Hitler And Trump
In 1946, as Europe was digging out from buy canada goose jacket the ruin of World War II a genuine case of mass carnage as opposed to President Donald Trump’s fantasy carnage Orwell wrote the classic essay on the seductions of propaganda, “Politics and the English Language.”
Much of canada goose store the essay, widely assigned in English classes, warns how stale writing leads to sloppy thinking. But the most original part canada goose clearance is Orwell’s evisceration of propaganda.
Combined with his great novel 1984, written Canada Goose Outlet in 1949 as a canada goose coats dystopian warning about the way totalitarian practice becomes internalized in totalitarian thinking, these two great works gave us the Canada Goose Online adjective, “Orwellian.”
In 1984, we learned the official slogans of the party: “War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength,” only slight parodies of communism and Nazism.
cheap Canada Goose “Freedom is Slavery” was not far from the infamous greeting at the gates of Auschwitz, “Arbeit Macht Frei.” cheap Canada Goose
Canada Goose Jackets And “Ignorance is Strength” seems to be Donald Trump’s credo and operating premise ignorance for both himself and his public. Canada Goose Jackets
canada goose store Orwell’s target was the prettified euphemism, used mostly by extreme left wing and right wing parties and governments. If people could be persuaded to accept the re framing, they might well alter their conception of reality. canada goose store
canada goose In “Politics and the English Language,” Orwell made great sport of pretentious writing and mixed metaphors, such as “The capitalist octopus has sung its swan song.” But he was dead serious about the political canada goose uk black friday point. He wrote: canada goose
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Canada Goose online Note that Orwell was writing two full decades before the Vietnam War. Even before the advent of Donald Trump, the misuse of language in our own day has been in many respects more insidious and more corrosive than the plague against which Orwell was warning. Canada Goose online
Orwell’s examples came from either totalitarian governments or far left and far right parties in the democracies. In America, a democracy, both major parties have increasingly used Orwellian language Republicans far more than Democrats.
canada goose clearance sale Trump has taken the maneuver to a whole new low. But the buy canada goose jacket cheap earlier Orwellian efforts softened the ground. canada goose clearance sale
buy canada goose jacket There was a time when most laws had descriptive or technical names, such as the Glass Steagall Act, the National Labor Relations Act or the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Since former President George W. Bush, pieces of legislation have been treated as branding and marketing opportunities. buy canada goose jacket
canadian goose jacket After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration hastily assembled a wish list of every overzealous prosecutor and surveillance agent. What patriot could be against the Patriot Act? canadian goose jacket
And speaking of torture, that activity, prohibited by the Geneva canada goose coats on sale Conventions, was rebranded as “enhanced interrogation.” Sending American captives off to prisons in allied nations canada goose black friday sale where there were no limits on torture was called a “rendition.” If a document was censored, that was now termed “redacted.” uk canada goose outlet Even the mainstream press, shamefully, has succumbed to that usage.
As Orwell would have appreciated, “censored” is plain English. Censorship sounds like something we might want Canada Goose online to oppose or at least suspect. “Redacted” uk canada goose is a bland, unfamiliar and bureaucratic word that suggests a neutral and presumably defensible process. And the Obama administration found the word just as convenient as Dick Cheney, Bush and company did.
Canada Goose sale After the Patriot Act, it became standard procedure for both parties to give laws propagandistic names, though the Republicans were the repeat offenders. One of the worst pieces of bipartisan education legislation ever, later repudiated by both parties because of its overreliance on teach to the test, was called “The No Child Left Behind Act.” Who could be against that? Canada Goose sale
Canada Goose Outlet Republican advocates of school vouchers, mindful of the canada goose factory sale well established support for public schools, canada goose uk shop began rebranding them as the more sinister sounding “government schools.” When President George W. Bush sponsored a tax subsidized drug insurance program run by private insurance companies, he made sure to brand it “Medicare Part D,” since Medicare was a broadly canadian goose jacket supported public program even though Canada Goose sale his drug program was pure windfall to the drug industry and had nothing whatever to do with Medicare. Canada Goose Outlet
This may seem like small beer, but it is one of Canada Goose Coats On Sale several trends on the use of language that has misled and cheapened public discourse and laid the ground for Trumpism. At the extreme, the trend feeds the ability of demagogues to persuade citizens that up is down, or black is white.
Canada Goose Parka Fox News, the most flagrantly biased of the cable channels, pioneered the trend with its slogan, “Fair and Balanced.” As any serious person knows, Fox is a propaganda organ, while the reputable news organs, from The New York Times to cheap Canada Goose NPR, really do make an effort to separate fact from opinion. Canada Goose Parka
Long before Trump, the “mainstream” Republican Party made lies a staple of its arsenal, from its lies about Obamacare to its bogus budget numbers to its false contentions of fraudulent voting.
Trump has embellished this technique by lying, then accusing his critics of lying, until the debate is hopelessly scrambled. Trump manufactures phony stories, then accuses the media of “fake news.”
canada goose clearance Adolf Hitler was the first to describe the technique of repeating a lie so often that people would come to believe it. He called it the “Big Lie.” canada goose clearance
From his denial of climate change to canada goose clearance sale his denial that Obama was born in Hawaii, Trump has dusted off the Big Lie. But then he goes classic Big Liars canada goose outlet one better by denying the denial.
buy canada goose jacket cheap As Jonathan Swift wrote in 1710, “Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late.” A version misattributed to Mark Twain has it that “a lie is halfway around the world while the truth is putting its boots on.” You get the point. buy canada goose jacket cheap
canada goose deals Trump’s strategy is to flood the zone to proliferate so many lies that by the time one lie is rebutted, he has put out several more, and he seems to believe even the lies that contradict previous lies. Ignorance really is Trump’s strength. canada goose deals
In his Inaugural Address, Trump claimed that America is succumbing to a horrible crime wave, canada goose when if fact serious crime is at a 30 year low. Republican demonizers of the Affordable Care Act bemoan the high out of pocket expenses, when in fact all the Republican replacements would raise deductibles and co pays. And so on.
canada goose coats on sale Trump has resurrected the Big Lie. But, pathetically, he also resorts to the Little Lie. canada goose coats on sale
On his first full day in office, Trump’s main concern was whether his was bigger his inaugural crowd. Though it was easily verified that Obama’s inaugural had a larger crowd, as did the women’s march the next day after Trump’s show, a livid Trump sent out his press secretary to rail at the press for understating Trump’s size. The press spokesman, Sean Spicer, himself told at least seven easily verifiable lies.
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