• USDA report found that 14% of US households don't have enough food
• Government report: Over 14-million elderly, low income Americans go hungry
• Millions of U.S. baby boomers going hungry
• Oxford University: Harsh austerity measures causing hunger, rise in dependency on food banks
• 1.6 million UK pensioners living in poverty
• Starving college students see the ugly truth behind the meritocratic social contract

• Meet the weeds that Monsanto can't beat
• More herbicide use reported on genetically modified crops
• Monsanto Vs. Nature: The Weeds Fight Back
• Scientists say genetically engineered crops encourage stronger weeds
• Monsanto's Superweeds Come Home to Roost: 11 Million U.S. Acres are Infested
• Monsanto's Roundup Spawns Superweeds Consuming Over 120 Million Hectares

• State of Connecticut is providing housing for all its chronically homeless veterans
• Utah is solving chronic homelessness with 'Housing First' program

Doublespeak is language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs, "servicing the target" for bombing^[1]), in which case it is primarily meant to make the truth sound more palatable. It may also refer to intentional ambiguity in language or to actual inversions of meaning (for example, naming a state of war "peace"). In such cases, doublespeak disguises the nature of the truth. Doublespeak is most closely associated with political language.^[2][3]

The term "doublespeak" probably has its roots in George Orwell's book Nineteen Eighty-Four. Although the term is not used in the book, it is a close relative of one of the book's central concepts, "doublethink". Another variant, "doubletalk," also referring to deliberately ambiguous speech, did exist at the time Orwell wrote his book, but the usage of "doublespeak" as well as of "doubletalk" in the sense emphasizing ambiguity clearly postdates the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four.^[4][5] Parallels have also been drawn between Doublespeak and Orwell's classic essay Politics and the English Language, which discusses the distortion of language for political purposes.^[6]

Edward S. Herman, political economist and media analyst, has highlighted some examples of doublespeak and doublethink in modern society.^[7] Herman describes in his book, Beyond Hypocrisy the principal characteristics of doublespeak:

What is really important in the world of doublespeak is the ability to lie, whether knowingly or unconsciously, and to get away with it; and the ability to use lies and choose and shape facts selectively, blocking out those that don't fit an agenda or program.^[8]

In his essay "Politics and the English Language", George Orwell observes that political language serves to distort and obfuscate reality. Orwell's description of political speech is extremely similar to the contemporary definition of doublespeak;

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible... Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness... the great enemy of clear language is insincerity. Where there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, ...^[9]