Not properly thought through

Reading the posts on Bristol Indymedia recently, I’ve been intrigued by the activist and anarchist posters who all seem to have webspace on MySpace.

Visiting MySpace and doing a site search for well-used radical terms reveals some surprising results. As a taster, here are just two:

• Anarchist – over 41,000 hits;
• Anti-capitalist – 1,500 hits.

In case readers are unaware of the fact, MySpace is owned by NewsCorp, the multinational conglomerate owned by Rupert Murdoch, better known to Private Eye readers as the Dirty Digger, who has been devouring media companies around the world for the last 4 decades.

Were all those anarchists and anti-capitalists with MySpace sites thinking straight when they signed up? Were they even aware they were dealing with the media world’s equivalent of the devil?

I just hope they’ve got long spoons when they’re invited to sup.

The language of something to hide?

Politicians have long used language as a means of obscuring their true intentions. This was recognised by George Orwell, who stated: “Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

In recent years lumpen, ugly jargon has been increasingly used by workers and others in the public, voluntary and community sectors. What may have started out as a means of professional shorthand has now got completely out of hand. At a recent event I attended everyone was on about “sustainability”, but did they all mean the same thing? Hardly likely, given how it’s now used for every conceivable concept from financial viability to environmental friendliness.

However, the most worrying development in my opinion is that those same people mentioned above now use this jargon instead of proper English when addressing mere mortals. This happened in an email I received earlier today via the Easton Yahoo Group, which had the following piece of obscurantist gibberish in the middle of notice of a meeting on the River Frome:

“There will also be an update on a recent walkabout held with residents and agencies to initiate environmental service changes in key problem areas.“

So, council officers, residents and others went for a wander, but to do what? If they mean look at bits of Easton that need cleaning up and plan such, I’m all in favour. If that’s what they mean to do, why don’t they just say it in plain English!