The New Orwellianism [Victor Davis Hanson]

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 Gerald Walpin 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).

“”man-made catastrophes””

I am appalled by the sexism of the Obama administration when they call terrorism “man-made catastrophes.”

What kind of message is this sending to millions of young radical Islamic girls? Sorry aspiring female jihadists, but according the Obama only MEN can create catastrophes.

Feminists should demand that the new phrase should be "Catastrophes correlated with human activity." Sarcasm off/

Rush on how liberals changed naming of hurricanes:

“You know it used to be that hurricanes were named only after women because they were destructive and unpredictable. And that's the reason. The feminists grew upset about that, demanded that hurricanes be named after men, and so now, the civil rights leaders are demanding black names for hurricanes.”

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33896

Thanks. May have to start one with the way this Orwellian Obammunism is going.

It is becoming like a pharaoh or a non-Western dictatorship, isn't it? Forbidding people to question the leader, all kinds of idiotic policies, proclamations we are no longer a Christian nation, while singing praises for a non-Christian religion. Has anyone asked whether this is what we should be doing? Aren't these just fantasies and obsessions from Obama's own mind and strange Third World upbringing??? Which have NOTHING to do with reality?

"he attended Harvard Law School during the Critical Legal Studies revolution, whose slogan “law is politics,” taught that law, like all human constructs, is mutable, and can be tailored to changing agendas"

This postmodern side to Obama will be interesting to watch, particularly his desire to separate the U.S. from Christian culture. Apparently, he was essentially brainwashed at Harvard in relativism and multiculturalism through what is called "Critical Legal Studies" in liberal academic jargon. The deeper you dig, the worse it gets...

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