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The New Orwellianism [Victor Davis Hanson]
NRO Corner ^ | June 18, 2009 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 06/19/2009 5:37:44 AM PDT by Tolik

We use Orwell, Orwellian, and Orwellianism loosely a lot these days, but what is going on in the Obama administration is beginning to get a little creepy and resembles a lot of things Orwell wrote about in 1984.

When in, Soviet fashion, a critical overseer is dismissed as being "confused" and suffering mental problems in carrying out the law, as  probably did in uncovering waste and possible fraud in connection with the mayor of Sacramento; or when the government begins to create new words like "overseas contingency operations" and "man-made catastrophes"; or when Justice Sotomayor says that a Latina is inherently a better judge than a white man — and then says she does not mean what she says — or that a female-only club that has no males does so because no males apparently applied (using the argument of pre-Civil Rights Southern country clubs); or when the president begins nationalizing companies because he has no interest in the federal government interfering with private enterprise or swears that he is going to uncover waste and insist on financial sobriety as he runs up a nearly $2 trillion deficit, we see a creeping Orwellianism everywhere. Bush (and "Bush did it") has become the proverbial enemy at large, sort of playing the role of Trotsky in the Soviet 1930s, or the face on the big screen we are supposed to hate — alternately demonized and airbrushed (when Obama adopts his policies like military tribunals, Iraq, or renditions). Newspeak has even proclaimed our president a "god," and a journalist has adopted proskynesis in his presence.

All this dissimulation is based on two general principles — one, the cause of egalitarianism and equality of result is so critical that the tawdry means of distorting reality is not only worth it, but not tawdry; and two, 30 years of postmodern teaching in our law and graduate schools have insidiously convinced many of our elites that there is no absolute truth, only competing narratives that take on credence depending on the race, class, gender, and access to power of those who speak.

As a rule of thumb, when key administration officials say they do not wish to do something, the odds are they have already done it, and when they imply "Bush did it" it means that they will adopt it (e.g., anti-terrorism protocols) or exceed it (Bush deficits).



TOPICS: Editorial
KEYWORDS: bho44; geraldwalpin; orwell; orwellian; vdh; victordavishanson; walpin
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1 posted on 06/19/2009 5:37:44 AM PDT by Tolik
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http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/victordavishanson/index:
Obama’s New Liberal Realism: abandoned Wilsonianism just to avoid supporting Iranian democracy
Obamaworld
Voting Present on Iran. Thugophilia Isn't Moral. The New Old Realism
Reflections on the Iranian Enigma. The World Turned Upside Down
Still a Boor and a Coward [Victor Davis Hanson on Letterman, Wright + Thoughts on a Creepy Culture]
Just Make Stuff Up. President Obama’s war on the truth
A Boor and a Coward [Victor Davis Hanson tears apart the creep, a.k.a David Letterman]
Our Historically Challenged President. A list of distortions
I No Longer Quite Believe ... [Victor Davis Hanson on Orwellian media & science, race relations]
It's Better When You Wake Up Body-Snatched . . .
The Reckoning. Obama Versus the Way of the Universe
The Age of Middle East Atonement. Therapeutic efforts to disguise the truth never really work
Is It Going to Be Race and Resentment — All the Time?
Multiculturalism Trumps Freedom?
Sotomayor’s Mistake. The diversity mess
The Affirmative-Action Aristocracy?
Lost in the Labyrinth of Race
President Palin’s First 100 Days. Imagine if Sarah Palin had Obama’s record
Americans Want It Both Ways Our Have-It-Both-Ways Generation
Our Jekyll and Hyde President. More radical than Jimmy Carter v smoother centrist than Bill Clinton?
Crazy Times — Crazier Times to Follow - when nonsense is passed off as wisdom
Confessions of a Contrarian [deconstructing Obama, the Left and more]
 President Obama’s First 70 Days. It really does all make sense
Thoughts About Depressed Americans
Bush Did It. What a difference an election makes [Brilliant Parody]
 Our Battered American [gets angrier - Must Read Rant]
Just a partial list. More at the link:  http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/victordavishanson/index
2 posted on 06/19/2009 5:38:07 AM PDT by Tolik
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To: neverdem; Lando Lincoln; SJackson; dennisw; kellynla; monkeyshine; Alouette; nopardons; ...


    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       Let me know if you want in or out.

Links:    FR Index of his articles:  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
                His website: http://victorhanson.com/
                NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
                Pajamasmedia:
   http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/

3 posted on 06/19/2009 5:38:38 AM PDT by Tolik
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To: Tolik

ping.


4 posted on 06/19/2009 5:41:03 AM PDT by St. Louis Conservative
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To: Tolik

Dead on. I fear for the quality of our election results in 2010 and 2012. It appears we have totalitarians at the gate with little opposition. Excepting Fox News and talk radio, the media has given up all pretence of impartiality. I fear for American democracy.


5 posted on 06/19/2009 5:42:40 AM PDT by Entrepreneur (The environmental movement is filled with watermelons - green on the outside, red on the inside)
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To: Tolik

Four legs good, two legs bad.


6 posted on 06/19/2009 5:44:25 AM PDT by Titus-Maximus (It doesn't matter who votes for whom, it matters who counts the votes. Joe Stalin)
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To: St. Louis Conservative

Dr. Hanson wrote an excellent piece last week about the large number of distortions of history Obama used in his speech in Cairo. He should have added the “memory hole” to today’s article as Obama is constantly and blatantly distorting or erasing known history to his advantage.


7 posted on 06/19/2009 5:47:54 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: Tolik

Saving for later.


8 posted on 06/19/2009 5:50:43 AM PDT by John Leland 1789
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To: Tolik
Proskynesis: To kiss towards

A better word may be: Postkynesis: To kiss behind

9 posted on 06/19/2009 5:54:45 AM PDT by Aevery_Freeman (Our Last Best Hope: REPEAL THE 16th AMENDMENT!)
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To: Tolik

“proskynesis”

Learned another word today.


10 posted on 06/19/2009 5:56:50 AM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: Tolik
It's the Obamessiah's world. We just live in it.


11 posted on 06/19/2009 5:58:26 AM PDT by Travis McGee (---www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com---)
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To: Tolik
I find myself guilty of thoughtcrime daily with this administration. I am strangely not bothered by the fact that I have committed a thoughtcrime, just p*ssed that I have to spend so much of my time watching and reading directives from the State Run Media like a hawk to see what liberties they are going to trample today.
12 posted on 06/19/2009 6:01:12 AM PDT by listenhillary (90% of our problems could be resolved with a government 10% of the size it is now.)
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To: DuncanWaring

Polite term for kissing Obama’s ass?


13 posted on 06/19/2009 6:02:19 AM PDT by listenhillary (90% of our problems could be resolved with a government 10% of the size it is now.)
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To: Tolik

Bush = Trotsky (or Emmanuel Goldberg in 1984). Always good to focus the hate.


14 posted on 06/19/2009 6:04:10 AM PDT by 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
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To: listenhillary

Approximately.

Probably the root word for “prostrate”.


15 posted on 06/19/2009 6:07:12 AM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: Aevery_Freeman
Pros-knee-sis: Greek for "Lewinsky"
16 posted on 06/19/2009 6:14:39 AM PDT by Joe 6-pack (Que me amat, amet et canem meum)
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To: Entrepreneur

I’m with you on the fear of the future elections. This group of “rulers” are setting the table for a terrorist attack by weakening the country and flashing weakness to those who want to hurt us. I’m afraid that an attack from inside or outside would give him the excuse he needs to executive order his way to absolute power. He is currently ignoring the Constitution and acting outside of the law. His bought and paid for media is right in step. The party that got him there is completely content to allow all this crap to happen as long as they are in positions of power. They want to destroy the country as it is currently constituted to remake it in their socialist utopian vision. The problem is that somewhere in the process, we will be a destroyed country and ripe for the taking by another country. Then what, the dims will be our “absolute” rulers who have to answer to another power. These people are so blinded by their quest for power that they have NO foresight of their actions. And we are along for the ride. Makes perfect sense why a lot of Americans are arming up and paying off debts.


17 posted on 06/19/2009 6:31:58 AM PDT by Texas resident (Texan by birth and by choice.)
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To: listenhillary

Comrade, you need not waste your energies on thoughts such as these. You are obviously tired and need a nice vacation at club FEMA. There you will be able to share in the joys as our community organizers carefully explain how our dear leaders glorious 5 year plan will lead us all to a future with tolerance and economic justice for all.


18 posted on 06/19/2009 6:39:32 AM PDT by henry_reardon
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To: Tolik
As a rule of thumb, when key administration officials say they do not wish to do something, the odds are they have already done it, and when they imply "Bush did it" it means that they will adopt it (e.g., anti-terrorism protocols) or exceed it (Bush deficits).

Hanson's right, but the administration feels if people need to know the above, they'll be the ones to tell them. After all, ignorance is strength...

19 posted on 06/19/2009 7:13:40 AM PDT by GOPJ (...those who make non-violent revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.- JFK (Iran))
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To: Tolik

"30 years of postmodern teaching in our law and graduate schools have insidiously convinced many of our elites that there is no absolute truth, only competing narratives that take on credence depending on the race, class, gender, and access to power of those who speak."

But some narratives are more equal than others.

When they get "bitter" and "cling to guns and religion"...their narrative is considered invalid. It is a pretty straight line from the Richard Hofstadter liberalism and Frankfurt School theory the One absorbed at Columbia and Harvard to the DoubleThink and Big Brotherism of Obammunism. The same multiculturalist and Marxist prohibition of φρόνησις and asking of logical questions which would expose the fraud, sophistry, newspeak, charlatanism, and dishonesty of all of this. The same elites who howled most loudly and hysterically about Bush's evangelical "What would Jesus do?" comment now revere Obama as a god and messiah. They can't see the irony of this?

Yet none dare touch upon the sham affirmative action, slick Soros handlers and glad-handing benefactors who have elevated the One through Columbia and Harvard Law, escorted on red carpets and Greek temple columns before adoring cameras and journalists, to make all of this charade possible. The Alinskyite Deweyite idol sashaying around the world denigrating America and Western culture while proclaiming the U.S. is no longer a Christian nation. Generally speaking, we don't usually have pharaohs demanding worship in the West. Liberals may their own Separation of Church and State problem here with the Caliphate of Obama.

20 posted on 06/19/2009 9:47:53 AM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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