Democrats’ Newspeak – 13jan22 (updated 31jan22)

George Rebane

[A slightly edited version of this piece appeared in the 29jan22 op-ed pages of The Union, titled ‘Democrats’ ‘Newspeak' a radical ideological agenda’.  As you can see from the comment stream under article, once again none of the leftwingers understand the message and simply play their strong suit in attacking the messenger – ‘twas ever thus.  All are profoundly ignorant of not only the civil, but also the legal, pre-Newspeak meaning of ‘alien’ which was in common usage across the land to describe the non-citizen class of people in America.]

George Orwell and Mao Zedong both knew that a person can only think thoughts supported by his language, a cogito-linguistic principle first introduced as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.  Orwell introduced it to broad audiences in the form of Newspeak in his 1984 classic.  Newspeak was a continuously revised and government mandated English that systematically removed/revised words that supported thinking about rebellion or anything antigovernmental.  It worked very effectively in the novel, and motivated Mao's attempt to replicate a Newspeak version of Chinese to a large illiterate population after communists took power in 1949.  Mao began by reducing published Chinese to 2,000 carefully chosen ideographs (out of more than 800,000), the recognition of these would make a citizen compliantly literate and able to read government issued dicta and ‘news’.

Democrats and other would-be autocrats worldwide have been envious of this method of thought control effected by the bureaucratic elites of collectivist governments.  And in the last few years we have seen America’s progressives begin implementing the 21^st century version of Newspeak.  A more sophisticated and harder to detect aspect of Newspeak is to reduce the information carrying capacity of the language.  This is achieved by contracting authorized word usage and making the meaning of surviving words more ambiguous.  (Languages expand their information carrying capacity by introducing new words to identify new things and capture more nuanced meanings so as to efficiently communicate them – think of ‘the cat caught a mouse’ vs ‘the domesticated furry, four-legged predator with claws caught a mouse’.)

A recent ratcheting of Newspeak is found in Gov Newsom’s new spate of laws for California, as described in Terry McLaughlin’s column in the 13jan22 Union (here).  Starting this year, the word ‘alien’ will be struck from government materials (as already picked up by the lamestream media), to be replaced by ‘non-citizen’ and ‘immigrant’ to describe people in America who are not citizens.  With these newly restricted usages, the reader cannot distinguish between, say, a legal tourist or business-person, and anyone illegally in the country; or a recently arrived person under a legal two-party agreement, and anyone who came here in violation of our laws.

Again, the Democrats’ motivation here is clear – not only make it hard to distinguish but also to think about illegal aliens flooding through porous borders to weaken America’s traditional culture, its sovereign nation-statehood, and to ensconce a growing electorate that will ultimately guarantee a one-party monopoly in the United States.  And Newspeak, promoted widely through our government and academic institutions, co-operating corporatists, and unionized public schools, makes it all possible.  As an exit exercise, consider also the new meanings of ‘racist’, ‘white supremacist’, ‘insurrection’, ‘the rich’, ‘nazi’, ‘socialist’, ‘violence’, … . To confirm the success of this insidious program, just have a conversation with anyone under 30 years old.

As former Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerard Baker observed in ‘The News Media Becomes Fluent in Newspeak’, “We are facing nothing less than a concerted, sustained and comprehensive effort to re-educate Americans in service of a radical ideological agenda.”

[31jan22 update]  The comment stream under The Union’s online post of the above article is populated by almost all leftwingers with a totally predictable illustration of polarization beyond futility.  They have focused on my inclusion of ‘illegal alien’ as one of today’s proscribed words that makes very difficult or impossible understanding and discussing immigration policy or our border situation.  And, of course, that is the whole purpose of the Democrats' radical progressive wing to reduce the information carrying capacity of everyday language.  However, most noteworthy in today’s America is that there now is a huge cohort of our electorate that demands to be ignorant of the issues, and unable to communicate anything about them beyond the approved slogans in abbreviated semantics.  In response to that comment stream, I posted the following.

Illegal Alien: Federal law employs the term alien, which it defines as “any person not a citizen or national of the United States”.  US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) uses the term in its program descriptions.  As a legal term of art, illegal alien has been a part of US Code, our body of laws, for generations.  From BallotPedia, “Those in favor of using the term illegal alien argue that it is a legally accurate term used in federal law and other formal documentation. They also argue that its alternatives, such as undocumented immigrant, are euphamisms used to distract others from considering whether someone has violated U.S. immigration law. … Those opposed to using the term illegal alien argue the use of the word illegal dehumanizes people and does not fully consider the exceptional cases of refugees.”  More specifically, according to H.A. Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation, “ 'Undocumented immigrant' is a politically correct, made-up term adopted by pro-illegal alien advocacy groups and liberal media outlets to obscure the fact that such aliens have violated U.S. immigration law and are in the country illegally...If we are going to discuss and debate the issue of immigration and what our public policy should be, we should at least use accurate, precise terms, and talk about, for example, legal aliens vs. illegal aliens.”

The comments herein do an excellent job of illustrating the point/thesis of my column.  To further underline my thesis, The Washington Post reports, “The Biden administration has ordered U.S. immigration enforcement agencies to stop using terms such as ‘alien’, ‘illegal alien’, and ‘assimilation’ when referring to immigrants in the United States, a rebuke of terms widely used under the Trump administration.”  Obfuscation über alles.

Comments

[MikeL]

So let me get this straight, er I mean correct ( straight is now a banned word since straight persons are to be shunned)…. If I see toys with a particular sex characteristic on a store shelf the store can be fined for this alleged offense. Do the toys need to have breasts or not?

[scenes]

re: MikeL@6:00AM

Given https://twitter.com/HJoyceGender/status/1481656625119121414

"The BBC invites this doctor on to talk about prostate-cancer screening. When pressed in the replies he is simply unwilling to say which type of human needs such screening. 'People with prostates,' he says, circularly. This is the end-point of reality denialism"

I'm going to suggest 'toys with prostates'. You have to disassemble them though.

I like the idea of an emergent Newspeak, but one implication is that the vocabulary is diminishing. Given that Western culture is producing tomes like this rather than going to Mars...

https://www.amazon.com/Deconstructing-LEGO-Medium-Messages-Play/dp/3030536645

...producing reams of word salad, I wonder if there isn't some other form being produced.

It's a sort of improvisation of nebulous ideas and made-up words, all aimed at keeping the mob happy subject to the opinions of 'thought leaders'. A kind of political jazz. You run into that in Soviet writing and art, the latter subject to getting the artists thrown into prison if Soul Brother Number One didn't like his expression in the propaganda poster.

[scenes]

I'll throw my own prediction in the ring for what 'Newspeak' will really be. To differentiate it from Orwell, let's call it something else for a sec. 'Mobspeak'?

Mobspeak is the use of software to enforce community standards ('community' meaning a relatively small group of crazy people currently in the driver's seat) in terms of media files produced, stored, and transmitted from computers.

You'll not only see surveillance of files for things that are already illegal (child porn is the canonical example), but that'll expand as needed. There'll be a continuing huge push for storing data in the 'cloud' (ie. someone else's computer), the better to watch you with my dear. Text censorship, which can range from outright refusal to merely nudging your behavior, will spread from social media to blogs to word processing programs (ie. MS Word) and browsers. Machine learning for detecting wrongthink will improve over time.

Mechanization of allowable language is going to be the heart of the matter.

[Gregory]

Wokespeak.

[scenes]

"Wokespeak"

That's reasonable.

Really, you can expand the whole idea to non-media concepts.

You can essentially guarantee that, for instance, financial/stock/bond analysis software can become two things over time...increasingly opaque and increasingly political. The nudging of the herd could happen in some pretty subtle ways.

[THOMAS O'TOOLE, [email protected]]

What a well written and informative Rumination, along with its comments.

Dr. Rubane, do I have your permission to pass it on to many that are in a need to know?

tot

[George Rebane]

ThomasO 856am - Thank you for the kind words. RR is a public blog, you may always pass on its URL or the URLs of as many of its commentaries and comment streams as you wish.

[scenes]

Oooh, I just thought of a good way to illustrate a mechanism for wrongthink dissuasion.

Consider the whole concept of 'suggest' words on cell phone messaging (and a lot of other programs with word hints). Over time you could steer the way the average person actually phrases something, which in turn changes their thinking patterns. The temptation to use the phones choice of wording is high given the ease of use.

[George Rebane]

You have a devilish mind Mr scenes.

[Scott O]

While not specifically about speech, this article continues the idea of why speech is pushed in a certain direction. Because thought needs to be pushed in a certain direction. And of course, then it certainly follows that the desired actions of the masses will ultimately result.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/01/the-miserable-life-in-woke-silicon-valley.php
The most telling part was when the author attended a group meeting and everyone was asked before they started:
"“How is everyone feeling?” Literally everyone else went on sad rants about their lives. “I’m so MAD a white supremacist shot 3 black men in Kenosha!”
It’s toxic. When it got to me, I said “Good.” and then a (((lady engineer))) literally proposed that we should not be allowed to answer the question positively. I shit you not. I think it hurt her that I wasn’t as miserable as her."
Because more and more people think in terms of what they believe they are expected to think, they are increasingly frightened and unable to intelligently respond to those who who still accept reality and operate under rational principles.

[Walt]

See? A DEM making excuses why illegal voting is just fine.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/maya-wiley-confederacy-noncitizens-vote

"MSNBC and NBC News legal analyst Maya Wiley noted that the Confederacy allowed noncitizens to vote, essentially calling for modern America to be more like the Confederate States – at least when it comes to voting rights.

"Noncitizen voting is not new, but it is a new frontier in the fight for democracy. Spurred by advocates, a progressive City Council in New York City passed a law to allow green card holders and immigrants with work authorization to vote in the city’s elections. That means New Yorkers who are living and working with permission of the federal government can vote for the three citywide offices—the mayor, comptroller, and public advocate—as well as their City Council member," Wiley wrote to begin the column. "

[Don Bessee]

Creepy grampa joe and the socialist greens have made American citizens 2nd class residents -

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/01/14/illegals-refusing-vaccine-americans-get-mandates/

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/01/14/house-republicans-biden-protecting-illegal-aliens-overstayed-visas-sanctuary-country-orders/

Left-wing group secured $158 million taxpayer-funded contract to help illegal immigrants avoid deportation

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/left-wing-158m-taxpayer-immigrants-deportation

;-)

[Barry Pruett]

https://apnews.com/article/texas-synagogue-hostages-e6087528c4728c418ee6872f13778b71

AP: “The FBI says the Texas synagogue hostage taker's demands were specifically focused on issue not connected to the Jewish community.”

Unbelievable. The Islamist terrorist, who held Jews hostage at a Texas synagogue, on Sabbath, was “singularly focused on one issue” related to freeing “Lady Al Qaeda” who is in prison but that was not “specifically related to the Jewish community?” The FBI thinks that you are stupid.

[Scott O]

BP 8:55 - Only those white Euro male conservative Christians would do a thing like that!

"President Joe Biden said Sunday that the Colleyville hostage-taker is alleged to have bought a gun he had during the standoff off the street."
Probably cheaper than buying from Cabelas.

[Barry Pruett]

Makes sense. Focus on punishing legal guns owners and not a terrorist by obfuscation. Wait until they release his name. I would bet his name isn’t Hihn Smith. Typical leftists.

[Barry Pruett]

John Smith. Oops.

[Barry Pruett]

Yep. A 44-year-old terrorist named Malik Faisal Akram held Jews hostage at a Texas synagogue, on Sabbath, but the FBI states that he was “singularly focused on one issue” related to freeing “Lady Al Qaeda” who virulently anti-Semitic (even demanded DNA tests on jurors to be assured there were no Zionists or Jews on the jury and was educated at MIT incidentally) and who is in prison but, according to the FBI, Akram’s hostage taking was not “specifically related to the Jewish community.” What? Lol. Time to reform and reorganize the FBI.

[George Rebane]

The evidence for FBI's ideological corruption just keeps piling on. Have they crossed the Stasi threshold yet?

[The Estonian Fox]

Enough with our small problems in the U.S. Let's look at the uplifting side, across the Atlantic.
From Gatestone Institute - https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18137/europe-multicultural-volcano
We in the West are used to seeing women everywhere around us," Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes, before describing that in certain parts of Brussels, London, Paris and Stockholm, "you suddenly notice that only men are visible," as women "erase themselves" from public spaces.

"The Tower Hamlets district, which includes most of East London and Canary Wharf... has the highest percentage of Muslim residents in the UK, with 38 per cent". It is the "parallel society" brought as a gift by multiculturalism, the grave of Western illusions.

Although women of foreign nationality are only one-sixth of all women of childbearing age in Belgium, half of all children in Belgium are now born to foreign women. As MP Herman De Croo revealed, "78 per cent of Antwerp's children aged 1 to 6 are foreigners". The result? "Belgium will become Arab".

"The importance of Islam in Germany will increase," stated sociologist Detlef Pollack, the country's foremost expert on religious trends, "and that of Christianity will decrease...". In 2022, for the first time, fewer than half of the Germans will belong to one of the big churches. Within thirty years, according to the Pew Forum, the Muslim faithful who settled in Germany will equal the total number of Catholics and Protestants, many of whom will be only nominally religious.

It's been a good run, these last 1400 years. Thanks for the gift.

[scenes]

re: E. Fox@10:24AM

A sporting man has to think about the odds of either of the two likely outcomes in Europe.

. The local progressives, including the Pope, simply cede the land and fade off into the sunset via old age. Europe will be absorbed in the same way as Byzantium. Hopefully the jizyah is tolerable.

. There is one big holy motha of a civil war.

The likelihood of a giant freedom-lovin' diverse megacountry made with neighbors from all over the world is laughably small and should be reserved for the 10,000:1 bets.

You have to admire both Islam and Progressivism as mass movements. They're almost made for each other as one takes and the other gives away.

[scenes]

mikel sez: "
So let me get this straight, er I mean correct ( straight is now a banned word since straight persons are to be shunned)…. If I see toys with a particular sex characteristic on a store shelf the store can be fined for this alleged offense."

Geez louise, it took me a moment to find anything on that. Any googlesearch with the words 'sex' and 'toy' gives you pages of two-stroke powered vibrators and XXXXL nightgowns. Scary days indeed.

https://foxsanantonio.com/news/nation-world/new-california-law-to-require-retailers-to-have-gender-neutral-toy-section-toys-boys-girls-walmart-aisle-society

So evidently the Great State of California is now dictating aisle displays for stores. It's an insane overstep that is a perfectly Blue State thing to do. Satire is dead.

I liked this line:

"Media studies professor Lemish says the industry assumes girls will play with boy toys and watch boy programs but not vice versa, a destructive market force."

It's a 'destructive' market force I tell you. Truth is, if they could sell a dime's worth more of Chinese plastic items, they'll stuff their junk in the aisle any old way.

[Bill Tozer]

If a concerned parent lifts up Barbies dress or pulls down Ken’s pants, one would fail to see either an innie or an outie. Go again, look again, it will be our secret. Those missing parts are gender neutral parts.

[Applewood]

You moving George?

[Don Bessee]

Their newspeak is going to destroy the socialist greens going forward -

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/01/16/carville-democrats-whine-too-much-quit-being-a-whiny-party-go-fight/

;-)

[scenes]

re: GeorgeR@3:41 "You have a devilish mind Mr scenes."

Hah. Look at what I just ran into.

"The tech giant announced last year that it was working “to remove non-inclusive language commonly found within the technology and cybersecurity sectors.”

In line with that goal, the latest version of Microsoft Word in Office 365 has an additional editor tool that suggests “more inclusive” alternatives to commonly used words and phrases that might offend someone in relation to gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. When the new function is used, any potentially offensive words, like all other ‘errors,’ are underlined, allowing the writer to fix them if they wish."

https://www.rt.com/news/546212-microsoft-inclusive-tool-criticism/

[George Rebane]

Scenes 638pm - Well, I'll be ... Mr scenes, it appears that Bill Gates has a devilish mind too.

[Bill Tozer]

‘No Critical Race Theory in Schools? Here's the Abundant Evidence Saying Otherwise’

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/12/22/no_critical_race_theory_in_schools_heres_the_abundant_evidence_saying_otherwise_808528.html

[Bill Tozer]

KEEPING UP WITH THE LEFTIST LEXICON

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/01/keeping-up-with-the-leftist-lexicon.php

[Bill Tozer]

Dr. Rebane

I see the usual suspects are raking you over the coals for you post published in the Union.

All I can contribute is VDH knocking it out of the ball park.

‘Joe Biden and the Uses of Nihilism’

America is battling an epidemic far worse than the Omicron plague.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/30/joe-biden-and-the-uses-of-nihilism/

[George Rebane]

BillT 947am - Thank you Mr Tozer. As you can see from the update above, I made a little effort to shed some light into The Union's comment stream, but without much expectation that the lumens will be appreciated.