The Obama campaign takes a cue from Orwell: history as palimpsest
Orwell knew full well how important this sort of erasure of history by the Obama campaign is, although he didn’t envision the help of the internet’s wayback machine in reconstructing the vanished past. Do Obama’s scrubbers realize that such a tool exists, and that their work is transparent to those who know how to find the “disappeared” evidence despite their intense efforts to hide it?
It’s likely that they do. But they may count on the fact that nobody seems to care all that much except for a few persnickety bloggers. Rewriting history probably works very well for “the masses,” especially with the cooperation of the intrepid investigative reporters of the MSM who are so busily occupied in digging up dirt on Joe the Plumber and his like.
Please take a look at Orwell’s description of the task of editing out all inconvenient historical facts by the government in his dystopic novel 1984:
This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs — to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.
With just a little tweaking, it can be made to fit the Obama campaign quite nicely:
This process of continuous alteration was applied to the internet—to every website which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by Obama could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment to elect him, and especially to allow him maximum deniability of all shady or suspect associations, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.
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The MSM is indeed the key for Obama in this effort – as it is in all his efforts to hide, obscure, intimidate, bully, and cheat his way to the presidency. It is the ultimate trump card. He can depend on the MSM to do anything he needs to have done to further his aims. We no longer have a free press! If Obama is elected, why wouldn’t we expect this relationship with the media to continue?
If so, the internet and it’s intrepid bloggers may be all that stands between us and a tyrant.
This country is about to make a mistake of biblical proportions. People who have evaded responsibility for 8 years are about to be put in charge of the whole nine yards. When the reckoning comes it will be ugly.
The parallel with 1984 is even better than one expects. The “proles” in the novel merely consumed the propaganda from The Party without question. In our world the proles are the low-information, Leno/Letterman/Today Show voter. They only know what the MSM tells them. More involved people are like the Outer Party, who, like Winston Smith, probably include many who know the whole society is a sham, but keep their thoughts to themselves. Here I include even many, many Democrats. Obastard and Axelrod are members of the Inner Party, as well as MSM leaders and intellectuals. Those of us like Winston who see the sham but object face a Room 101. But what is the analog for that in our world? I predict this… the new tyranny will not consist of jackboots and truncheons. But it may promise a fate for dissenters more like the hell in Sartre’s “No Exit.” Not with a bang but a whimper.
I know that politicians–even ones I like–shift, spin, fudge, and sometimes even outright lie, but Barack Obama and his campaign have set new records this year.
I’ve never seen an American political campaign so deserving of the adjective, Orwellian.
Neo,
As a former art historian w/ a specialty in medieval manuscripts, I haven’t seen the word “palimpsest” in about 20 years, and never in the media or blogosphere. I am impressed!
As this election goes on, I keep wishing someone would remake the Obama-inspired remake of the Apple 1984 commercial (you know, the one with Hillary talking instead of Big Brother), only this time, we would see Obama’s face on the screen.
The whole Orwellian nature of the Obama campaign is perhaps what worries me so much about the whole enterprise. After all, lately we have heard Obama go on and on and run negative ad after negative ad which point out the supposedly negative nature of the McCain campaign. Why don’t more people pick up on the irony? And then, of course, there are all those news reports about Obama having purchased a half hour of TV time in many markets for next Wednesday night. My heavens, if that doesn’t sound like Obama’s “Big Brother Show” what in the world would?
I just happened onto this site, and hoped I might find clear thinking. Too bad.
The focus on the tiniest insignificant detail is silly. Why insist that Obama’s career was “launched” by Ayers?
Why not ask why Ayers was picked by conservatives like Annenberg and U of Chi? Why not incriminate everyone on that board they sat on? Settling on namecalling is classic propaganda — but is that all you got?!
Thinking outside the box is more interesting. Even Nader and Paul do a better job on actual issues.
Joe: Aside from the fact that you have utterly failed to understand the point of this post—which is the rewriting of history—you might do well to question why it is that Obama and/or his staff and/or his supporters want to hide the “insignificant detail” of whether Obama’s career was launched by Ayers or not. I’ve never focused on the fact of the launch; there are far more important connections between Obama and Ayers to ponder. This one, for example.
But, rather than merely coming here to be insulting and innapropriately condescending, if you really are interested in how Ayers was picked and why, and why there were conservatives on the Annenberg Board as well, you should go to this site. There are a host of posts there that are relevant, but I’d suggest beginning with this one.
Progressives like to talk about “1984,” but only conservatives seem to be really frightened when it happens. The first 8/10s of the 20th century showed that nothing is more scary than the Left ascendant. I’m afraid that the 21st century is going to need to re-teach the world that same lesson.
“persnickety”…
Is that like “uppity”?