Pelosi Doublethink

Here’s the Newspeak Orwell envisioned:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

For a primer on this language, check out this Wikipedia article. As you read it, pay particular attention to “Blackwhite.” Indeed, I’ll help you by quoting from Orwell right now:

…this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink.

Have you got this firmly fixed in your mind? Do you recognize the socialist habit of putting a bass ackward spin on readily understood concepts, and embracing this manifest falsity for the Party benefit, embracing it so strongly that, for as long as the party needs it, it wipes out objective reality?

Good. Now read what Nancy Pelosi said about her trip to a terrible dictatorship, one that is one of the world’s major terror exporters, and one that is on the United States list of forbidden regimes — a keep in mind that this was a trip that the White House strongly advised against:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, deflecting White House criticism of her trip to Syria, said Friday she thinks the mission helped President Bush because it showed the United States is unified against terrorism despite being divided over the Iraq war. Pelosi, D-Calif., met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus earlier this week, against the president’s wishes.

“Our message was President Bush’s message,” Pelosi said in a phone interview with The Associated Press from Portugal, where she stopped briefly en route back to the United States.

“The funny thing is, I think we may have even had a more powerful impact with our message because of the attention that was called to our trip,” the California Democrat said. “It became clear to President Assad that even though we have our differences in the United States, there is no division between the president and the Congress and the Democrats on the message we wanted him to receive.”

Bush earlier in the week assailed Pelosi for making the trip to Damascus, saying it sent mixed messages to the Syrian government, which his administration considers to be a state supporter of terrorism.

Back is white. Evil is good. Treason is patriotic.

You go, Nancy girl! While those already in your camp may be incapable of restoring colors (i.e., black and white) to their true values, my hope is that the vast number of reasonable Americans, reading your doublespeak nonsense, will begin to appreciate that the current crop of Congressional Democrats is not, collectively, practicing good citizenship.

UPDATE:  It occurred to me that Pelosi’s approach to facts probably saw her function very well in Saudi Arabia.  This month’s Atlantic has a long article (only a part of which you can see online if you’re not a subscriber), discussing the prevalence of homosexuality in Saudi Arabia (something scarcely surprising when you consider the complete gender segregation in that country).  It turns out that, although homosexuality is technical subject to the death penalty, the way around the deathly proscription is to define yourself out of homosexuality altogether.  That is, you’re not homosexual if (a) you say you’re not and (b) you’re not the half of the couple on the receiving end of the act.  Within these finely drawn lines, the fact that two men are engaging in a sexual act becomes irrelevant.

Frankly, since I have no truck with criminalizing homosexuality, I’m glad that gays in Saudi Arabia have figured out a way to live their lives without fear of death.  Nevertheless, I find it telling the lengths to which repressive regimes and their citizens have to go to avoid the truth and effect of their own rules and reality.

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