George Orwell in an essay called “Politics and the English language”, wrote about his famous “1984” novel, in it he described something that very closely resembled what in our own non-fictitious world has come to be known as “Political Correctness”, in his book the word used was “Newspeak” (pronounced new-speak), a fictional language with a reduced and simplified vocabulary, created to satisfy the totalitarian regime and the Party faithful.

Newspeak was the government’s official language, and it was created to accommodate and promote the needs of IngSoc (English Socialism). According to Orwell, in 1984 no one spoke Newspeak yet; but when the administration’s rank and file, plus the media, were instructed to start using it always so that the new language could gain ground steadily, obediently the media and all party members began to use Newspeak words and grammatical constructions more and more in their everyday speech. 

In the real world, those in charge of manipulating public opinion have long believed that through the use of language, they can influence thought and culture, they know that through this mean they can create perceptions that later become “reality” in the minds of the public, if repeated often enough.

“A lie told often enough becomes truth.” -Vladimir Lenin

The advocates of these language changes often claim that the changes are designed mainly to treat others with respect, by not using terminology that offends them. In many instances an argument can be made in favor of the above mentioned, however more often than not what we are being sold, is nothing more than a masquerade of the true ulterior motives.

Such was the case in Orwell’s Oceania; the Newspeak language had nothing to do with sensitivity, its only goal was the manipulation of the truth, as illustrated below:

“Goodthink” defined the party’s orthodoxy or position, "Joycamp" was used to describe a forced labor camp, “Crimethink” was to even consider any thought not in line with the principles of Ingsoc, “Thinkpol” or “Tthoughtpolice” was a force in charge of eliminating crimethink, “Malreported” was any report unfavorable to the government, which the government later deemed untrue, and “youthleague” was a mandatory children’s group under control of the Thought Police.

Even the word free in “1984” was considered Oldspeak (heretic), the word free only existed in a certain context, as in “The dog is free of lice”. The concept of political freedom had been replaced by the word crimethink.

It has often been said that reality mirrors fiction, and so it seems that when we examine many of our current trends, we find that many of the fictional ideas that governed Oceania in “1984”, resemble an awful lot the world in which we live in today.

This past week, congress passed a new law that is making its way to the senate, proposing the “GIVE-ACT”, HR1388 (who can oppose the act of giving?) yet there are provisions in this law that uses the Newspeak term of “Mandatory Volunteerism”, could this possibly be our own “youthleague”? Was that not what Lincoln fought a war for?

Ask anyone who ever lived in a socialist, fascist or communist country, what “Mandatory Volunteerism” can be like, and they’ll be happy to tell you.

During the Russian revolution, the communist who were a miniscule minority of the population, called themselves the Bolshevik party, which meant the majority party, (if they were the majority, they couldn’t be wrong, could they?), Lenin believed in Newspeak.

Closer to home we find more and more Newspeak each day, liberals call themselves “progressives” (who can be against progress?); abortions are referred to as “reproductive freedom”, or “pro choice” (only a troglodyte can be against choice and freedom); the national organization of radically leftist women, conspicuously leaves the “radically leftist” syllables out of their acronym, and simply called themselves NOW (National Organization of Women), anyone who witnessed their behavior during the last election, knows that advancing the cause of women is not foremost on their agenda.

IngSoc (English Socialism) in its sleepless nights has in the last few weeks given us additional Newspeak words to enrich America’s vernacular. We are now told that we will no longer refer to enemy combatants as enemy combatants, they will now be known as “foreign detainees”, just as Orwell suggested, the media and the administration’s rank and file have been instructed to start using this term from now on. They have also been asked to no longer refer to the Global War on Terror as such, the new name to be used hence forth, is the “Overseas Contingency Operation”, who knows? Perhaps we will soon be told that the word “terror” much like the word “free” in Oceania, can only be used in a certain context from now on.

But it doesn’t stop there, it appears that the word Terror itself is part of Oldspeak, acts of terror will no longer be referred to as Terrorist Acts; the Newspeak term for these sort of actions is “Man Made Disasters”, with a straight face we are told, that they are not taking money from those who work to give to those who don’t; the Newspeak word for wealth redistribution is “tax cuts to people who don't pay taxes”, the handout is called an “investment on people” who don’t pay taxes, “investing” is Newspeak for welfare these days.

“Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” -Thomas Jefferson

With our economy in shambles, our esteemed treasury secretary agrees with our Russian and Chinese “FRIENDS” (Newspeak for those who want to kill us), that tossing the dollar aside and going with a new global currency is not such a bad idea. This unelected official has also requested the unconstitutional right to fire CEOs of private industries, and to limit the salary of its employees, much as I am sure was done in Oceania.

Our attorney general is a proponent of amnesty for “undocumented immigrants” (Newspeak for illegal aliens), and is best known for brokering pardons for criminals and “man-made-disaterers” (Newspeak for terrorist) during the Clinton administration.

Our vice president, who was chosen for his vast knowledge in foreign policy, goes to Spain and thanks Zapatero for his help in Iraq, this is roughly the equivalent of thanking Obama for the Iraq invasion.

Our Secretary of State tells the Chinese that their repeated violations of human rights should not be an obstacle to our normal business relations.

Our house of representative voting 100% along party lines passed the largest spending bill in our entire history, an estimated yearly deficit of a trillion dollars a year for the next 10 years, and not a single conscientious objector placed his country ahead of his party’s line.

And our president goes abroad to the G20 meeting, and calls America an arrogant country that does not appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world, (what leading role?), he calls us dismissive and derisive of the old continent, that same old continent that has made such great contributions to humanity as, Fascism, Nazism, Communism and now Socialism.

But he didn’t stop there, our “Blame America First in Chief” (Newspeak for president), meets with the Russians and apologizes for America’s part in allowing our relations to “drift”. Little things like Russia’s cutting off natural gas supplies to our European allies, invading Georgia, threatening Poland with missiles on its border, coercing Kyrgzstan into removing us from the Bagram Air base, and poisoning Ukraine’s  president, had in our president’s view nothing to do with the “drift” in our relations.

Frankly I wish that creative colloquialism was the only thing that we had to worry about with the current one party rule in America, I pray that the omnipotent all seeing all powerful tyrannical regime of Oceania, will never occur in our lifetime, and that the current administration is successful at keeping us out of harm’s way from the despots that will surely come our way, to attempt to take advantage of America’s real or perceived weakness on the world’s stage at the G20.