opinion

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Gutman, A new low for US bureaucratic jargon

Jackson, Religion and politics

US bureaucratic jargon hits a new low with “food insecurity”

by W. E. Gutman

Language is a wondrous and mighty tool that can be used to define, distort or conceal the truth. Power over words means power over ideas and power over ideas transmutes into power over people.

The government has considerable influence on our thoughts in the way it wields its power through language. One method often carried to its diabolical limits is "doublespeak,” an ornate and allegorical idiom fashioned to disguise the actual meaning of things, and usually employed by government, the military and corporations to bamboozle, hoodwink and swindle the credulous, the ignorant and the uninformed.

Some of the figurative lingo coined by do-gooders --- terms such as “animal companions” for pets, “challenged” for handicapped, “wardrobe malfunction” for a runaway nipple and “downsizing” for mass firings --- evokes smiles, compassion, amusement or scorn.

Grammar calls these verbal deceptions “euphemisms.” In his visionary novel, 1984, George Orwell called them “newspeak” and “doublethink,” fashionable composite nouns "deliberately constructed for political purposes: words which not only have a political implication, but are intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon those using them."

Take the US Army’s recruitment motto, changed not long a ago to "Be an Army of One." This moronic oxymoron surely appeals to gung ho individualists, but the reality of soldiering includes unquestioned obedience to authority and unavoidable risks that include death.

Doublespeak is most reminiscent of Orwell's "newspeak" when it is articulated by a government agency to cover up some unpleasantness. The government may be reluctantly forced to address topics that have negative connotations for large segments of the public, and to avoid backlash by replacing a term with a new one that most people will not recognize as signifying the same thing.

Thus "area denial munitions" means landmines. “Rendition” stands for the illegal kidnapping of suspects who are then handed over to the authorities of another nation for grilling. “Alternate interrogation techniques” is doublespeak for torture. "Operational exhaustion" stands for shell shock. “Collateral damage” denotes the mass slaughter of civilians. “Suspected terrorist hideout” refers to any home destroyed by US troops. “Asymmetrical warfare” represents effective combat tactics we did not think of first. “Self-injurious behavior incident” alludes to attempted suicide. And, decoded, “USA-Patriot Act,” translates into Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorist Acts --- a decree rammed through without debate, plebiscite or national referendum, despite the fact that it deals a devastating blow to civil liberties while granting the government unlimited powers and virtually no oversight. (The USA-Patriot Act was swiftly bolstered by a program dubbed “Total Information Awareness” which, once stripped of its pseudo-techno veneer, means “spying on the citizenry without probable cause”).

As if the above mumbo-jumbo were not enough to set off a collective wave of nausea, a key government report on malnourishment has just eliminated the word “hunger” to describe a chronic conditon afflicting 11 percent of American households. People without enough money to buy food, families in which parents skip meals so children can eat and seniors who must choose between dinner and life-saving drugs are now grotesquely categorized as having "very low food security."

Predictably, the Bush administration defends the change in nomenclature, arguing that it is based on recommendations from the National Academies, which question whether the report truly measures hunger or access to food. Such skewed interpretation suggests that the 35 million people who rely on soup kitchens and other charity for daily sustenance are not necessarily hungry. They just don’t know where their next meal is coming from….

This, in the self-described wealthiest, strongest and most righteous nation on earth. This from an administration with an obvious fixation on illusory syntax and no concern for the shameful reality of hunger in America.

“Food insecurity” is an obscene term calculated to ease the collective conscience while artfully underplaying what amounts to a national tragedy and a disgrace.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a man who traded his liberal cultural heritage for right-wing political muscle warned recently that critics of the Bush administration's warrantless “surveillance” program are a "grave threat" to US security. Following this high-handed line of reasoning, anyone who disagrees with the president and his acolytes must perforce be a traitor. If treason is to be so defined, I am part of a large and growing phalanx of fellow-defectors.

What this writer finds disquieting is the way some journalists (and recreational columnists), too timid to contest the official gobbledygook, allow linguistic perversions to creep into the popular discourse and choke off the truth. I am not a corporate reporter and I will not act as a stenographer for US propaganda. I’ll take my chances and speak out. I shall not be silenced --- except by force. What will it be? A “freak” accident? A “stray” bullet? A poisoned dessert at 33,000 feet above sea level on a flight to London (as happened to a fellow journalist investigating the connection between Swiss banks, money laundering, narcotrafficking and terrorism)?

I can see it already: My death, with characteristic ceremonial absurdity, will no doubt be attributed to an “irreversible cessation of life.” So much for metaphors.

As for the Bush administration, will its shameful governance be chronicled as having been “ethically underfed,” or will honest historians shun euphemisms in favor of such fitting terms as “inept,” “avaricious,” “corrupt,” “deceitful” and “morally bankrupt”?

Stay tuned.

Bernal, Generalized crime
Leis, Mourning is the pain of all pains
Sirias, Reading John Irving
Birns, Ecuador's election result
Madriz Fornos, The Caribbean Rum Dialogue
Bond, US passport policy a disaster for Caribbean tourism
Wilson, Congress should reopen the libraries
Sánchez, Keeping the Uruguayan military in check

Gutman, A new low for US bureaucratic jargon

Jackson, Religion and politics