American people.
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It takes a village. I can think of several people, right off the bat, who are working against the American people from within the White House. One can almost spot them by their shifty looks. They're the people who are all about the money and power, who want to get in on the ground floor, and who don't care who they have to kill (metaphorically-speaking, because killing people directly is still illegal) to do it.
4
"he ones criticizing the mayor of Puerto Rico." The mayor of San Juan is the one that he criticized. The governor of Puerto Rico supported Trump's version of the situation and was not criticized.
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"We saw it when this administration removed any reference to the civil rights movement from that same site. Because if you can’t study the country’s long history of slavery and racism, there must never have been any racial injustice."
I suspect it's deeper than this: If you don't recognize a powerful social movement that was completely bottom up and brought about real social gains, it must never have happened.
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And conversely, look at the forms of 'speech' and 'expression' that the Trump authoritarian, Orwellian, grifting, gaslighting Administration champions.
90 Americans keep dropping dead every SINGLE day of the year thanks to gun anarchy and 2nd Amendment 'free-dumb'; a Congressman and his posse were shot playing softball in the park; a church congregation in Texas was massacred by a known lunatic; Nevada concertgoers were easily slaughtered by a sociopath with easy access to a huge arsenal of murder weapons; the next inevitable mass guns and bullets mass murders is just days or weeks away......and nothing but radio silence from the Guns Over People nutjobs in the Trump-GOP National Terrorist Association department.
The Republican's Dickey Amendment in place since 1996 effectively bans for research on gun violence by the CDC...because Americans certainly do NOT deserve to know that unrestricted guns and bullets are killing them in record Republican numbers..........at least for guns and ammo sales.
So let the fatal guns flow...let fatal coal and methane flow without restriction to cook and pollute the planet....let record inequality ring with a fresh round of 0.1% tax cuts....let healthcare continue to be massacred so premature death and sickness can flourish again...let voter suppression ring again to kill American democracy.
Greed Over People and the 'Party of Life' speaks loudly and clearly in Trump's-GOP-NRA America:
"Drop dead, America !"
"Ignorance knows best !"
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That’s the Republican understanding of pro-life.
This obvious erosion of free speech an echo of the Soviet era, which Orwell parodied so well. Not surprising, really; our head of state has learned at the knee of his Russian mentor who, lest we forget, is a former Soviet high official.
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Maybe the administration has become progressive and wants a "safe space" like so many liberals in our universities.
How about looking in the mirror, people?
@aruna: think what you are saying when you agree to any administration, no matter what its supposed politcal color, enforcing a "safe space" for itself. Call it by its real name, "authoritarian".
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We lost Vietnam, in part because it was televised with endless coffins photographed returning, and people became furious at this killing. In Iraq we stopped televising returning coffins. We started to embed reporters so they couldn't photograph anything the military didn't want. There is a long tradition of censorship in America. There is a tendency to destroy free government everywhere as an inconvenience to authority and America is no exception, nor is it exceptional.
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"...the Trump administration — and all of us, in fact — would do better to accept the complexity of the world, with its contradictions, and its joys, and its mystery."
Easier said than done, but worthwhile advice "for all of us" to aspire to.
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(A federal judge, meanwhile, has kept the ban from going into place, calling it “capricious, arbitrary, and unqualified.”)
Capricious. Arbitrary. Unqualified. Three simple words that yes, do define many of the decisions coming out of this White House.
But where Ms. Boylan sees "Peekabo Baby," I see something more sinister: Censorship.
The banning of any words--or phrases--starts a slippery slope towards suppressing free speech. Censorship--a major tool of tyrants throughout the ages.
In the case of the Trump Administration, every time words are banned, pages deleted from web sites like that of the EPA, or a move is taken to suppress information that contradicts the reality you're trying to push, the public loses the tools of judging the effectiveness or legitimacy of a new presidential policy.
And this has been happening from Day 1 of this administration.
We know this president is thin-skinned, but isn't manipulation of evidence to control public opinion the stuff of dictators?
I first heard about the word suppressing thing on Saturday night before a concert--and I was aghast at how Orwellian it was.
Republicans are always complaining that Democrats are pushing the boundaries of social policies. And yet, Republicans aren't merely pushing boundaries, they're erasing them altogether to create a false narrative to soothe the president's psyche.
It's happening everywhere, in the most seemingly benign places and contexts.
Be warned. Be vigilant.
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And by all means, pick up a copy of 1984 in case you have not read it yet.
I just re-read a 2016 NYT news article about still-candidate Trump with comments to it. Many Democrat-identified readers said Trump was a social moderate having walked in liberal circles in Manhattan and would be LGBT-friendly or neutral. Many said they would vote for him as a result. Most said he would not be in thrall to his base like his Republican rivals. While I agree he outright lied then, it was clear to me no Republican would be queer friendly. America make no mistake: we are in a war and I for one am not inclined to lose it. These folks have made a very poor decision where it is virtually life and death - them or us. Their fascination with martyrdom just may be realized after all.
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I, too, am aghast, ChristineMcM. I am particularly fed up with the mainstream media's tendency to treat these serious erosions of democracy and sanity with chuckles and head shakes instead of sounding the alarm. It's 1984 and we are the frogs in the pot of water on the stove.
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Of course this spreads into other arenas to the current admistration but in reverse. For example keep repeating "there is no evidence of collusion with Russia" in a context provoking a a perspective in the public mind this means there is no formal agreements, joint operations, etc. Create an expectation that we must find an elephant in a shoebox so when we do not the elephant does not exist. Had we used terminology such as "common interests, shared objectives" or similar wording we would not find ourselves searching agressively for the elusive shoebox. The Peek-A-Boo Doctrine bails the Trump administration out of any action regarding a positive action, a notion of "If You do not Build it They will Stay Away". The Elephant Standard means define a circumstance in a way that requires several nearly impossible coincidences before breakfast so that when they do not occur it serves as proof elephants do not exist. Donald Trump does not need to be a founding member of the Brotherhood of Russian Oligarchs to act in ways that benefit Vladimir Putin. By discussing collusion is ways that require we authenticate Trump's signature on his membership card we define the situation in ways that are more difficult to address. Every time President Trump or his proxies make reference to collusion they do so because they want to fix the Elephant Standard more firmly in public expectations, making it easier to affirm elephants do not exist if we do not find one in a shoebox.
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Is it really peek-a-boo
Or Science phobia too
Beyond understanding
Deemed showoff grandstanding.
The Don and his Repub minions
Have startllingly dim opinions
He's blatantly ego obsessed
And with shlock ties too overdressed.
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