If Liz were Queen

Mainstream media and the American people just mindlessly incorporate into our language the words fed to us by corporate and government propagandists.  We need to start paying attention and rejecting, even making fun of their obvious self-serving euphemisms because words do matter.

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In an article published yesterday in Common Dreams by Ralph Nader titled Words Matter , Nader points this out.

” . . . The raging debate and controversy over health insurance and the $2.5 trillion spent this year on health care involves consumers and “providers.” How touching to describe sellers or vendors, often gouging, denying benefits, manipulating fine print contracts, cheating Medicare and Medicaid in the tens of billions as “providers.”

I always thought “providers” were persons taking care of their families or engaging in charitable service. Somehow, the dictionary definition does not fit the frequently avaricious profiles of Aetna, United Healthcare, Pfizer and Merck. . .”

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QUEEN’S COMMENTS ON “PROVIDERS”
In fact, from the Queen’s viewpoint, to call these greedy shysters “providers” is a lie.  The don’t provide a damn thing.  They do not for example “provide” health care and in many cases they don’t even provide health care insurance. (Ask 80% of the people who filed bankruptcies because of medical bill who HAD health care “insurance.”)   I guess you could call them “providers” if you are talking about the profits that they “provide” their CEO’s and preferred share holders.

Health care insurance companies are unnecessary middle men.  That’s what they are.  They don’t provide a damn thing of value–any more than bankers who loan other people’s money and then charge many times the value of the original loan in interests.  These people are NOT providers.  They are takers.

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NOT “FREE TRADE” BUT CORPORATE MANAGED TRADE

My favorite of them all that Nader pointed out is the euphemism that the right wing LOVE–”FREE TRADE”.
I’ve posted articles on the topic too, pointing out that there is no such thing as “free” trade. (See Free Market is and always has been a myth; It’s your Ideology, Stupid, Not your Cultural Diversity Image

Nader had this to say about “free” trade:  “. . .“Free trade” is a widely used euphemism. It is corporate managed trade as evidenced in hundreds of pages of rules favoring corporations in NAFTA and the World Trade Organization. “Free trade” lowers barriers between countries so that cartels, unjustified patent monopolies, counterfeiting, contraband, and other harmful practices and products can move around the world unhindered. . .”