American Newspeak

Orwell Awards 

The “pre-emptive strikes” on logic and the English language by politicians, CEOs, and the media has turned into one of our Empire’s major industries. In recognition of the cutting edge advances being made today in American Newspeak, we are offering these awards to deserving individuals. Entries were judged by an exacting standard—how many times their utterances would make George Orwell roll over in his grave. Here are this month’s winners.  

Father Knows Best 

The U.S. Justice Department broke new ground with its crafting of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003. Among its finer encroachments on civil liberties, revealed by the Center for Public Integrity, is Section 501. It would allow the government to strip U.S. citizenship away from anyone giving “material support” to any group designated as terrorists. 

Some of you may recall the U.S. Constitution forbids depriving Americans of their citizenship. A minor point. Justice Department lawyers adroitly found a loophole—the Constitution allows people to voluntarily give up their rights. The bill’s authors then reasoned, “an intent to relinquish nationality need not be manifested in words, but can be inferred from conduct.”  

Getting the Visuals 

When Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the UN, his background “visuals” consisted of blue draperies neatly trimmed by a row of flags. Few knew the draperies had to be installed that morning to cover over a work of art that normally stands there—a massive tapestry reproduction of Picasso’s famous anti-war painting “Guernica.” 

Speaking in defense of the cover-up of Picasso’s images of dying women, children, and animals was UN spokesperson Steph- ane Dujaric, who stated, “We needed the right background that would work on television.” (If only Picasso had painted happy faces.) Unbeknownst to him, Powell was presenting the world with a perfect metaphor of how our policies and language of “collateral damage” cover over the realities of human suffering.      

Term Paper 

The British government was forced to admit that large sections of their “up-to-date” report on Iraq’s deception had been lifted word for word from an article by a postgraduate student in California named Ibrahim al Mirashi. The plagiarism was so blatant that even spelling and punctuation errors from the original articles had been repeated. 

However, our English colony deserves praise for a number of key improvements on Marashi’s prose. Where the student described the Iraqi intelligence agency as “monitoring foreign embassies in Iraq,” the British upgraded that to “spying on foreign embassies in Iraq.” Much better. Where Marashi referred to Iraq “aiding opposition groups in hostile regimes,” British Intelligence improved this to “supporting terrorist organizations in hostile regimes.” Same evidence, just more “up-to-date” conclusions, which is undoubtedly why Colin Powell relied on it in his U.N. speech. 

Big Brother 

The state of Florida found yet another creative use for surveillance satellites. Under pressure from Florida orange growers, they have plans to aim their lenses at Brazil’s orange groves to count how many trees they have producing oranges. Florida orange growers have complained that Brazil’s crop forecasts are too inaccurate and drive down prices for Florida oranges. 

Top honors go to Bob Crawford, director of Florida’s Department of Citrus, for this insight in defense of the surveillance proposal. “It’s creating a database,” he said. “I think it will bring us closer together.” Don’t we all feel “closer” when we see cameras focused on us? 

Wayne Grytting is the author of American Newspeak: The Mangling of Meaning for Power and Profit. More of his collected absurdities can be found at www.scn.org/newspeak.