The Language of the Ownership Society
I'm always taken by the language of the Ownership Society. I'm dazzled by how it's used and misused to obfuscate and mystify. For example, I love the word sequestration. For one thing, as a blogger, I've gone about as far as I can go with the fiscal cliff, as in: "We're not afraid of the fiscal cliff. Many of us are already over it." I even had the term banned as own of my New Year's resolutions. You've never heard it since then. Have you?
Of course, sequestration is nothing new. The working poor and the rapidly disintegrating middle class have been the targets of sequestration for the past three decades or more.
You could say it began with the dismantling of the labor unions during the Reagan years. Or maybe in the '90s with Clinton's so-called "welfare reform." Sequestration currently takes the form of
