the fabulous wordgames
… 
on display everywhere.
Changing the meaning of words is nothing new, but as we write the year 2020 not much of what is being served in news channels, from political and religious circles, and other sources, makes any sense without being wrapped in an entirely new vocabulary and oversimplified “newspeak”* to back up the maddening gobbledygook and propaganda for and against whatever.
This or that factor is presented as either being so much better than it has ever been in living memory, or so much worse than
it has ever been – at least in same timeframe, that new superlatives have had to be invented to describe the
situation and how good and/or bad it is and/or will become if we follow these or some other self-appointed leaders and
buy into their lines of thought hook, line and sinker.
Conclusion: “those who cannot do much, tend to talk a lot”*.
Life exposed to all those oversized billboards filled with
advertisements for yet more stupid and destructive ideas, is getting awfully
monotonous and boring.
History repeats itself … like bad jokes.
Guess I am repeating myself too, but I know history (over a much longer timeframe) well enough to learn from
and build on it, rather than ignore, hide and/or rewrite what may disturb the oversensitive. History is what it is,
regardless of what anyone would want it to have been.
We have been here before – every other decade or so, and those who are unvilling to recognise all historical
facts – including the worst parts in the darkest and nastiest chapters, are doomed to repeat most of it …
vocabulary and all.
overwhelmed by empty talk?
People who want to sell us something, being it ideas or products, tend to talk a lot and often mix facts and fiction to the absurd. The more they talk the less sense they make, and some sales people seem to suffer from extraordinarily bad cases of vocabulary diarrhea and argue in circles for ever.
Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.
— Plato
There are of course many jobs available for talkative people these days. As front figures in radio and TV news and entertainment, as stand-up commedians, as politicians, etc., etc…
Many stand up to speak about their fabulous ideas and good intentions, but not much of what they say makes sense if
we look behind the many borrowed and fasionable words and hypes they spice up their speeches with. One may wonder how many, if any,
of those who speak actually know what they are talking about, or if they are just parroting each other because they think they should,
or because they are being paid. Incredible what can be said if the pay is good.
So, on the wider stage the vocabulary artistry is pretty mixed and not often all that poetic, and if one tries to listen to it all one risks developing hearing problems and a serious headache. Or worse; one may actually start to believe some of what has been said, and overlook what those who spoke do – that's how disasters are allowed to happen.
who said what, where, and when?
An interesting set of questions there, often asked but in all but the rarest cases inadequately answered. Wonder why that is…
In reality it does not matter much who said what, as once something that others can use to their advantage has been said, it will be spun around until nobody who participates or listens in knows for sure where and in what form it originated, and very few care about autenticity.
The twists and turns of the most fabulous wordgames can go in circles for so long, that variants of what has or has not been said
become ingrained in human history in all the wrong forms and with all the wrong source-references. History books are full of
misquotes, rewrites, whitewashing and lies, and from the history writers points of view everything that has ever gone
wrong has always been “the others” fault.
Unintentional and intentional misquotes of more recent statements are also plentiful – spreading pretty quickly via news channels and social media. Thus, taking all with more than a few grains of salt until it can be properly checked, is just common sense. Quoted half-truths and half-lies fall into the same group, as neither survive proper fact-checks.
handling of wordgames
I am no leader, and most certainly no follower, and I have no serious hearing problems despite my slightly advanced age.
Letting most of the lofty gobbledygook pass by unnoticed is my preferred method for dealing with
ongoing wordgames, regardless of source.
Eventually the noise-pollution will land on one or another side of some imaginary walls and can be
evaluated, or (most likely) it will end up in the trashcan.
Either way; not much is lost on using the time otherwise spent on listening to what a bunch of more or less unimportant
people have to say about this and that, on more important matters on the local stage. Like watching light raindrops falling on
an autumn flower, or writing down some thoughts about similarly earth-shaking phenomena.
I can play wordgames too, and I don't need to switch vocabulary to do so.
sincerely 
Hageland 03.oct.2020
last rev: 06.oct.2020