"'Move Forward' BS" - April 2005

This is something I wrote in April 2005 and recently stumbled upon again.  I've re-edited it for this post - you can see the original [here]. - LHS


As I recently commented to a friend:

I have developed something of an allergy to the expression "move forward" as 100% of the time I've heard it used to date, it has been used by people vastly more interested in politics, deception, and personal comfort/gain than in reality and quality, especially if it means some slight extra effort be made by said politicians.

I recently received the following phrase from a (nearly illiterate) politician (who is strangely working as an editor):

"Need to move forward on this now."

This in response to the 1st draft of a story and this politician's 1st (mutant) edit of it, with which there were mistakes (his,  not mine) that needed to be corrected.  (Note that the urgent demand for speed was sent with the editor's very first changes to my article - and the article is to be published three months down the road!).  Do you see how offensive that is?  It's saying "I can't be bothered with you and I'm going to do what I want - buzz off!"

While in something like a "letter to the editor" column, newspapers edit as they see fit, in the case of a writer having an article published under their own name, they deserve to have at least one chance to affect change on something the editor has put their hand into, especially when the editor's writing style is at odds with the original author and - in this case - the "editor" can't write properly and appears to be relying on the defective "grammar checker" function of MS-Word.

I ignored the "Need to move forward on this now" line and sent in a version with just a couple of fixes for things I felt most strongly about, and also changed a couple of lines to fit in with some new bits that were put in.  On previous occasions, I was spared the "need to move forward with this now" line until after my one chance to affect change....  [Note: My requested changes were implemented, so all's well that ends well I suppose....]  [Second note: Not really - things got worse after that (with the next article).]

I say to the world now:

We need to move forward with truth and reality, and stop moving forward with lies and destructive politics!

Note:  "Move forward" seems to be someone's idea of an "improvement" on the perfectly good words "go ahead".  It's just a dirty trick actually.  Most people are none too pleased to hear someone say "Well, I'm going to go ahead and do what I want to do, regardless of what you think", but when  PR-BS people utter the words "We need to move forward with this now", they tend to get away with their extreme rudeness and sophistry with the suggested lie that there is something mutual about the unilateral decision they are making - but they shouldn't get away with it!  Bloody sophists!  $%#%$$%$%$#!!!

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://youtube.com/lylehsaxon
http://tokyoartmusic.blogspot.com/