Links — to Lowry, to Adams.
The subject is that Sinclair news story — with all the local anchors reading the same script — that we talked about yesterday, here.
I just spent way too much time searching the archive of this blog for things I've written about Dan Rather. Not sure what I'm looking for. "Ironically attacking his own reputation, Dan Rather sues CBS for ruining his reputation/What a mind-boggling legal theory!"? I guess I'd like to gesture impressionistically at all the fakery associated with Dan Rather, you know, the...
... and all that. But I stumbled into "Who the hell is 'Mammon' anyway?" and got utterly distracted by this amazing image...
Some people like when I list the questions raised by the post. If that's not you, go ahead and start commenting. If it is, hang on a few minutes while I work that out.
AND: Questions presented:
1. What do you think Maguire and Rather mean when they use the word "Orwellian"? How diffuse has this pejorative become? Do you prefer a more precise meaning? If so, what is it? And how far off are Maguire and Rather?
2. Who is Maguire anyway? Why would anyone who wants to be taken seriously go beyond "Orwellian" to "one of the most Orwellian things I've every seen"? What has this guy seen? Seems like not much, right?
3. Why is Scott Adams taking such a mild-mannered shot at Maguire? Or is this style very effective as a response to Maguire's hyperventilation?
4. Isn't Rather pretty obviously indulging in a propagandistic style? Is it really possible that he doesn't realize that?
5. Do we remember Rathergate, or has it gone down the Memory Hole?
6. Does Althouse fall down the Memory Hole when something reminds her of something in the archive, and she's thinking you're probably wondering by now just what this post is all about? More baffling: What is this thing here for? Is it nothing?
7. Who the hell is "Mammon" anyway? And if there is no Hell, is there no Mammon?
8. What's in Mammon's sack?
9. How obscene is that illustration? Who is that woman and what does she have to do with Evelyn De Morgan?
10. Isn't it Orwellian the way it's always the other side that looks Orwellian?
Posts
116 comments:
Rather was always a ham sandwich. At the time of the Mary Mapes dustup it was mentioned that although Rather had a computer in his office he probably wouldn't know a computer from a vacuum cleaner.
In other words the parade had passed him by.
What a dispiriting beginning to a comments thread.
The questions presented should go up to 11: Should comments like Now I Know's — in the first position in the thread — be deleted?
The answer is yes, and now, if I don't delete it, that's all you'll talk about.
So I will delete it, along with anything that responds to it, and please don't respond to this comment of mine. Get back to the post, which presents at least 10 good questions.
Who is Robert Maguire? I didn't knowso I googled. This is on his twitter feed"
"Robert MaguireVerified account
@RobertMaguire_
I track secret political money for @OpensecretsDC | Member of no party | Dad bod model | Collabs w CNN, NPR, WaPo, NYT, Harvard | Y'all | self-hating cat person.
Member of no party.
Collabs w CNN, NPR, WaPo, NYT, Harvard
So one thing he is for sure, a liar.
I don't see a difference between the stuff WaPo or NYT or CNN cranks out and what Sinclair is doing except that it's shocking to Rather because it doesn't align with his political views. That's not the definition of Orwellian.
1. Dan Rather is nuts. Any rational person can see that.
5. Power Line blog made its reputation on Rathergate. A blog run by conservative lawyers completely destroyed a liberal icon.
10. It is Orwellian how the Left perverts the word Orwellian. The Left is so infected with loons and TDS that they have flipped the plain meaning of the word.
The What's the frequency Kenneth? guy is the sane one from that episode.
The game is in ratings. Whatever works. It goes meta all the time except nobody talks about ratings.
If you've been pushed back as a troll, you need to do better comments. Coming back and doubling down on what I've defined as trolling is telling me you want to be a destructive force here. That can lead to your comments being deleted without even being read, because that's my definition of bad faith, that you want to ruin this blog.
This comment is for information purposes only and should not be responded to. I am not inviting a discussion of trolling. Please just take notice and try to do better. We're having a conversation here, and I'm hosting.
It's cute the way the MSM and its allies view themselves as brave truth-tellers.
Hilarious, too. And delusional.
This is an Orwellian statement:
'Trade wars are good, and easy to win.' As was this, ' We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators'.
The illustration isn't obscene unless 'knee fetish' is a thing.
What's the OED definition of "Orwellian"?
The Emancipation Group is obscene when viewed from the back.
The CYA memo image is sort of blinking on my tablet. Slightly out of focus for a half second with a small j in upper left corner. Then j disappears and focus sharpens for half a second.
Back and forth lime an animated gif.
Not a problem, just wierd.
Does anyone else see this?
John Henry
Orwell tried to warn the world of the "labor" left; Huxley about the "gentry" left. What we are seeing now has more to do with Huxley's vision of what the future (in 1932) might bring.
If the other side needs to sell then you have an edge in a trade war. You can get a deal better for you.
Economic theory says that trade wars are always bad but they score the result on something beyond the interests of one country.
The theory of comparative (not competitive) advantage shows how it's always better to trade freely, but go through the fairly simple theory and there's no unemployment assumed to result. Apparently that's not true.
(Comparative advantage: the economics department secretary delivers papers to the dean even though the economics department head walks faster than the secretary. Both stay employed.)
Does anyone else see this?
It is a comparison of two different documents. An overlay.
We all see it.
Scott Adams said he'd put his periscopes on his blog as podcasts. He doesn't do this very often. Orwellian.
You have to rely on fans copying them to youtube.
Mammon is the transliteration of a very old word, possibly Canaanite, that passed into Aramaic and Greek, making its way into English via the Bible. Its denotation is something like food, provisions, or material goods. In the New Testament it is generally translated as "riches," or it may be anthropomorphized into Mammon and set up against service of God, as in Matt 6:24, in the Sermon the Mount. Milton, in Paradise Lost, has Mammon as one of Satan primary subordinates.
The flashing gif was created by Charles at the Little Green Footballs blog. It shows what Rather presented as an authentic document from the 60s, overlayed with the same text typed into Microsoft Word using default settings. It makes clear that the document Rather presented as real fake.
Isn't it Orwellian the way it's always the other side that looks Orwellian?
All the assholes look Orwellian
Re Rather's blather: Does Doubting Dan think that the president ordered Sinclair Broadcasting to make that announcement, or is he just agitating the dirlewangers and keeping the hysteria frothy?
Le veau d'or et toujours debout!
On incense
Sa puissance
D'un bout du monde a l'autre bout!
I still do not get how "Fake news is bad. We will not do that. If you feel we are not doing our job, please contact us and we will respond" is Orwellian. It sounds like, you know, basic customer service.
This is an Orwellian statement: "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan [under Obamacare]."
Add this to ARM's citations of GOP presidents above and we see that American politicians in the 21st century have given up serious engagement with practical issues and are routinely glossing over the implications of their policies.
Sad.
I looked it up.
"of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or resembling the literary work of George Orwell or the totalitarian future described in his antiutopian novel 1984 (1949)."
So basically, they are saying that an organization having and propagating a political viewpoint is totalitarian. Well, the company I work for just had a day celebrating some ism or another. They have somebody whose job title is inclusion and diversity lead who, I am sure, makes much more money than I do, even though what I do directly results in money going into the company's coffers. That's seems pretty totalitarian to me, but hey, I'm not one of the anointed. Just another deplorable here. Keep your mouth shut so you can stay employed and feed your family.
I'm going to say it. Again. This is how you get moar Trump.
It shows what Rather presented as an authentic document from the 60s, overlayed with the same text typed into Microsoft Word using default settings. It makes clear that the document Rather presented as real fake.
Since this post can be about falling down the Memory Hole, why is it this type of forensics wasn't done on Barack's birth certificate? I'm no birther and what difference, at this point, does it make and all, but whoever faked that real birth certificate didn't even try.
ARM, was "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan" Orwellian to you?
The Orwell War seems to me to be an attempt to claim the high ground by competing users of a Perception Bias that had been laid down during the Second World War by Allied propaganda apparatus and was turned into fighting a World Cold War about control of Capitalism. It is Spy v. Spy. Our side morphed into a separate State. And it has been on a roll for 60 years.
The popular "woke" descriptor means those who take up Orwell's stance and views that separate State from afar as if it is an alien, occupying force that has its own internal logic subject to analysis. And Trump is it's declared enemy.
Orwellian seems like a word that a lot of people use with no idea what it means. Basically, as Orwell himself said about the word "fascist" (1947 essay) it means notbing more than something one disagrees with.
Another question:
Orwell was pretty prolific though most people seem to think all he wrote was 1984 and Animal Farm.
So if something is Orwellian do they mean in the 1984 sense? The Animal Farm sense? I think those would be 2 very different meanings.
Or maybe, for the more erudite, they are thinking of Shooting an Elephant? Coming up for Air? Keep the Aspidistra flying?
Perhaps they would do well to read his essay "On the English Language".
Or maybe what they have in mind is Eric Blair's middle class upbringing.
Yes, I am an Orwell fan. All his books, multiple times plus 4 volumes (2000 pages or so) of collected journalism, essays, letters. I even keep one of those volumes in my office bathroom for contemplation.
One Helluva writer.
John Henry
Orwell said in the future everyone will be hated for fifteen minutes.
Because the media produces narratives like Andy Warhol painted cans of Campbells' Tomato Soup.
Each narrative is packaged like the next narrative: the soup itself is not important because the label on the can tells you what you need to know.
In another Warhol context: view "Big Electric Chair."
Perhaps it is disquieting because you can picture yourself sitting in it.
And now that chair is waiting for you.
Social forces can put you in it with no concept of Justice. You are judged by the Narrative.
So another Warhol take on Orwell:
In the future everyone will sit in the Big Electric Chair for fifteen minutes.
The Germans have a word for this.
Mammorwellian - adj., denoting or related to a dystopian future where access to boobs is strictly controlled by a brutal regime.
It's quite evident that Dan Rather will not, does not, show embarrassment.
Re isn't it Orwellian to call others Orwellian?
I would say it is "normal". Like progfas calling others "fascist" when their progressive ideology is indistinguishable from actual fascism. (as delineated by Mussolini in The Doctrine of Fascism" in 193i or so.
John Henry
FTR: Since it is all personal, today's Mammon is the Rothschild family with the Windsor's connections along with their Rockefeller sidekicks, both allied to the Saudi Royal Family's Petroleum Reserves, until recently. And Trump is playing JFK reincarnate as its declared enemy.
"We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." - George Orwell
In that sense the Sinclair statement is indeed Orwellian.
In high school I read Orwell. Probably contributed to me becoming a Liberal. Fighting the Man!
Now the Liberal Deep State stifles and crushes dissent and has become the Man.
Over at Marquette, the University and Corporate Wisconsin wants to fire a tenured professor for exercising his free speech rights on the Internet where he criticized a teacher for shutting down debate. A Marquette student had the gall to question same sex marriage.
Oral arguments soon in Madison. Get your tickets now!
Anglo-American society has a word for it and the word is Orwellian.
1. What do you think Maguire and Rather mean when they use the word "Orwellian"?
They're being meta-Orwellian. That is, "Orwellian" has undergone the same linguistic transformation as had "truth" and "love" when appended to "Ministry of".
8. What's in Mammon sack?
Lol.
"Orwell tried to warn the world of the 'labor' left;"
Why the quote marks around "labor?" BTW, Orwell was himself a leftist and a democratic socialist.
Get sick, get well, hang around with Orwell.
Why were the pre-Raphaelites "pre" when they were so post?
8. What is in Mammon’s sack.....
In the painting, the woman clutches desperately at the knee of the statue, yearning up into his face, which stares down at her remorselessly. The statue holds out a bag of gold, but the woman ignores the money. She has moved from the love of gold, to the love of Mammon himself and so has cut herself off from the love of God, thus causing her own doom.
Copied from internet......
Robert Cook said...
Why the quote marks around "labor?" BTW, Orwell was himself a leftist and a democratic socialist.
You have to really work it at to view Orwell's writings as anti-labor.
The Bush Memos
The Trump Dossier
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
If you spend a lot of time on 4chan you can get paranoid. Because you gotta know the Government is watching. I mean, sure, maybe there are some people there who the Government should be watching, maybe. But they don't just watch them, they watch everyone. And that sucks.
And when you realize this, some of the people who post there look pretty suspicious. Because you click on a link, but they put that link there to get you to click on it. And now you're on a list. Click on the picture of Robert Mueller and Stalin done as tentacle porn? You're on a list. Click on that post with the Government dressed as Nazis trying to take guns away from redneck naked chicks, and you're on a list.
And people will say that the Government has to do that, to catch terrorists and pedophiles. But sometimes the picture of David Hogg fucking an anime baby isn't sexual, the cartoon infant represents the Second Amendment. But some people just see a teenage boy fucking a baby and think the worst.
There was a picture a while back of Shia LaBeouf being fucked in the ass by a tranny. Then someone took that picture and Photoshopped Trump's face on the tranny. So now it was a tranny Trump fucking Shia LaBeouf in the ass. And -- come on -- no one is going to masturbate to that. Because it isn't sexual, it's, like, a political cartoon. But if you clicked on that picture, you're on a list.
And then I come to Althouse, and I wonder if the government is watching here, too. Because there are a few commenters who could be government provocateurs, I think. And yes -- I had to Google 'provocateurs' to spell it right.
But maybe I'm being too paranoid. Maybe the government isn't watching Althouse. Maybe it's only Amazon, making sure Althouse doesn't say the wrong thing or something. But that makes me paranoid, too.
A fake memo used by Dan Rather to influence an election in favor of the democrat candidate, is not journalism. It's fraud.
If you like your definition of Orwellian you can keep your definition of Orwellian.
Orwell based minitrue on his time with the BBC world service, Dennis Glover last man in Europe illustrates his thinking process.
James Burnham the former Trotskyite is who he borrowed the three world states from, he became a consultant to the cia and later a national review columnist
Characters in Dickens novels lived in a world without Dickens novels, so none of them would call their world 'Dickensian'. Likewise, Winston Smith lived in a world without '1984' having been written, otherwise he would have said 'This is so Orwellian'.
5. Do we remember Rathergate, or has it gone down the Memory Hole?
Memory hole.
No criminals on the left.
Russia and Trump colluded is nothing more than birther nonsense. It's the same psychological trick.
The memory hole was a,real thing, it was a,tube to dispense with inconvenient stories.
"Orwellian seems like a word that a lot of people use with no idea what it means. Basically, as Orwell himself said about the word "fascist" (1947 essay) it means nothing more than something one disagrees with."
"Orwellian,"in common meaning, refers to the use of language, often paradoxically, to pervert or negate meaning, typically for purposes of deception and persuasion. "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength" are the most well-known examples of "Orwellian" speech from Orwell himself. The military officer in Vietnam who, speaking about a town destroyed by U.S. armaments, said "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it" was making an Orwellian statement.
In Catholic iconography, Mammon is holding the Sack of Rome.
I have always thought of "Orwellian" as the concept of manipulating the language to limit or eliminate disfavored ideas and using propaganda to channel thought and eliminate critical thinking. The Newspeak Dictionary of Ingsoc in 1984 showed how the language was to be pared down so that certain ideas could not be expressed. The three slogans of the Ingsoc Party (War is Peace-- Freedom is Slavery-- Ignorance is Strength) were false or self-contradictory. In 1984, Orwell illustrated the way in which the people were fed propaganda and were gradually losing their critical faculties. Facts disappeared down the Memory Hole. The name of the opponent was changed in the middle of a speech about the (perpetual) war. A reduction in the chocolate ration was announced as an increase.
The application of these concepts in everyday life in the 21st century is becoming more apparent. The uncritical acceptance by the MSM of Obama propaganda has been followed by unhinged hatred of Trump by those same people.
Personally, I do not object to regular and thorough criticism of Trump or any president. I objected to the uncritical fawning over Obama by the MSM, and I knew that the fawning would continue under H. Clinton. That is why I voted for Trump (not that it did much good in Illinois).
I don't think that Sinclair's requiring its broadcast stations to make a uniform, self-serving, and anodyne statement about their commitment to reporting the news accurately is "Orwellian" in any meaningful sense. I do think that the methods described by Ben Rhodes to build a media echo-chamber for Obama's Iran deal are much closer to Orwellian than anything that Sinclair did.
Trump's tweets are a thing unto themselves, but no one can truthfully suggest that they are not subject to criticism. It is hard to see them as Orwellian--maybe unpresidential, maybe untruthful, but not Orwellian.
Because Marxism is viral, 50 million in China, 25 million in the ussr
"It became necessary to destroy the town to save it"
Ah some real old style fake news. The AP reporter copied that phrase from another reporter. No one can put those words in the mouth of the American soldier allegedly "quoted" for the story.
Dan Rather and Walter (Red Uncle) Cronkite made sure everyone heard this fake story. It sure got imprinted on your brain.
"This is an Orwellian statement: 'If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan [under Obamacare].'"
No. That's either an erroneous statement--that is, he believed it when he said it, not knowing what the results of the provisions of the bill actually would be--or it was a lie. A simple lie is not Orwellian. Orwellian language involves the intentional distortion of language's meaning to erase meaning. The ultimate purpose is to make language utterly malleable, with no fixed meaning.
This quote from "Alice In Wonderland" is a perfect definition of "Orwellian" language:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.”
Ah yes. It was Peter Arnett of the AP who created the "destroy to save it" meme.
Cambodia was probably 3 million, that was the fruit of our alliance with Mao
The left never forgets, the late general rios Montt kept Guatemala from going left with strong medicine, he was popular among the Mestizo population of the highlands for that reason. But the un kangaroo court had him removed and tried for genocide.
Robert Cook--You are right--I was making fun of ARM above. See my later comment on "Orwellian", which I think agrees with you in principle.
Supposedly the personifications of Good and Evil coexist in symmetry. If there's an Angel of Charity, there must be Demon of Covetousness, sometimes called Mammon. The image of Mammon as painted by De Morgan is a seated nude figure, male probably. Now it stands to reason that if you're nude you're not wearing anything with pockets, and if you're a greedy demon and nude then you have a problem — i.e. what to do with the stuff you acquire. De Morgan gave him a sack, which begs the question why not give him pants? Is it all that important that the idol of Mammon be a nude? The artist has ignored a perfect opportunity to render that female worshiper in the nude, so why force Mammon to carry around his loot in a little poke when for the price of some paint he can wear a nice Italian suit and carry a Gucci briefcase?
A related question: Are there vending machines in nudist colonies?
ARM said...
You have to really work it at to view Orwell's writings as anti-labor.
You have to really work at it to view unions today as pro-labor.
"Ah some real old style fake news. The AP reporter copied that phrase from another reporter. No one can put those words in the mouth of the American soldier allegedly 'quoted' for the story."
This person does.
Why the quote marks around "labor?" BTW, Orwell was himself a leftist and a democratic socialist.
And Huxley was "gentry" and a leftist.
But neither was blind to the faults and potential dangers in the movements they themselves espoused.
(BTW, "labor left" is kind of a European thing; American "labor" has with a few exceptions always been more about the money than ideology.)
The one consistent theme of Dan Rather is that he knows everyone else's bad motivations, and he needs no proof to assert it.
Mary o Grady, brought that to my attention quoting Carlos sabino, but people still go by tendentious accounts like Stephen kinzers, just like Herbert Matthews being fooled by Fidel, teddy white by Mao, and of course David halberstam, which mark moyar unpacked but it took 50 years.
Amadeus 48: Yes, your later comment was a very good examination of what "Orwellian" language is. Thank you for that.
Fake Drudge & Telegraph headlines:
World's largest dinosaur found in Scotland...
50ft long!
50 feet! 10 tonnes!
The old records were 130 feet! 90 tonnes!
" The military officer in Vietnam who, speaking about a town destroyed by U.S. armaments, said "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it" was making an Orwellian statement."
Actually, the journalist that Invented the military officer (and the saying) was the one making an Orwellian statement
Cook,
I do not disagree with your definition of Orwellian.
The definition of Orwellian is something that resembles the world that George Orwell described in his book 1984.
An example of Orwellian is reality television stars having cameras throughout their homes.
Orwellian
of or like the society portrayed by Orwell in his novel Nineteen Eighty-four, characterized by totalitarian government, irrational political concepts, the politicization of everyday language, etc.
Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Of, relating to, or evocative of the works of George Orwell, especially the satirical novel 1984, which depicts a futuristic totalitarian state.
Above found at yourdictionary.com
Then there is this from Wikipedia:
"Orwellian" is an adjective describing a situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free and open society. It denotes an attitude and a brutal policy of draconian control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth (doublethink), and manipulation of the past,
Here is an article on the confusing meanings of Orwellian
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/nov/11/reading-group-orwellian-1984
So, while I do, more or less, accept your definition, it is hadly the only one. My point was that most people, when they use the term, have no idea what it means. They just use it to denote something that they disagree with and find scary.
I think the use of "Orwellian" in this Sinclair story fits the disagree/scary meme more than your more proper definition.
John Henry
Is a memory hole Orwellian?
Looking forward to Limbaugh today when, in response to the Sinclair furor, will play his talking point greatest hits. Starting with the signature original: "Gravitas" A word that only somebody like Bill Buckley would use suddenly sprouting from talking heads all over the country. He has plenty more besides.
Hillary's private server and Bill's rape should land them in prison.
Instead it lands them in pay to play and memory hole.
"Actually, the journalist that Invented the military officer (and the saying) was the one making an Orwellian statement."
I linked to this above, but here it is again. The quote wasn't invented.
Orwell in Catalonia described the issues the republic had that ultimately led to the nationalist victory.
Halberstan had almost the entire diem story wrong as moyar noted, this led to his oyster. Bani sadr shopped a black legend about the Shah to Salinger Randall and rouleau, which led to khomeini
Leftists invoking Orwell always makes me chortle. Reading the Newspeak appendix of 1984 must be like looking in a mirror for the average prog. The comment above about "labor" and "gentry" Leftists is right on. Orwell fully had the Gentry Left's number by the time he wrote The Road to Wigan Pier. There's no question that he would have been fucking appalled by the modern Prog.
Orwellian: Interviewing Stormy Daniels.
Ignoring Juanita Broderick.
"Isn't it Orwellian the way it's always the other side that looks Orwellian?" No.
It's just progs defining Orwellian down. They still don't get Orwell--on purpose, of course.
The fact that anyone still pays any attention to Dan Rather tells us more about the state of prog media than anything else.
The fact that Hollywood put out a movie entitled Truth about his shenanigans tells us more about the state of prog movie-making than anything else.
Blogger EDH said...
You have to really work at it to view unions today as pro-labor.
Why would anyone ever expect labor unions to be pro labor? If unions were, they would be malfeasing.
Labor unions exist, and members pay dues to them, for one reason and one reason only. To get them the best deal possible from their employer.
Not to get anyone else the best deal possible from their employer. Not to help society. ONLY to get the best possible deal for their own members. Their may be time when helping society helps members. There may be times when helping others helps their members.
Overall, though, their sole job is to represent their members. Expecting anything else is Orwellian. (in the meaningless sense of the word)
Working to benefit society may actually work against their membership. OSHA is tasked with improving workplace safety. That does (in theory, we can argue about how well OSHA works) benefit everyone in every workplace. But it hurts the unions. One of the reasons to join a union is to force employers to provide a safe workplace. If the govt is going to do that, what is the point of the union?
As Albert Shankar, head of the Teacher's Federation, said (or maybe not) "We represent teachers. If the students want us looking after their interests, let them pay dues." Quote from memory
If I hire a lawyer, I want them looking after MY interests. Ditto if I "hire" a union to represent me.
It is stupidity on stilts to think it should be otherwise.
John Henry
Yes he's the youngest turk now that cenk had his issue.
Fall of heaven shows,how wrong they got the shah story wrong.
Victory forsaken about the early days in Vietnam pre 65
I can see why I never heard of De Morgan. Scrotal imagery is not the selling point of the male body. Phallic symbols are far more preferable. Who doesn't like phallic symbols? There's some phallic imagery in the picture. However, the woman looks anxious and troubled rather than awed or entranced by the presence of phallic symbols. . She misses the point of phallic symbols.
Blogger Amadeus 48 said...
"I have always thought of "Orwellian" as the concept of manipulating the language to limit or eliminate disfavored ideas and using propaganda to channel thought and eliminate critical thinking."
So "Orwellian" and "political correctness" are synonymous?
"Orwellian" has become a term to blanket thought rather than to refine meaning. Orwellian has, thus, become an Orwellian expression.
On the left - lies are truth. Hillary isn't a criminal and voting for her was not a morally reprehensible act.
Cook, your friends at The New Republic identified the source at the time as Major Chester L. Brown.
Your new source says it was Major Booris. The quote has NEVER BEEN VERIFIED by the media and the man who started it (Arnett) refused to say who his source was. So that's an interesting link but is one you can vouch for? Can it be corroborated? That's what journ-o-lism is supposed to do.
Mammon: Today's Belief System!
Mike,
I don't know why you refer to "my friends at The New Republic." I've never read it and I didn't refer to it as a source.
As for the link, I can't personally corroborate it, of course, but he does provide plenty of information about himself, so you can try contacting him for verification, if you like. He also provides the name and address of another person who was present who confirms it. You can contact them both.
The left support and glorify their liars.
Glenn Greenwald:
The $500,000 GoFundMe Charity Campaign for Wealthy Ex-FBI Official Andrew McCabe Is Obscene
I see what Sinclair did openly as the mirror of what the left dies with journolist in a group of 400 journalists.
Instapundit has commented what the left outrages on, is how they actually behave.
9. Who is that woman and what does she have to do with Evelyn De Morgan?
Joanna Heffernan. She was an Irish model that was considered a muse my many of the great Pre-Raphaelite painters.
"...who was considered..." Apologies for the bad grammar.
Labor unions exist, and members pay dues to them, for one reason and one reason only. To get them the best deal possible from their employer.
You would think that. But my lying eyes tell me that labor unions today exist to support leftist politicians and policies, many of which are inimical to the interests of the dues paying members. But that's OK. They dues paying members are required to join the union if they want to work. So its all good.
Who and that is not necessarily about grammar when speaking of persons. The terms have different connotations.
As for the link, I can't personally corroborate it, of course, but he does provide plenty of information about himself, so you can try contacting him for verification, if you like. He also provides the name and address of another person who was present who confirms it. You can contact them both.
No I'm not doing the media's work for them. We have conflicting stories told by two "reputable" organizations, and a widely reported quote that to this day is not clearly attributable to a VERIFIED SOURCE, and of course you cannot vouch for the guy at your link. But don't you feel a little strange quoting a reporter who says someone else was his source, and then linking to a third party?
Why should we have to check their work? Why hasn't any legit journalist nailed this down in the ensuing 50 fucking years!
Answer: Because it is a quote too perfect to check.
They don't WANT to dig deeper. One story I read put the quote in a photographer's mouth and said Arnett overheard that guy and decided to attribute it to an anonymous Major. Sloppy. Not good journalism.
"A fake memo used by Dan Rather to influence an election in favor of the democrat candidate, is not journalism. It's fraud."
And yet one still marvels at the amateurish nature of the attempt. Perhaps Rather and Mapes couldn't help that their document had very questionable provenance, or that it was obviously run through a photocopier a few times to fuzz it up (this making it unverifiable), but, why did no one bother to find a real typewriter on which to type it?
Perhaps in a century it will be a challenge to find a real, antiqute typewriter, but the things were produced in such large quantities for so many years that it's hardly a challenge to find one today (and it was still easier then).
I thought Bernie Sanders and his wife were the world's only known "democratic socialists"?
Now this is a true Orwellian sytatement in regard to the English intelligencia of his day: "They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow". From England Your England by Orwell.
why did no one bother to find a real typewriter on which to type it?
Because the idea that someone could dispute them never occurred to them. And why should it? If they had attempted the same fraud just 5 years earlier, which would have been 1999, it probably would have gotten away with it. How could anyone of challenged it? A few articles might of been published in a right leaning magazine or newspaper, but without the internet any disputation could, and would have been ignored. They didn't try harder to deceive the public because they never had to try that hard. 60 Minutes was busted for faking stories multiple times, nothing changed. They controlled the public discourse.
"Your Big Brother is more Orwellian than my Big Brother!"
"Oh yeah? Well, my Big Brother has more tweet followers than your Big Brother."
Interestingly, Eric Blair only had a BIg Sister.
"All left wing parties in the highly industrialized countries are at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to fight against something which they do not really wish to destroy". George Orwell in his essay on Kipling.
Jesus said we cannot worship 'both God and Mammon', Mammon being wealth.
Just an aside on the subject of "Orwellian" - my 14-year-old daughter read "1984" for the first time recently (she was required to read a "classic" for school, and that was one we had around).
She and her mother have watched the TV show "Big Brother" for several years now. She learned, reading "1984", that her understanding of the meaning of that show's title was not exactly correct. :)
Ron,
You are right about at least some labor unions. Perhaps instead of saying that they exist to serve their members only, I would have said that they "should" exist to serve their members.
Paying off politicians may be a way of serving members. For example in the case of public sector unions, paying off pols will make them more amenable to pay raises.
Or in the private sector, paying off pols may increase their willingness to impose laws like mandatory membership, dues checkoff, licensing, Davis-Bacon and myriad other laws that help unions help their members.
Not so good for the non-members like you and I, of course. But they are doing what they are paid to do. What they are supposed to do. Assuming they act within the law, which they don't always do, of course.
Management's job is to make unions unnecesary.
Well run companies tend not to be unionized.
John Henry
Mammon is the Mother's Milk of Politics... Jesse "Big Daddy" Unruh
Obviously "Rathergate" has been forgotten on the left, else the would not still revere him as the second coming of Walter Cronkite. The best part of all this is when Dan is interviewed he is never asked to recant his infamous "Fake but accurate" defense and is never asked about the memo. Strange, isn't it? Like it never happened and we can now hang on this man's every word about Trump and Orwell.
The left support and glorify their liars.
Glenn Greenwald:
Has Greenwald ever apologized for using sockpuppets?
Orwellian language involves the intentional distortion of language's meaning to erase meaning. The ultimate purpose is to make language utterly malleable, with no fixed meaning.
This quote from "Alice In Wonderland" is a perfect definition of "Orwellian" language:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.”
By this definition, Althouse is Orwellian.
So - even though this has been going on for a couple weeks now - this is what the left is going to whine about until the next, self-created crisis.
The left. Screeching about coordinated messaging. All at the same time.
With the same message.
It's beyond tedious at this point.
I remember Rathergate very well. September 8/9, 2004.
Buckhead - a commenter on FreeRepublic, if I recall - was the first to call out the memo.
I had a feeling we were seeing something different as right-of-center blogs were all over the story. So I clipped, copied and saved links for the next several days as the story blew up. Still have them and it's amazing how many blogs there were that are now gone.
He reverted to form as a batshit crazy leftist, but Charles Johnson and LGF were must-read back then. And his gif changed that election.
There ought to be a precise word created for this: It’s when the MSM takes something that is ordinary, commonplace and normal and by using implication or even downright lies the MSM pretends that it is rare and somehow ominous.
The MSM’s hysteria over the Sinclair Broadcasting Group is the latest example: Companies with multiple offices often issue company-wide statements on policies in all the locations simultaneously. How else are they supposed to implement policy?
Why is Scott Adams taking such a mild-mannered shot at Maguire?
Who knows? I appreciate that Adams offers some intriguing concepts on how to analyze the Trump Phenomenon and has rightly predicted Trump’s ascension but he sometimes offers some very odd opinion. His latest strange contention is that if the caravan is successful and creates a horde of people crossing the border that Trump should annex Mexico and solve all of Mexico’s problems.
Believe me, readers, I am an old Mexico hand and we DON’T want Mexico. Hell, even Mexico doesn’t want Mexico.
We all have our bubbles and Adams has his own unique, unrealistic bubble.
I want to know more about the adoptive parents. Just how do they feel about all this?
Arggh. Accidentally posted on the wrong thread again. Because I open the threads in several tabs at once. Sorry.
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