Last year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted 6000 words on the tendencies of history. In surprise news, he did not hold that the history of all hitherto existing societies was that of class struggle. No. All history has necessarily led to a marvellous and democratic thing like Facebook.
Today’s hurly-burly world that brings such enriching and positive advancement to at least 0.00002% of its people moves so fast, the present can be a trial to describe. Even inspirational, brilliant leaders like Zuckerberg, Bezos and Gates struggle to find the language to depict this marvellous moment and all those other, less marvellous, moments that came before.
One thing they all know for sure, however, is that things are really on the up-and-up and there’s not much to worry about, save for climate change, whose solution we will soon outsource to Elon Musk. That’ll fix it. Place command of the West’s energy in the hands of one union-busting billionaire. Sorry. Not the point.
The point is: things are fine, liberal democracy advances in victory everywhere, and to help you spread this humane message of love, hope and the most lopsided accumulation of wealth and power ever in human history, I have formed the Crikey Standing Committee on Deluded English and present a glossary for our go-go times.
Sharing Economy: Workers of the West and the Global South have sought and almost won their right to flexible labour conditions. No longer bound by the red tape of regular employment, standard wages or compensation for workplace injury, the people have said as one to the “Elites” (see): what we crave more than anything is profound uncertainty with a dab more poverty on top. Naturally, Zuckerberg’s company is at the forefront of this marvellous global trend.
Elites: Per recently reclaimed “Useful Idiot” (see) this insult has very wide application, and is certainly not restricted to use by those who are not elite! No. Rupert Murdoch and many persons working in executive and/or well-remunerated service to Rupert “elites” Murdoch may use the term to describe, say, black children shot dead by the police and/or murdered women. Union elites may also use the term “Elites” to describe the inevitable behaviour of commanders in the “Sharing Economy” (see) that union elites did nothing these past 40 years to curb. Still. Our ACTU elites have now come to understand that “Disruption” (see) is not always great fun, but a good part of the reason Useful Idiots can no longer be arsed joining unions.
Useful Idiot: This term can be applied to any person who disparages Western dominance in any way, but is best reserved for “Russian Sympathisers” (see). For as long as the Evil Empire of Russia has been making trouble, beating Nazis, giving 20 million military lives in the service of beating the Nazis (N.B. feel free to include all war dead when calculating lives taken by Stalin, as nearly everybody does) it has identified “useful idiots”. Actually, Lenin coined this phrase to describe the Western minds he would dominate with his communist rot. There is absolutely no record of Lenin writing or saying such a thing. This is likely because the Russians used mind control upon useful idiots of the West who destroyed any evidence of Lenin’s intrinsic, very Russian evil.
Russian Sympathiser: Any person who believes that the arbitrary detention of an Australian journalist is somehow a “big deal”. Any person who does not agree with Mike Pompeo. Any person who does not agree with Hillary Clinton. Any person who does not listen to this marvellous podcast from the ABC, any person who does not believe that evidence of Russian “interference” in the US election is hardly satisfied by the sale of $100,000 worth of Facebook ad space to persons who may not have been Russian, but certainly were very bad at making ads.
Thug: Putin, obviously. Any member of a trade union. Dead black children. Democratically elected leaders of nation-states. Not ever President Obama. No way. The deaths ordered by that guy were very tasteful, and, you know, Hillary Clinton left Libyans ungoverned and drowning in blood as a “Feminist” (see) statement. Essentially. Anyone you don’t like who wields power over “Useful Idiots” (see etc).
Billionaire Entrepreneur: Pretty much like Russian “Oligarchs” but from Silicon Valley, and similarly magnificent sites of Western “Disruption” (see) but with way more power and regular invitations to Davos.
Disruption: Used interchangeably with terms including “innovation” and “unregulated wealth accumulation”, this serves to make current crisis of Western underemployment seem sexy, lays blame for widespread wage stagnation with individual workers and deadens empathy for Uber drivers and their annoying haunted eyes prone to reflect memory of murdered Libyan relatives.
Feminism: Whatever you want. Explain anything, good or bad, as the by-product of feminism. An empty signifier.
Human Rights Abuses: China. China. China. Russia. Venezuela. North Korea. China. We don’t have these in Western nations. The US is not a police state, unlike China China China, and it does not hold the bulk of the world’s prison population — oh and Gitmo is not a centre for torture, but a hub for democracy. Do we have torture? No. We have, here in Australia, occasional mistakes made by individuals. The abuse of Dylan Voller was not torture, but a mistake. That 100% of minors in Northern Territory detention are Aboriginal persons is not a planned and racialised act of institutional torture, but a mistake. Torture? What are you talking about. We never do that, and when we do, it’s called “advanced interrogation”. Torture is what “Thugs” (see) do and “advanced interrogation” is much nicer, and entirely justified if enacted upon “Russian Sympathiser”. A group of persons hated by almost everyone decent, especially those who practice “Feminism” (see). “Feminism” (see) once felt similarly about Muslim persons, and, heavens, the NAMES I could give you of Australian ladies who were all up for a bit of “let’s bomb Afghanistan!” in 2001, but won’t, for fear of being named among “Elites” (see). Then, there was a great “Disruption” (see) and everyone started hating Russia, China and others who practice “Human Rights Abuses” and Islamophobia became unfashionable. You know. Except by those “elites” Rupert Murdoch despises.
I hope this clears things up.
Thanks Helen, that’s all clear now. Have you thought of publishing a fully-fledged dictionary of modern pejoratives?
The scales fall away from my eyes.
Good that, H.
Without wishing to resort to the hackneyed, such as ‘the exception makes the rule’ (as applied in your glossary), and assuming you and your readership understand where the Atlantic Council sits along the ‘elites’ spectrum, and how they ply their trade, I found this from the Council to provide a quite solid “WTF?!” moment;
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraine-s-got-a-real-problem-with-far-right-violence-and-no-rt-didn-t-write-this-headline
I’m not sure how the recent appointee to the Council’s ranks, he who doth go by the handle “Bellingcat”, took this deviation from standard Council fare but, I doubt it was “well”.
Clear as mud. Chinese mud.
Is there a word for a person who is harshly critical of the failure of Western governments to fully live up to their ideals of democracy and human rights, and yet has nothing bad to say about an authoritarian, kleptocratic murderer of journalists and political opponents, just because Western liberals criticize him?
A Trumpist?
A realist?
Perhaps you might like to indulge in a little stats analysis, to compare the virtue of your favoured Western liberals, with that of the fella you condense to ‘authoritarian, kleptocratic murderer of journalists and political opponents’.
If you don’t fancy the stats, cos they are going to fall well shy of what you seem to hold dear, get yourself a copy of Seymour Hersh’s recently released “Reporter: A Memoir”, just for starters as an eye opener.
If that doesn’t fill your boots, go back to the stats, and look at the simple body count, the fact the US has 800 bases all over the globe, funds around 70% of all military spending globally, has their batch and lot numbers all over weapons used by the likes of ISIS and Al Qaeda, organised coups in places like Ukraine, thereby installing rabid Nazis tied all the way back to Stefan Bandera in Kiev, fervently supports dictators and autocrats from Saudi Arabia to numerous Central and South American nations, ruined Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan etc, etc, has the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world, refuses to sign numerous treaties all over the globe, and the list goes on and on.
Then, if none of that gets you over the line to reality, find yourself the interview on Channel 4 in the UK, from last week, where Sergey Lavrov – the greatest international statesman to stride the world stage in 3 -4 decades – took the entire Western ‘liberal order’ to the freakin’ cleaners.
‘Western liberal order’ – what a joke. That’s 15% of the world’s population thinking they have the continuing inalienable right to continue to stomp on the other 85%, as they have done for the last couple of centuries.
And, if that doesn’t get you there, look up General Smedley Butler.
Reading this, Listening to AccaDacca “Highway To Hell”. Who says Intelligent Design is bunk? But maybe the Intelligent Designer, if She exists, would have put “The Rich Get Richer” in my play list……
Most of our political class can’t even be bothered to talk about the Aussie journalists murdered by Indonesia in the 70s, why would you let them get away with pretending to care about Putin?
If you’re someone that criticizes human rights abuses everywhere you find them, you could do no worse for allies. When the Australian government does decide to condemn something whatever crap government they are talking about can handwave them away with a multitude of examples they, as you so kindly put it, failed to “fully live up to their ideals”.
Mork I think your comment deserves more than flippancy (though Rais’s suggestion made me laugh). This article is largely sarcastic scorn, reminding me of some of the self-satisfied and unhelpful commentary from Crikey readers. Any valid points are drowned out in the tone. I tentatively submit this comment because I am a fan of Helen’s, but not this.