OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #207, DECEMBER 11, 2024.

 

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #207, DECEMBER 11, 2024.  Compiled by Dick Bennett

 Resisting Militarism, Wars, and Empire

GEORGE ORWELL AWARDS from the NATIONAL COUNCIL OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH

[Everyone should read Orwell’s 1984, and everyone connected professionally or indirectly to the study of LANGUAGE and POLITICS should be promoting the NCTE awards.   Maybe I’m talking about everybody.–Dick]
This award recognizes people who have made notable contributions to the critical analysis of public discourse. The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has given out this award since 1975. Wars and other dysfunctions are planned,  started, and sustained by deception by language manipulation.  The award is given to an author, editor, or producer of a work that contributes to honesty and clarity in public language.  The Committee welcomes nominations for the .Orwell Award,   
The earliest: 
 1977 Walter Pincus, Washington Post "A patient, methodical journalist who knew his job and who knew the jargon of Washington. Mr. Pincus was the man responsible for bringing to public attention, and thus to a debate in the Senate, the appropriations funding for the neutron bomb."-
1976 Hugh Rank, chair, NCTE Committee on Public Doublespeak, "Intensify/Downplay" schema for analyzing communication, persuasion, and propaganda.
1975 David Wise .  The Politics of Lying (on Nixon and Johnson)..

The latest:

2024 Recipient:
Making Americans: Stories of Historic Struggles, New Ideas, and Inspiration in Immigrant Education by Jessica Lander. . . .
 2023  Kisha Porcher & Shamaine Bertrand.  Black Gaze Podcast. . . .
2022  David Chrisinger.   Public Policy Writing That Matters, second edition. . . .
2021 Kristin Kobes Du Mez.   Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. . . .     Etc.

The Doublespeak Award from the National Council of Teachers of English

 Prior to 2022, NCTE annually awarded a single Doublespeak Award example of language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words   uplicitous and deceptive language. Click here to see a list of previous recipients. In 2022, the NCTE Executive Committee decided that the organization would produce an annual list of multiple examples of such language from a public spokesperson or group, to be called The Year in Doublespeak. In addition to identifying examples, the committee will contribute to our ReadWriteThink platform by providing peer-reviewed lesson plans and other pedagogical resources that make use of the identified examples. This work will help literacy instructors to continue teaching students about public language and to encourage them to participate in public language. This work began in 2023.    

Here are the first awards:
1977 The Pentagon and the Energy Research and Development Administration In explaining qualities of the neutron bomb: "an efficient nuclear weapon that eliminates an enemy with a minimum degree of damage to friendly territory."
1976 The State Department's announcement of plans to appoint a consumer affairs coordinator said the coordinator would: "review existing mechanisms of consumer input, thruput, and output, and seek ways of improving these linkages via the ‘consumer communication channel.'"
1975 Yasir Arafat, PLO Leader In answer to a charge that the PLO wanted to destroy Israel, he was quoted as saying, "They are wrong. We do not want to destroy any people. It is precisely because we have been advocating coexistence that we have shed so much blood."
1974 Colonel David H. E. Opfer, USAF Press Officer in Cambodia After a U.S. bombing raid, he told some reporters: "You always write it's bombing, bombing, bombing. It's not bombing! It's air support!"

Here are the latest awards (see note above): 

2019 To Donald Trump, President of the United States, for perpetuating language that is grossly deceptive, evasive, euphemistic, confusing, and self-centered. . . .
 2018 To Rudy Giuliani, Attorney to the President of the United States and former Mayor of New York City, for his "truth isn't truth" statement. . . .
 2017 To Kellyanne Conway, Counselor to the President of the United States, for coining the term “alternative facts” to defend President Trump's falsehoods about inauguration crowd sizes.