I have had it up to here with what George Orwell called "Doublethink" in
1984. It seems to pop up more and more in political discourse.
What is doublethink?
To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.'
Forgive me for hearing doublethink in the following instances:
Tom Delay calling the newly elected Democratic Congress a "lame duck majority". And Rove saying that he has the true picture of the election.
A guy from the right-wing blog Powerline implying that raising the minimum wage will increase poverty and that allowing Medicare to negotiate price discounts with drug companies for prescription drugs will make medicines less accessible. Brian Lehrer show (mp3)
Joe Lieberman saying that no one wants to bring the troops home more than he does, while consistently trashing anyone who suggests redeployment.
Repealing rent stabilization will make apartments cheaper.
I'm tired of this reality-redefining crap. The facts are this:
Democrats have a narrow, but clear mandate* to end the war and improve the economy for working Americans. Lame duck status happens after an election is over. Citizen Delay should be reminded that the 2008 elections are in two years.
Raising the minimum wage will raise wages for millions of Americans. Negotiating bulk purchases of drugs will save taxpayers billions of dollars and make them cheaper, and thus more accessible.
If a lawmaker desires to bring the troops home, then one should promote policies designed to do so.
And finally, if rent stabilization is repealed, your rent will go up.
Die doublethink. Die.
*The following factoid is still up in the air as I write this because votes are still being totaled in Georgia. It has never happened in a national election before that there seats only moved one way. That is, no seat held by a Democrat in the 109th Congress or governorship that was up for relection this year was run by a Republican. This has never happened before in this history of the country- at least one seat has always been captured by the party that lost seats (Somebody correct me if this is no longer true).