eventually they will believe it Adolf Hitler
wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools.
August 13, 2009
In his recent article, “Our Road to Oceania,” Victor Davis Hanson highlights two
of the timely warnings of George Orwell’s familiar allegory, Nineteen
Eighty-Four:
1. Bombard public with positive
images of the supreme ruler: “the picture of Big Brother appears constantly in
the adoring media.”
2. Fuel suspicions that enemies hide everywhere, even behind the friendly faces
of trusted neighbors: “supposedly plotting to undo the benevolent egalitarianism
of Big Brother. Citizens assemble each morning to scream hatred for two minutes
at pictures of the supposed public traitor Emmanuel Goldstein. The Ministry of
Truth swears that the former official Goldstein is responsible for everything
that goes wrong in Oceania.”
“Former president George W. Bush our new Emmanuel Goldstein remains a daily
target of criticism,” according to Hanson. “Diplomats continue to discuss the
need to hit a reset button that will erase the past. Last week, the president
said those in the past administration caused our present problems and so
should keep quiet and get out of his way.”
There are similar Big Brother attacks on recent critics of the Obama
administrations health-care initiatives. Once-praised dissent has become
subversive. Protesters are a mob to be ridiculed by the government as mere
health-insurance puppets. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), is suspicious of the
nice clothes the protesters wear. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D.,
Calif.), used a few isolated incidents to claim that the health-care dissidents
are carrying swastikas and symbols like that to compare Obama and Democrats to
the Nazis.
At a meeting with Democratic senators, Obamas deputy chief of staff, Jim
Messina, urged them to punch back twice as hard against these critics,
according to two people who were in the room. An official presidential website
now asks informants, in Big Brother style, to send in e-mails and Internet
addresses that seem fishy in questioning the White House health-care plans.
Doublethink is common. Presidential sermons on fiscal responsibility tip us off
that deficits will soar. Borrowing an additional trillion dollars to manage
health care is sold as a cost-saving measure. Racial transcendence translates
into more racial-identity politics, reflected both in rhetoric and in
presidential appointments.
The government wants to determine how some executives should be paid. The
administration assures millions of citizens it will now intrude into everything
from buying homes and cars to how they go to the doctor.
If some Americans chose to purchase a roomy gas-guzzler rather than an
uncomfortable but more efficient compact car, a kindly Big Brother will now
correct that bad decision and buy the clunker back. If we bought a house for
too much money, the government will assure us it was not our fault and redo the
mortgage. If our doctor wants to conduct a procedure, a government health board
will first determine whether it is cost-effective and in the collective
interest.
Despite the absence of another 9/11-like attack, we are still told by the new
terrorism czar, John Brennan, that the old war was largely a Bush failure.
Administration officials keep inventing euphemisms. Some have dubbed the war on
terror an overseas contingency operation.
We were once told that military tribunals, renditions, the Patriot Act, and
Predator drone attacks in Pakistan were George Bushs assault on the
Constitution rather than necessary tools to fight radical Islamic terrorists.
Not now. These policies are no longer criticized even though they still
operate more or less as they did under Bush. Guantanamo is still open, but no
longer considered a gulag. The once-terrible war in Iraq disappeared off the
front pages around late January of this year.
George Orwell, a man of the Left, warned us that freedom and truth are not
endangered only by easily identifiable goose-stepping goons in jackboots. More
often he felt that state collectivism would come from an all-powerful government
run by a charismatic egalitarian, promising to protect us from selfish, greedy
reactionaries.
Orwell was on to something.
Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a
recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal. © 2009 Tribune Media Services,
Inc.
|