05 Apr 2008

Obama’s Orwellian Campaign Rhetoric

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Ed Kaitz, at American Thinker, has some observations on the contradictions inherent in the rhetoric of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Recent polls are showing that by a good 60% margin, Barack Obama is seen as a candidate who can “unify” the nation. This may be the most brilliant example of what George Orwell called “doublethink” in the recent history of the Democratic Party. Think about it: for over thirty, maybe forty years the American public has been variously sermonized and threatened by crusaders in Obama’s same party into embracing not unity, but “diversity.” Call it what you will – brilliant or duplicitous – it is still a masterful political achievement.

For decades students in our schools have been told to “celebrate difference” and to see America as a “salad bowl” rather than the “melting pot” of old. Those who resisted the collective swoon for “diversity” and who descried the resulting balkanization of our educational institutions were forced into “diversity training seminars” and reeducated under the watchful eyes of “diversity officers.” For as Mao Tse Tung famously said, those who oppose progressive change “must go through a stage of compulsion before they can enter the stage of voluntary, conscious change.” But if these polls are correct, and Obama is indeed the great unifier, what will happen then to all of the “diversity officers” and “diversity training” seminars on our college campuses and in our corporations? Will the entire “diversity” superstructure in our society finally be dismantled? Will Democrats, for maybe the first time since JFK or MLK start talking about what unites us rather than what divides us? Will citizens be thought of as “Americans” first and not categorized and rewarded based on skin color? Is Obama, the great unifier, going to finally liberate us from this divisive ideology? Don’t hold your breath.

George Orwell claimed that there was something more calculated at work when politicians begin to claim for example that “Slavery is Freedom” or that “Hate is Love,” or in Mao Tse Tung’s words, that “Compulsion is Voluntary.” The new and improved Democratic Party version seems to be that “Diversity is Unity.” Orwell called this “doublethink” and he claimed that it was a condition endemic to the totalitarian mind. It meant the ability “to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory” and “to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies.” For example, a liberal socialist political platform usually involves “liberating” us from our attachments to property, families and nation in the name of “freedom.” When the State chooses for us, however, the result is slavery. Doublethink in Mr. Obama’s case (“Diversity is Unity!”) gives him the luxury of defending not only the divisive and intolerant Reverend Wright and his party’s divisive policies over the years, but it also allows him to be seen as the savior who will finally make America whole.

Since it is difficult to recall a time when national unity was high on the list of Democratic Party priorities, the coming months should be a rather curious time for many. …

When.. divisive affirmative action programs were challenged in courts across the country “diversity” was invented as a way of continuing the assault on what many considered “white privilege” or “white oppression.” In the final analysis however, diversity or multiculturalism were never more than a charade to cover the underlying Marxist theory of conflict. Minority students brought in on affirmative action were rarely encouraged to study other languages and cultures because the liberal gatekeepers understood something rather disturbing about this endeavor: a thorough and sensitive investigation of other cultures and religions reveals a rather conservative, not liberal, orientation in their respective beliefs and habits. …

The bottom line is that when the Left in this country embraced Marxism they committed themselves to conflict and division, not cooperation. Obama, unlike Hillary however is smart enough to understand that fostering division is a poor strategy for winning elections. In the words of Eric Hoffer:

Those who would transform a nation or the world cannot do so by breeding or captaining discontent. . . They must know how to kindle and fan an extravagant hope.

Obama’s relationship with Reverend Wright complicates this strategy, as does his receptivity to and defense of the anger in much of the black electorate. But if Obama’s message is “unity” then it means absolutely nothing unless he addresses several decades of divide and conquer liberal ideology. In other words, unless he does this, Obama’s message will amount to nothing other than the latest form of Orwellian doublethink: “Diversity is Unity!”

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[…] BrothersJudd Blog wrote an interesting post today on Obama’s Orwellian Campaign RhetoricHere’s a quick excerpt…inherent in the rhetoric of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Recent polls are showing that by a good 60% margin, Barack Obama is seen as… […]



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