Doublespeak is Alive and Well in America

[paineinthearse]

Originally read this at http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=5401&mesg_id=5401, where it had been received by email and posted by "Iverson".

These are given out annually at the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) conference. While I wasn't able to go this year, the good folks of Rhetoricians for Peace have mailed out this year's comments, authored by professor Dennis Baron. Those commments follow.

Posted with his permission.

The original can be read at http://rhetoriciansforpeace.org/node/23

Doublespeak is Alive and Well in America
by Dennis Baron

The Doublespeak Award "is an ironic tribute to public speakers who
have perpetuated language that is grossly deceptive, evasive, or
euphemistic." Previous winners include both of the presidents Bush,
Bill Clinton, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, the Defense Department,
the tobacco industry, and the NRA.

The winner of the this year's Doublespeak Award is Philip A. Cooney.
As chief of staff to the White House Council on Environmental
Quality, Cooney edited government climate reports to play down links
between greenhouse gasses and global warming.

Cooney, a lawyer with no scientific credentials, had previously
spearheaded the oil industry fight against limiting greenhouse gasses
-- the perfect cover for a White House job where he used his equally
nonexistent literary skills to downgrade the scientific certainty
over the damaging effects of such emissions to mere possibility. It
might happen. Or, it might not. Don't worry about it.

Critics called Cooney's revisions "political science," but the
administration, which considers global warming a theory, not a fact,
insisted his changes were scientifically sound.

The New York Times, which exposed Cooney's meddling last June,
accused the White House of editing problems out of existence. But
editing problems is exactly what the Bush administration does best.
FEMA head Michael Brown did "a heck of a job" editing hurricane
Katrina out of existence, and George Bush approved that message.
Bush also praised another one-time member of the White House
editorial board, Lewis Libby, for working "tirelessly on behalf of
the American people." Libby and "former Hill staffer" Karl Rove fed
stories to the investigative stenographic team of Woodward and Novak,
stories editing out opposition to another scientifically-sound Bush
initiative, the war in Iraq.

George Bush was also up for the Doublespeak award this year -- we
counted the ballots twice to make sure he actually lost. As for
Philip Cooney -- three days after he was outed, Cooney left in what
the White House characterized as a "long-planned departure." And
three days after that, he went to work for Exxon.

George Orwell Award

Eagerness to revise science and history reflects a family value
cherished by the Bush administration: distrust of knowledge. School
boards and politicians reflect this distrust when they edit our
science and humanities curricula -- with the president's approval --
substituting intelligent design and the five paragraph theme for
evolution and whole language.

To counter this troubling tendency to turn reality into a True/False
test, NCTE presents the George Orwell Award for Distinguished
Contributions to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language.

The winners of this year's Orwell Award are Jon Stewart and the
writers and cast of "The Daily Show." The primary source of news for
many Americans, "The Daily Show" regularly skewers our public figures
for their unwavering commitment to hiding the truth.

Stewart doesn't spare his media colleagues either. Appearing on
CNN’s "Crossfire," he called hosts Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson
dishonest "partisan hacks."

When Carlson accused Stewart of bias too, Stewart shot back, "You're
on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone
calls." "Crossfire" has since been replaced by a show where Wolf
Blitzer makes crank phone calls to political puppets.

In a report on Mark "Deep Throat" Felt, the Watergate leaker who set
the bar for wannabes like Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, the Daily
Show's Stephen Colbert doubted whether the media could break a story
like Watergate today. Colbert said, "It just no longer has the
credibility." "The media?" Stewart asked. And Colbert answered,
"No, the truth."

The "Daily Show" shows us that satire is not only possible, it's
required in order to see through the haze that clouds our public
discourse.

This isn't 1954, when Ed Murrow risked losing his sponsors, his
viewers, and his job to stand up to Joe McCarthy and his fellow red-
baiters. We live in an age when Jon Stewart & friends can ridicule
the hypocrisy of our political culture in front of millions of
cheering fans, while network executives laugh all the way to the
bank, and administration officials act as if nothing is wrong. But
teachers everywhere know that Orwell's big-brotherism remains alive
in the land. The thought police, backed up by the USA Patriot Act,
are still listening, and our jobs are on the line. That's why NCTE
gives out annual awards for public doublespeak and for those who
expose it. Nominations are now being accepted for next year's
competition. Good night, and good luck.

[hobbit709]

1. The operative words

about the winner-Cooney, a lawyer with no scientific credentials- tells you what you need to know.

[tocqueville]

2. the white man speaks with a forked tongue n/t

[Faryn Balyncd]

3. just following the talking points

In 2002 Frank Luntz advised Republicans to exploit the last 'window of opportunity' to argue that the science of global warming is uncertain. He wrote: "The scientific debate is closing but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science." 2002 memo http://www.ewg.org/briefings/luntzmemo/pdf/LuntzResearch_environment.pdf page 8

[newyawker99]

4. Hi charles t!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: