The Best of American Newspeak
Orwellian language and euphemism in corporate media.

by Wayne Grytting
Free Press Contributor


A New Leader in Sweatshops
The Eddie Bauer Co. was honored by the U.S. Department of Labor for their efforts to combat poor working conditions for garment workers. The trendy sportswear chain is now one of 34 companies on the government's "Trendsetter List" of companies battling sweatshop conditions. But somehow left unmentioned by the Labor Department and the media was one small piece of information on just how Eddy Bauer is able to use American labor and still remain competitive. It seems they provide employment opportunities for prisoners. Prisoners in Washington state have the chance to learn the garment trade through the efforts of Redwood Outdoors, Inc., a major supplier to Eddie Bauer. Prisoners are paid $4.90 an hour minus deductions for room and board, leaving them between $1.80 and $2.80 an hour. Even prisoners in Tennessee get to participate, producing novelty items like rocking horses. Eddie Bauer joins a growing list of elite companies such as Microsoft and AT&T who are availing themselves of the $1.4 billion prison industry. This is "trendsetting" at its best. (Seattle P-I 4/1, Counterpunch 3/15/96)


Microsoft Goes Creative
Microsoft will soon be unveiling a series of interactive "shop operas" created by Hollywood producer Bob Bejan. Everyday visitors to these shows will be able to interact in dramas with characters drawn from shopping catalogs like Victoria's Secret and J. Crew. With a click of the mouse, participants will be able to alter the story line, make purchases and "change the colors of a model's teddy." With a little more mouse clicking you can even get a "sexy model to wiggle in her lingerie and describe her romantic designs on a hunky male counterpart." Much more fun than Barbie! And in a stroke of creative genius, Mr. Bejan even proposes to let visitors' purchases determine the story line. (How true to life.) All of this is part of a larger vision of interactive media. "We are choreographing your experience," Mr. Bejan says. "We are manipulating you to the point where we are maximizing your feeling of empowerment." Don't we all feel "empowered" when we've been properly manipulated? (Wall Street Journal 3/20)


A New Spin on Campaign Donations
Are you critical of politicians who pander to special interests for a steady diet of campaign payoffs? Well, you could be suffering from elitism. At least that's what Sen. Pat Roberts from Kansas believes. "What a condescending, elitist point of view," he argued on the floor of the Senate, "that we should be free of asking people for their trust and support, their investment in good government, their partnership in good faith..." Sobering words for unreflective elitists. But as you can see, the good Senator was on a rhetorical roll which culminates in this rather inspired reinterpretation of the "American way". Noting that we have a number of filters through which candidates must be sifted, Sen. Roberts asks, "Is a candidate's ability to attract campaign funds any less important to this process than his or her ability to attract votes?" Certainly not. In all fairness, maybe we should decide elections on the basis of both votes and fundraising, giving points for each like in figure skating. (Congressional Record 3/12)


Sponsored Conversations
The British have beaten us to a new advertising frontier. One hundred cabbies in London are now being paid by an advertising firm called Impact FCA to insert plugs for Siemens, a German phone company, into their regular banter. The cabbies will be paid an undisclosed sum to inject three main selling points for the Siemens mobile phone into their conversation. "They must mention German technology, a small but powerful battery, and the ability to upgrade the telephone for more services," reports the London Times, without alerting passengers to the fact they are being pitched. If successful, look for bartenders and waitresses next and then who knows? Why waste hours on conversations without putting them to commercial use? This could even put our homeless to work. "Spare change? And have you tried the new Remmington razor?" (London Times 3/13)


The Campaign Donations That Never Happened
If you worried about illegal campaign activity in the White House, rest easy. It never happened. Attorney General Janet Reno and her crack staff at the Justice Department revealed that no illegal campaign contributions were "solicited" or "received" by Al Gore, Maggie Williams (the First Lady's chief of staff) or any other administration official. First, no money was even "contributed" because "the definition of 'contribution' does not include soft money." In addition, the money that was not contributed, like the $50,000 handed Ms. Williams, was not "received". Why was it not received, those of you without benefit of three years of legal education ask? According to the Washington Post, it's because people like Williams, by White House reasoning, could not "technically 'receive' campaign contributions because they are not officers of a political party or campaign. Therefore the law prohibits something, that by this argument, can not even occur." Now is that cutting edge or not? (Washington Post 3/7)


Shopping Mall TV Channels
Filling a glaring breach in the penetration of everyday life by TV is a company that will be bringing TV programming to our shopping mall food courts. The Food Court Entertainment Network has unleashed Cafe USA in 8 shopping malls on the east coast and will soon have 6 sites on the west coast. From TVs suspended above the tables, shoppers will be able to watch movie reviews, fashion news and commercials for "products that are for sale just yards away!" Surprisingly, shoppers initially showed resistance to the intrusion of TV. Moffat Walsh, director of a mall in Newark, Delaware, reported that early morning food customers complained the TVs "were disrupting their breakfast get-togethers." But now she sees them "watching the health tips featured in the programming." Gone is the unproductive community chit-chat unconnected to consumption. It's progress. (American Demographics 3/97)


Defending the Home
Do you feel insecure with a measly handgun to defend your property? Worry not, because now you can purchase an arms arsenal you never dreamed possible thanks to our Department of Defense. Through the Defense Re-utilization and Marketing Office, you can now bid on complete tanks and missile launchers. And no permit is required. The DRMO currently has 15 surplus Abrams tanks and even a T-62 Soviet tank for sale. And if your neighbors already have tanks, there's always the Maverick missile and launcher, the perfect anti-tank weapon (warheads not included). All are available because no one has ever bothered to write regulations banning their sale (duh). But hurry. A recent Inspector General's report has warned this surplus military property is not being "properly demilitarized." (KIRO-TV, 2/24)


Report Card on Net Censorship
Ever wonder how all those Surfwatch-type programs to protect our children on the Net are doing? A few recent studies have shown they are carrying out their duty, and more. For example, a popular screening program called Cyber Patrol, not only protects our young from pornography, but from the poetry of Anne Sexton. And for reasons only a sophisticated computer program could fathom, it also blocks out references to Sri Lanka. Net Nanny performed not nearly as well, allowing Hustler Magazines' nature appreciation photos to come through. But it did successfully block out the following "erotic" discussion of needlework. Censored were the sentences "Are there male parts to cross-stitch also, like I'd bother to waste my time!'' and "Where exactly would you hang this in your house once you stitched it???" The best performer was called Cybersitter. It successfully blocked references to "homosexual","gay rights","NOW","fascism", and "drugs". Best of all, it even blocked the site of a student activist group called "Peacefire" that's been critical of Cybersitter. (San Francisco Chronicle. 3/27, Associated Press 3/26)


Off to the Glue Factory
Back in 1971, Congress passed what seemed to be a pretty straightforward law to protect the tens of thousands of wild horses still roaming our plains. The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act declared "It is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment or death." But then lawyers from the Department of the Interior arrived to clarify some of the provisions, thus freeing the law to be used to legitimate the slaughter of thousands of the wild horses. This modest reinterpretation came about when the government, in an act of mercy, began allowing ranchers to adopt horses from overcrowded grazing land. But the Department of the Interior then ruled that once the animals are adopted, "they are no longer 'wild' and the law says its criminal penalties only apply to 'wild' horses." Completely logical. So the horses can then be sold to the slaughter houses, which is exactly what the government allows the ranchers to do following the "adoption". (Associated Press 3/22)



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Contents this page were published in the May/June, 1997 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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