My, how times have changed...

[BrewTech]

...and Google will verify it!

This morning I ran into one of my neighbors (single mom) and her two elementary school aged kids as they were walking their dog. She was talking to Mrs BT about how her work had changed her schedule, which was good so she didn't have to send her kids to daycare today, because they had an "early release" day. And when using that term, it came out as natural as "good morning".

When she said that, it occurred to me that "early release" is a term that I had always strongly (and exclusively) associated, of course, with the prison system. It has been discussed many times here and other places about how the modern education system is clearly morphing with the traditional prison model in its operations, although it seems that most people don't (or won't) consciously acknowledge this fact. It is a topic that rarely finds its way into polite conversation, to be sure.

Typing terms into Google these days can give good insight about how society-at-large associates makes meaning of words and ideas. After discussing school/prison concept with Mrs BT, I had to see what Google thought. As it turns out, my suspicions were correct!

Google will show thumbnails of the most relevant images at the top of the listings, and then relevant results underneath. All I can say is WOW.

Type "early release" into Google. (My results give local stuff, so I won't post the URL that Google generated on my end) I'd love to hear folks' thoughts about the subject of the modern prison/education system, as well as how the largest search engine in the world can be used as a tool to gain insight on how language is being used to change the way humans view the world around them.

[woodman]

The word institutionalized comes to mind. Dependency. Is the aim.

[EE_]

You could have corrected her and said, "you mean 'early dismissal' don't you?...'release' is a term used in their prison system.
Are your children in prison?"

I still resent being called a "consumer" by our overlords.

[Dogman]

You could have corrected her and said, "you mean 'early dismissal' don't you?...'release' is a term used in their prison system.
Are your children in prison?"

I still resent being called a "consumer" by our overlords.


Yes,

kid prison aka germ factory's!

[palani]

I see the term 'swiped' on credit card receipts. I point to the term and tell the clerk "I came by the card legally. I didn't swipe it."

[Dachsie]

“words are pegs to hang ideas on.”

Beecher HW. Proverbs From Plymouth Project. New York, NY: D. Appleton and Co.; 1887


I know "early release" is a bit offensive but it is mild compared to some of the other word manipulations that have been going on for decades.

I tried to see what that term meant in my local schools and it is just a schedule of the days in the calendar school year when students will be dismissed early from school. I was unclear about the example you neighbor gave because the term as I understand it would not make day care unnecessary every school day, only the early dismissal days that are only a few times each year.

Many times today in discussing health care in government and insurance deliberations, the term "consumer" is substituted for patient.

Client
occupant
survivor
______challenged

yadda yadda

Sometimes the substituted word effects a profound dehumanization of a person so that they are an economic unit or object or some lower inanimate entity.

Sometimes the substituted word subtly conveys they idea that say, for example, a "holocaust suvivor" is meant to convey that the holocaust was very real and many people were tortured and murdered and that any person who "survived" that is a very special person who deserves very special preferential treatment.

Sometimes the word, for example, client, can afford a more dignified term for someone who is seeking free government program help/handouts. This can be a good thing.

Generally, the new word descriptors are to dehumanize people. Humans are not special. People are not individuals with souls. People are objects or units to be collectivized and controlled. In fact, humans cause most of the world's problems and ought not ever to be given kindness and care and concern and really ought to be treated like cattle and let only the fittest or strongest survive or be allowed to live. How someone views the individual human being is very telling of that person's worldview. Christianity, if I understand Christ's words rightly, teaches us to highly value each and every human life and to treat people with dignity and justice.

I never liked elementary school or high school. I was expelled from kindergarten. I went to a private school but I just hated the school experience generally. I recently have picked up two little friends in public elementary school and I see how things are there now. It does not look quite as prison like as some do by the fact that they have brightly painted "portables" or small separate classroom outbuildings because the original main building has been outgrown and won't hold all the students (all the illegal alien children probably). There are many open gates on all sides to leave the grounds and when picking a child up from school, one does not even have to go in the main building nor have to exit via a tightly monitored gate. Something bad will probably happen and probably change that to more like a prison.

[Tumbleweed]

I still resent being called a "consumer" by our overlords.


They call us "consumers" we call them "parasites". SOB's