http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak
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 principle 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]
Similarities can be observed in Orwell’s own definition of doublethink, from Nineteen Eighty-Four;
The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies.[2]
" The point is that in a ... totalitarian state, it doesn't much matter what people think because ... you can control what they do. But when the state loses the bludgeon, when you can't control people by force and when the voice of the people can be heard, ... you have to control what people think. And the standard way to do this is to resort to what in more honest days used to be called propaganda. Manufacture of consent. Creation of necessary illusions.[14]"
How else could a candidate like Newt Gingrich, who had been married 3 times and had multiple affairs run on "family values"?
ReplyDeleteMaybe Newt's life is all about hope and change. Oh that only works for the drug user Obama.
DeleteMick,
ReplyDeleteWhat does Gingrich's personal life have to do with this administration's use of one word to mean another?
Jean
Hi Jean, I was citing "family values" as another example of doublespeak. As used by Politicians, this term has nothing to do with what most of us would consider as those values which contribute to family life in a positive way. Newt just happened to be the most visible current example. I don't think Clinton ever used the term, but I could be wrong.
DeleteWhere else are you asked to disregard your observations of the natural world and believe in something unseen? The fantasy of our government's stability really does work as long as we have enough people believing in the propaganda. I strap on my work boots every day and trade my valuable time for the fiat currency I use to survive. I am a believer...
ReplyDelete"Obama’s Fiscal Cliff Proposal: $1.6 Trillion In Tax Hikes, $50 Billion In Stimulus Spending, Obama Can Raise Debt Limit Without Congressional Approval – "
ReplyDelete""USA Today reports that three Republican congressional aides familiar with the president’s offer cast it as an “outrageous” proposal that surprised the speaker and has set back negotiations on how to avoid the fiscal cliff coming at the end of the year, when all of the Bush-era tax rates expire and the first of $1.2tn in spending cuts over 10 years are triggered.""
"Geithner suggested $1.6 trillion in tax increases, McConnell says, but showed “minimal or no interest” in spending cuts. "
http://weaselzippers.us/2012/11/29/obamas-fiscal-cliff-proposal-1-6-trillion-in-tax-hikes-50-billion-in-stimulus-spending-obama-can-raise-debt-limit-without-congressional-approval/
Geithner is using Trumpka as a negotiating consultant. We're driving over a debt cliff and these charlatans are loading up the bus with lead.
Talk about doublespeak!
Orwell say's it all:
ReplyDeleteWar is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
It is what our government is preaching.
We have not yet lost the ability to rationally analyze what is presented to us. What we have seemingly lost, however, is the ability to limit our attention to information that comes from a source that is as objective as possible. Mega networks like MSNBC and Fox drown out a lot of more objective media. However, that doesn't mean objective media doesn't still exist.
ReplyDeleteI still remain fascinated at the outrage that is invested over words rather then outcomes. In this campaign, Obama ran on a platform of raising taxes, and he won. Taxes are going up one way or the other. What we are witnessing though is an enormous fight over wording so that people can sign off on raising taxes while still pretending they are not doing so. If Obama is guilty here, so are Republicans who are saying that are not in favor of raising taxes but are in favor of taking away loopholes that lower tax rates. How is that not double speak? I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for taxes to go up on the wealthy. After all these gymnastics, I can't help but believe the only outcome will be that the middle class pays more while the top brackets pay out a pittance more.
He did run on a platform of raising taxes on the other guy, but also the platform of government is here to help you (middle class).
DeleteWould he have won if he said everyone needs to contribute. Those not paying will have to pay a minimum tax of 5%?
Would he have won saying I am reforming all of our entitlement programs?
You can run on a platform of higher taxes as long as it's the other guy.
The middle class will not pay more this time. However, the time is coming and it's not far in the future when poor, middle class and wealthy will all pay a federal income tax as the world will demand we pay our debts.
"Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it... All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children."
ReplyDelete- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 2
"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed-if all records told the same tale-then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 3
"Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 3
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?... Has it ever occurred to your, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?... The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking-not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5
“The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”
Delete― George Orwell, 1984
Interesting as I read 1984 as a kid, before 1984.
Reread it a few months ago. It's still a worthwhile read as well as Fahrenheit 451.
“Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
"It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same--everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another's existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same--people who had never learned to think but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world."
ReplyDelete- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 10
Delete“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”
― George Orwell, 1984
And to think 1984 was written in 1949. My understanding at the time of my first reading in the early '70 pales with respect to my understanding today. It's happening right before our eyes.
ReplyDeleteOur current crop of proles is a particularly viral strain.