Talking Points Memo: ‘The War on Everything’

Source:Talking Points Memo– CNN, doing a report on torture. Hopefully they didn’t title it: “The War On Torture” LOL

Source:Real Life Journal

“The War On Everything”

From Talking Points Memo

There are several words that are overused to the point, that I would almost like to see them disappear. Like a hot song, that sounds great for a the first couple of weeks, but then you get tired of hearing it and a song like that generally comes from a one-hit wonder. Someone like the group Dream, that was big ten years ago or so. With their song Love Me or Love Me Not, I think was the title. But if I had to put a list of lets say the top 5-10 words that are overused in America, going from 1-5, it would now be war, which just recently replaced awesome to me as the most overused word in America.

When I think of war, I think of combat, where people can get hurt or even die. Where lives can even be saved. The Iraqi War comes to mind, the Civil War in Syria would be a another one, the Vietnam War. But if you are not familiar with military combat, but somehow familiar with American politics, which would be really odd, you would have to be the ultimate political junky to meet that criteria, where all you are interested in is politics, you only follow campaigns and speeches and don’t see anything else in the world, you would think war is purely a political term. The war on this and that and so-forth. The War on Women, the War on Capitalism, the War on Freedom, the War on Religious Liberty, etc. First of all: most of these things are fabricated.

The War on Women, thats not a war. Now you can make the case that House Republicans are making an effort to limit females access to certain health care. But thats not a war, its a campaign at best and they sound funny and perhaps clever and easy to remember, make good sound bites, etc. But these aren’t wars, they are campaigns at best. I’ve been guilty of this myself using the word of war with my blogging. I wrote one blog post that I called the Christian-Right’s War on Freedom, but I was half-joking. Perhaps I should’ve said the Christian-Conservative Campaign Against Freedom. Which would be accurate and would also be easy to remember.

But a lot of times when people say The War on This or That, they generally aren’t talking about a War on This or That. They are generally talking about something specific. Just to round out my list of words that are overused in America top 5-10 that I mentioned earlier, that hopefully may end up on the Late Show Top 10 List, perhaps as soon as beach houses go for sale in North Dakota or just after that) War would be at the top of the list for reasons I’ve already explained.

Followed by awesome: If everything is awesome, nothing is awesome. It seems like every time someone sees something they like now it’s, awesome!!! When I think of the word awesome, I think of something or someone that’s really amazing, good or bad, that there is no other way to explain it. Most of things in the world don’t meet that criteria. A team isn’t awesome just because they won the championship, they might not be awesome at all. A good meal or movie, band, song, whatever, aren’t always awesome, they may just be good at that particular time.

Two other words that thank goodness have died down over that last few years, perhaps with Paris Hilton being in the news less (or in jail) are hot and fabulous. For the same reasons as awesome and I said top 5-10 and I’ve only done a top 4, or how about Fab 4, number five and then I got to wrap up. And I’m sorry if I offend any valley people, girl or guy here, but you guys and gals are big targets of mine. But like and totally, especially when they are put together. “Like totally!” That is so annoying to me!

And oh my God, especially when they are put together, thats nine and WTF. (Hopefully you know what thats short for) All for the same reasons as awesome. And there you have it my top now list of words that are overused and I’m tired of hearing. But look I understand lazy when it comes to language in America is in and thinking for one’s self especially when it comes to expressing themselves and risking standing out, is not really in especially if you come as different. But being a person an individual is exactly that. And with that comes the freedom for people to be themselves, even if they are different from the pack or group.