Caving In

Steyn Online ^ | 7 June 2021 | Mark Steyn

[Rummyfan]

We are in a literally Orwellian world now. Until a couple of days ago the headline on this Washington Post story from February 2020 read:

Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked.

Now it reads:

Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus fringe theory that scientists have disputed.

Democracy dies in darkness, but stealth editing thrives there. That's Orwell 101 - although one assumes whichever of Bezos's woeful hacks was ordered to do it was unaware of his literary antecedents, or self-respect would have required him to seek alternative, less pitiful employment. Nevertheless, as you'll know if you heard my serialization of Nineteen Eighty-Four, that was literally Winston Smith's job - to go into the archives and rewrite past editions of the newspapers to conform to the needs of the present. And to ensure that versions of the past less helpful to the regime get, in one of Orwell's many brilliant coinages, "memory-holed".

Our chaps haven't been memory-holing quite as long, so they're not as smooth and assured about it as Winston Smith's Ministry of Truth. Commissar Zuckerberg's Facebook will now permit you to suggest that the ChiCom-19 may have "escaped" from a lab - in contrast to the rules a week or so back, when so much as raising the possibility got your account vaporized. Wikipedia isn't quite so quick on the uptake: as I write, the lab-leak origin of the WuFlu still comes under "Covid-19 misinformation" as a theory used "to stoke anti-China sentiments". But presumably the lads are modifying even as I speak.

[BenLurkin]

Books, amigos, books. The printed word.

Gather and preserve them while you can.

[cuz1961]

the lads are modifying even as I speak.\\

If they aren’t too busy rewriting and adding to the online dictionaries.

Including swapping out adjectives for nouns and visa versa

Long live wiki-webster.

[BenLurkin]

In fact, print out this entire Steyn piece. It contains many truths which could all become forbidden knowledge.

[left that other site]

Amen.

[alexander_busek]

Until a couple of days ago the headline on this Washington Post story from February 2020 read:

Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked.

Now it reads:

Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus fringe theory that scientists have disputed.

Just you wait! Before long, it will read:

Tom Cotton commits suicide while in police custody.

And in a related story:

Weekly chocolate ration increased to 20 grams.

Regards,

[mass55th]

"Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus fringe theory that scientists have disputed."

Any scientist who disputed it was censored by the liberal media, and big tech. So much for exchanging scientific opinions.

[ClearCase_guy]

I like the basic concept of Kindle but I’ve never really pursued it. Give me books. Give me paper. I want to own something I can trust.