I love words.
I’ve been using them a long time.
I cherish them as mysterious, often invisible messengers when spoken of meaning and thought ranging from sacred to profane.
Words are like children.
They should be cherished and nurtured, but in this world words can neglected.
Words can be abused.
I’m offended when that happens. It bothers me. I received a glossy piece of printed material in my mailbox yesterday. It had a lot of words printed on it, plus pictures in full color. The thing bothered me because it abused words.
The glossy oversized postcard admonished me to “Vote For Clean Water & Lower Costs”, but for the life of me I don’t remember Clean Water or Lower Costs mentioned on the current ballot. I can’t write them in like candidates, because there’s no referendum and my vote would be discarded.
I like Clean Water. I drink it all the time and I appreciate Lower Costs.
What Lower Costs?
Do those words refer to the Cost of gasoline, toothpaste, house paint, Brussels sprouts, hair care products or tires for my car? Maybe Lower Costs refers to a new flat screen TV or tickets to the symphony or dinner out next Friday night.
Like I said, I love words. I hate to see them abused by implied importance without substance, words pandered to seduce voters who read, but don’t require meaning.
The glossy card stock in my mailbox probably arrived in lots of other mailboxes too, maybe all the mailboxes for miles around. That must have been very expensive considering acquisition of a mailing list, then production to include design, layout, printing and postage.
Ironically, the thing in the mailbox calls for political leaders who will stand up to corporations hungry for profit, ignoring the fact it takes a lot of somebody’s money to conduct a mass mailing less than a week before an election.
It calls for leaders who can insure (or is it ensure?) little kids can breathe good air and drink good water.
I know of no candidate on earth who can make those promises and keep them, not unless they are willing to sit down with corporations if corporations are responsible and work out solutions.
They say one picture is worth a thousand words.
It may be true.
If it is the political action group responsible for this mailing can consider itself lucky. That would be the political action group with a return address to a commercial parcel delivery service outside the district in question and a fine print disclaimer which disavows candidate authorization so no campaign finance report need include whatever the mailing cost, because neither the candidate or the candidate’s election committee gave approval.
There’s a picture covering one entire side of the mailing.
It’s a slick image.
That image may persuade some people that words aren’t important, that words don’t matter.
In this case they’d be right.
The words used for promotion on this presorted piece of propaganda aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.