I've noticed that on media outlets that have a conservative slant (Fox News, USA Radio Network), they now refer to suicide bombers as "homicide" bombers. Is it just me, or is this a right-wing form of political correctness? Any other examples?

Does Freedom Fries count?

Not that I take the side of the neocon chicken-hawks too much, but in this case, they are correct.  If someone were a suicide bomber, he would take out only himself/herself with the bomb.  What such people do, however, is take out as many people with them as they can, thus the name, Homicide Bomber.  My $0.02

For one thing, the practices we call "politically correct" were only ever "left-wing" in the guise one might call Marxist-Leninism or the Maoist cultural revolution "left-wing."  Once you go that far Left, you meet the far Right on the other side of the political continuum.  In fact Josef Stalin coined the term "politically correct."  I never liked PC.  Not even in 1990 when the Revolution Book Store was selling pins with the caption "PC and Proud!," and the idea of "political correctness" was still used by those practicing it to describe what they were practicing.  Even in 1990 it was PC was losing ground because of the bitter experiences so many people encountered with it on campuses across the country.  I mean, it never took hold anywhere else but at universities and colleges, and academically-oriented areas such as Berkeley, Cambridge, Ann Arbor, or Amherst, where I live.
The entire PC movement was really a child of the militant struggles in the seventies for recognition and protection of ethnic, gay, and feminist agendas.  You can trace this even back to the Civil Rights movement. The political movements that colluded and clashed in those days were themselves diverse and rich.  Some of it was right-on, some of it was well-intended, but there was a lunatic fringe that was vicious and daft.  It's still out there.  I have seen it first hand.  As much as I think Dinesh D'Sousa is a twerp, I can't deny some of the anectdotes he included in "Illiberal Education" (1991) were examples of PC run amok.
I was called racist, sexist, and homophobic numerous times merely for disagreeing with prevailing doctrine on campus.  I can laugh about it now, but at the time race agitators were using these words to assail my position at the university radio station while the administration kow-towed to them.  It's a long story.  I also made the mistake of taking a women's studies course in 1993 which would affirm the stereotypes Dinesh D'Souza, David Horowitz, and Tammy Bruce throw at all academia.  But that's another story.

Right now the only people using the term "politically correct" in its ajectival, nominal, or abbreviated froms are right-wingers.  They use it in conservative media to describe anything they don't like.  The Right succeeded in portraying itself as a victim of the academic and Hollywood "elites," invariably described as PC.  It doesn't matter that the ideologies of the Right never stopped controlling the corporations, the banks, and the purse strings of the government.  Oh, there was a brief glimmer of under two decades from Kennedy to Carter in which "Liberalism" really did hold some sway in government.  The forces of big business and reactionary Protestantism conspired to kill it as soon as it arose and succeeded with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1981. 

Today, PC is a bogeyman and a lie, just like the term, "the liberal media," because those who persecute must always deflect attention from their own actions and portray themselves as victims of some great evil conspiracy.  This tactic succeeded in Nazi Germany, in Stalinist Russia, in Pol Pot's Cambodia, and it is working marvelously in the Fascist States of America.

Who is enforcing the "Merry Christmas" speech code?  The hired thugs on FOX News.  The only one to point out that "Happy Holidays" might just refer to Christmas and New Years is jester Jon Stewart!

I agree with Ian on this in terms of "homicide bombers", but lets put this PC stuff in perspective.  There are clearly a bucnh of words used to identify people that are, and are ment to be, offensive - egg head, niggar, sand niggar, spic, dago, red neck, trailer park trash, ****** - I must be  leaving a whole bunch out.  To label attempts to clean up our public discourse by discouraging the use  of these identifiers seems to me to be an attempt to take our civic discourse to a higher plane and introduce a bit of much needed civility.  I'll just address the first example.

Not only do I have an MA and Ph.D in history, I also have an ABD (all but dissertation) in Sociology.  I am interested in the world of ideas, read widely on any number of topics, and try to keep informed on a meriad of issues.  In short, I try to use my head for more than a hat rack.  And I have no inhibitions about voicing my analysis and conclusions (or about a lot of other stuff too  ;))  And I have been accused, either directly or indirectly, of being an egg head, most recently by my mail person (get the PC?  But sometimes its not a male).  What I'm saying is that to at least some extent, the anti PC movement is a reflection of the whole "anti" additude of our repressive culture.  To that extent, Budda, a Rhodes scholar, was an anomoly.  Good Godess, do we really want a smart president?

For one thing, the practices we call "politically correct" were only ever "left-wing" in the guise one might call Marxist-Leninism or the Maoist cultural revolution "left-wing."  Once you go that far Left, you meet the far Right on the other side of the political continuum.  In fact Josef Stalin coined the term "politically correct."  I never liked PC.  Not even in 1990 when the Revolution Book Store was selling pins with the caption "PC and Proud!," and the idea of "political correctness" was still used by those practicing it to describe what they were practicing.  Even in 1990 it was PC was losing ground because of the bitter experiences so many people encountered with it on campuses across the country.  I mean, it never took hold anywhere else but at universities and colleges, and academically-oriented areas such as Berkeley, Cambridge, Ann Arbor, or Amherst, where I live.
The entire PC movement was really a child of the militant struggles in the seventies for recognition and protection of ethnic, gay, and feminist agendas.  You can trace this even back to the Civil Rights movement. The political movements that colluded and clashed in those days were themselves diverse and rich.  Some of it was right-on, some of it was well-intended, but there was a lunatic fringe that was vicious and daft.  It's still out there.  I have seen it first hand.  As much as I think Dinesh D'Sousa is a twerp, I can't deny some of the anectdotes he included in "Illiberal Education" (1991) were examples of PC run amok.
I was called racist, sexist, and homophobic numerous times merely for disagreeing with prevailing doctrine on campus.  I can laugh about it now, but at the time race agitators were using these words to assail my position at the university radio station while the administration kow-towed to them.  It's a long story.  I also made the mistake of taking a women's studies course in 1993 which would affirm the stereotypes Dinesh D'Souza, David Horowitz, and Tammy Bruce throw at all academia.  But that's another story.

Right now the only people using the term "politically correct" in its ajectival, nominal, or abbreviated froms are right-wingers.  They use it in conservative media to describe anything they don't like.  The Right succeeded in portraying itself as a victim of the academic and Hollywood "elites," invariably described as PC.  It doesn't matter that the ideologies of the Right never stopped controlling the corporations, the banks, and the purse strings of the government.  Oh, there was a brief glimmer of under two decades from Kennedy to Carter in which "Liberalism" really did hold some sway in government.  The forces of big business and reactionary Protestantism conspired to kill it as soon as it arose and succeeded with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1981. 

Today, PC is a bogeyman and a lie, just like the term, "the liberal media," because those who persecute must always deflect attention from their own actions and portray themselves as victims of some great evil conspiracy.  This tactic succeeded in Nazi Germany, in Stalinist Russia, in Pol Pot's Cambodia, and it is working marvelously in the Fascist States of America.

Who is enforcing the "Merry Christmas" speech code?  The hired thugs on FOX News.  The only one to point out that "Happy Holidays" might just refer to Christmas and New Years is jester Jon Stewart!


Right or Left, PC is a plague.

Does Freedom Fries count?
That's a prime example of what I'm talking about. My brother went into a restaurant in my home town, one which I haven't set foot in for 20 years because I used to work there when I was a teenager, and the guy who ran it back then is still there, and he was one of the biggest f**king a**holes I've ever met in my life. Anyway, just to show how big of a f**king a**hole this guy is, when my brother went in there recently, he said that on the menu they still have "freedom fries."
  That guy can "freedom kiss" my a**hole.

That's a prime example of what I'm talking about. My brother went into a restaurant in my home town, one which I haven't set foot in for 20 years because I used to work there when I was a teenager, and the guy who ran it back then is still there, and he was one of the biggest f**king a**holes I've ever met in my life. Anyway, just to show how big of a f**king a**hole this guy is, when my brother went in there recently, he said that on the menu they still have "freedom fries."
   That guy can "freedom kiss" my a**hole.


Most of those "patriots" are a**holes.  They have nothing to live for, so they live for their precious country.

It's very precious, Donnie. Can't we all just get along?  :(

It's very precious, Donnie. Can't we all just get along?  :(


Of course :)

i'm posting on this thread just so it'll come up when i refresh.

i think political correctness too is becoming a bit of a policing term. any time you even mention racism or sexism now you get accused of being PC or "playing the race card." um, sorry, but racism and sexism exist?

i'm posting on this thread just so it'll come up when i refresh.

i think political correctness too is becoming a bit of a policing term. any time you even mention racism or sexism now you get accused of being PC or "playing the race card." um, sorry, but racism and sexism exist?


What PC is just taking something to the other extreme.  Racism is awful, and in the beginning PC was to prevent racism, but it eventually became "don't hurt anyone's feelings".  Which may sound good, but some people are way too sensitive.

i'm posting on this thread just so it'll come up when i refresh.

i think political correctness too is becoming a bit of a policing term. any time you even mention racism or sexism now you get accused of being PC or "playing the race card." um, sorry, but racism and sexism exist?


I agree, Tia. Too often the term "PC" is demonized by those who feel it will further their agenda. On the flipside, I've seen feelings surrounding the "race card" and other issues exploited by others in the same way. Some people seem to be more interested in provoking reactions instead of encouraging real dialogue; it's more about about getting seen on the soapbox than it is about meaningful change. That's not cool. IMO, of course.

That's not to say that racism and sexism aren't still relavent issues, but that's my two cents. Actually, I'm broke...y'all will have to be satisfied with one cent.  :)

I agree, Tia. Too often the term "PC" is demonized by those who feel it will further their agenda. On the flipside, I've seen feelings surrounding the "race card" and other issues exploited by others in the same way. Some people seem to be more interested in provoking reactions instead of encouraging real dialogue; it's more about about getting seen on the soapbox than it is about meaningful change. That's not cool. IMO, of course.

That's not to say that racism and sexism aren't still relavent issues, but that's my two cents. Actually, I'm broke...y'all will have to be satisfied with one cent.  :)



I think we need balance.  Racism is terrible, and so is limiting speech because people want to get something for nothing or are just illogically sensitive.  I do think PC is used to justify being racist, though. 

Why are people racist?  After all, all our bodies are pretty nasty really.

oo! i like our bodies.

I think my generation rebels against political correctness by being racist and sexist, but they don't appreciate the really racist and sexist aspect of it (again, this doesn't refer to everybody, it more refers to most of the people I've met in the Northeast, including to some extent myself.) Racism and sexism are still huge problems, and I think alot of progress from before the '80s has been undone since then totally by the mass media, hip-hop culture, big business, etc.

I think my generation rebels against political correctness by being racist and sexist, but they don't appreciate the really racist and sexist aspect of it (again, this doesn't refer to everybody, it more refers to most of the people I've met in the Northeast, including to some extent myself.) Racism and sexism are still huge problems, and I think alot of progress from before the '80s has been undone since then totally by the mass media, hip-hop culture, big business, etc.

I do agree, Vel, but I must also say that the more wrathful and extremist elements of the social justice movements disgusted a lot of otherwise sympathetic people.  I'm one of them.  The late Betty Friedan was another!  Ms. Friedan was one of the founding mothers of modern feminism, but even she was labeled as a turncoat when she spoke up against the movement's over-emphaisis on lesbianism and man-hating. 
I have at various times been labeled sexist-racist-homophobe for merely pointing out the self-defeating nature of constantly playing the victim. 
The academic cranks on the university campuses have given the opponents of social justice ample ammo to shoot down the whole social justice movement as twisted and hateful. 

I consider myself a feminist (not feminine, but feminist) in that I believe in the advancement of women's rights, education, opportunities, and well-being throughout the world.  However, I make distinction between the rich and privileged women of means in the West, and the systemically oppressed women who live in fear and poverty here and abroad.  Upper-class feminists tried to erase the distinction between them and their "sisters" in Iran or the Sudan, but I say that's a bridge too far.  I also do not think working as a porn model or a stripper confers any social "power" upon a woman.  It merely makes her a part of that "oldest profession."  I have much contempt for the Annie Sprinkle/Nina Hartley "slut" feminism.  I think it's totally bogus. 

Anyway...

That's a prime example of what I'm talking about. My brother went into a restaurant in my home town, one which I haven't set foot in for 20 years because I used to work there when I was a teenager, and the guy who ran it back then is still there, and he was one of the biggest f**king a**holes I've ever met in my life. Anyway, just to show how big of a f**king a**hole this guy is, when my brother went in there recently, he said that on the menu they still have "freedom fries."
   That guy can "freedom kiss" my a**hole.


People often do things like this for different reasons.

When my great-grandfather left the Reservation in Oaklahoma in 1915, it was illegal for him to do so.  He moved to California, and changed his last name from "Little Running Wolf" to simply "Wolfe".

Then along came World War I.  Since Wolfe was normally a German spelling, he changed his last name again, to Wolf.  In the 1920's, he changed it back to Wolfe.

Then along came World War II.  Once again, being considered German was bad once again, so he changed it again to Wolf.  This time, he left it alone, and that is the name he died with in 1978.

Myself, you have the right to go to a place that sells "Freedom Fries", or you can avoid it.  But it is their business, and I feel that it is their right to call them whatever they want.

Of course, I would just call them Papas Fritas.  :D