The changes that were, ahem, “voted in” in Venezuela were termed “reforms” by the lefty headline writers at the BBC. Power Line’s John Hinderaker can’t believe it:
I was startled by this headline on the BBC site: “Voting ends on Venezuela reforms.” At first I thought it was careless usage by a headline writer. But no: the BBC’s second sentence reads:
The raft of reforms would see the end of presidential term limits and the Central Bank’s autonomy removed.
Nor is that all; the BBC calls Hugo Chavez’s grab for unconstrained power a “reform” no fewer than four times, and describes Chavez’s opponents as “anti-reform.”
George Orwell said Newspeak’s goal was to remove from the language words for inconvenient concepts, thus eliminating those concepts. Looks like we’re on our way, with the help of the media, of course.
UPDATE: Those “reforms” have been defeated. Good for the Venezuelan people. Now it will be interesting to see how Hugo reacts. Early stories yesterday predicted a win for Chavez (or at least a close enough result that he could rig the outcome), which is why I used the phrase “voted in” yesterday. Sorry for jumping the gun. TigerHawk thinks King Juan Carlos of Spain may have had a hand in it.
