> I for one suggest "production assurance security forces" instead of "paramilitary death squads".

This is along the lines of my favorite essay, Orwell's Politics and the English Language

http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit

> we are all familiar with the habit of the powerful of spinning atrocities with words.

Are your words not maybe slightly jaded?

If you're not jaded in 2018 you're not paying attention.

I've actually gotten significantly less jaded in 2018. I attribute that to finally doing something about my participation in the toxic cesspool of internet politics, quitting my steady diet of outrage porn, and looking at the big picture.

The absolute best thing we can do for our cynicism is read Factfulness, by Hans Rosling. Once you see the ways our otherwise intelligent, well informed, and good-intentioned minds mislead us, you realize that there's a lot less to be jaded about than you thought. But even before reading Factfulness, I made a lot of progress just by reading a lot more history and philosophy, and a lot less Facebook, Twitter, and Google News.

The whole urgent vs important dichotomy that ruins our ability to manage our work also ruins our ability to manage our understanding of the world.

While I don't disagree with the sentiment, I think we're on the cusp of better things. Maybe that just means I'm ignorant, but I see a lot of potential in the world, and especially in young people.

This statement pretty well epitomizes everything that's wrong with politics in the US.