General Discussion

bigtree

(86,005 posts) Sun Dec 17, 2017, 11:42 AM Dec 2017

Trump administration list of forbidden words is worse than you thought

Caroline O.? @RVAwonk
My latest --> War on truth: The Trump administration’s list of forbidden words is worse than you thought https://t.co/gZtynTfok0

...according to a new report by the Post, the ban extends beyond the CDC, and applies to multiple agencies across the Department of Health and Human Services. It also encompasses more than the seven words cited in the initial report.

Officials from two HHS agencies told the Post that they had also been given a list of forbidden words similar to the one given to the CDC on Thursday. At one HHS agency, officials were told not to use the phrases “entitlement,” “diversity,” and “vulnerable” in documents. The agency was also told to use “Obamacare” instead of the “Affordable Care Act,” and to refer to “marketplaces”— where consumers buy health insurance—as “exchanges.”

Similar directives were issued at the State Department, where employees were told to refer to sex education as “sexual risk avoidance,” a term that generally refers to abstinence-only education. This is in line with the contents of a White House memo that was leaked in October, revealing the administration’s plans to wage war on women’s health and reproductive freedom.

In a separate report, one medical leader said CDC employees had also been directed not to use the term “health equity” in presentations or public talks, suggesting that the ban may not be limited to budget documents.

read more: https://t.co/gZtynTfok0

6 replies

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Highlight:

Trump administration list of forbidden words is worse than you thought (Original Post) bigtree Dec 2017 OP

"It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words." dalton99a Dec 2017 #1

More than just words, the destruction of concepts. Irish_Dem Dec 2017 #2

words matter, science matters bigtree Dec 2017 #3

I've got two words for Trump. C_U_L8R Dec 2017 #4

Totalitarian States ban words. Then they move on to books, movies and ideas Va Lefty Dec 2017 #5

Can't the agencies just tell the administration to go fuck themselves? PoindexterOglethorpe Dec 2017 #6

dalton99a

(81,566 posts)

1. "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."

Reply to bigtree (Original post)

Sun Dec 17, 2017, 11:45 AM

Dec 2017

- George Orwell, 1984

Irish_Dem

(47,243 posts)

2. More than just words, the destruction of concepts.

Reply to dalton99a (Reply #1)

Sun Dec 17, 2017, 11:49 AM

Dec 2017

Destroying the scientific method moves us back a hundred years

bigtree

(86,005 posts)

3. words matter, science matters

Reply to dalton99a (Reply #1)

Sun Dec 17, 2017, 11:51 AM

Dec 2017

Trump, Stalin and the Price of Replacing Science with Ideological B.S.

____Stalin like Trump only wanted to hear scientific words when they confirmed his political beliefs. He did not care if by implementing false news he killed millions of his citizens. Trump with his decision to ban scientific terms in public policy that don’t suit his taste is proudly marching in Uncle Joe’s bloody footsteps.

Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was a scientist who spouted the long discredited Larmarckian theory of evolution by acquired characteristics –that environment directly shaped genetic heredity.

Unfortunately for Lysenko and for those living in Russia and the other Soviet republics —Lamarck’s theory of evolution by acquired characteristics was wrong. Darwin’s theory of natural selection accurately explains how plant crops evolve. Joseph Stalin did not give a damn. Lysenko’s nonsense fit nicely into Stalin’s Marxist beliefs about the malleability of humans. When Lysenko promised greater crop yields using Lamarckian nonsense, he listened. Then he made it a state-sanctioned truth. The USSR Academy of Science was told by Stalin and his minions in 1948 to pass a resolution outlawing any biological work that was not based on Lysenko’s ideas. Stalin banned words he disliked just like Trump.

Lysenko’s followers went on to make increasingly grandiose claims regarding crop yields and how to produce new crop species. Not until 1953, after the death of Stalin, did the Soviet government acknowledge that Soviet agriculture had failed to provide the food needed by Russia and the Soviet State. Millions died.

Words matter. Science matters. A lot. Censorship and demands for ideological purity over scientific truth in Russia, Germany, China, North Korea and elsewhere can and have killed hundreds of millions.

read: http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2017/12/16/trump-stalin-and-the-price-of-replacing-science-with-ideological-b-s/