Most of my friends on the left have re-read Orwell's 1984 within the last five years and have noted the many similarities between the fictional world of Big Brother and the real world of George W. Bush, especially in the distorted use of words and language. The three slogans of Oceana, the fictional country in which 1984 takes place ("freedom is slavery," "war is peace," "ignorance is strength"), remind us of some of the titles of legislation offered up by the Bush administration ("clear skies initiative," "no child left behind," etc) which mask the real purpose of the laws. It doesn't require too much stretching to see how the Bush administration, with its mastermind Karl Rove (who just might qualify as the modern embodiment of the mythical "Big Brother"), learned how to distort language in order to fool the public.
The Bush administration also has a long history of distorting facts, as in the infamous WMD rationale for the Iraq War. Again, the truth is the exact opposite of what the administration tried to claim. And again, like the mythical country Oceana, which would be at war one day with Eastasia, and then the next day with Eurasia, with all references to the war with Eastasia gone from the public record, the Bush administration went to war in Afghanistan one day, and a few months later was at war with Iraq, with references to Afghanistan all but gone from the news. Likewise, just as Oceana was involved in a perpetual war that bestowed unlimited power on its leader, so George W. Bush has begun a permanent "war on terror" which he insists gives him unprecedented powers.
However, the blatancy of the lying has gone one step further with the re-emergence of Rove from his recent "retirement." Now Bush's Brain is blatantly rewriting history, accusing the Democrats of being the ones pushing for war with Iraq in the year 2002, when they were in fact the ones trying to delay a vote even as Rove's boss was preparing for a war he was determined to wage, even without a Congressional vote. Peter Baker of the Washington Post does a good job of proving Rove a liar by quoting former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer and former Bush chief of staff Andrew Card. According to Baker, Card said Rove's "mouth sometimes gets ahead of his brain" and Fleisher asserted "It was definitely the Bush administration that set it in motion and determined the timing, not the Congress. I think Karl in this instance just has his facts wrong."
Now if we really were living in Orwell's 1984, Card and Fleischer, like Winston, the hero who rebelled against the mind control of Big Brother, would have their faces stuck in rats' cages to have their noses eaten off. But this is Bush country, 2007, and Rove cannot stop the news media and the Democrats from refuting his lies.
But it doesn't matter to Rove. He knows he doesn't have to use torture and thought police to be effective. In a country of couch potatoes and mindless consumers, and a media controlled by a few corporations who care more about profit than truth, all he has to do is get the lie out there, just like the Swift Boat ads, and he can create a stir. Even with a few reporters finally rebutting him, the lie is still there and some people will believe it.
Rove has always implemented a strategy of winning with narrow majorities. He doesn't have to discredit the Democrats with a large number of voters, he just has to fool or confuse enough people to allow his side to win. So he lies, the lie is spread on page one of the major papers, the media belatedly and unenthusiastically rebuts the story on page nine, and he has "catapulted the propaganda," as his great leader once said.
This has been the Rovian strategy for the past two presidential elections, and now that Rove no longer has an official job in Washington, he is free to make similar mischief in this election. And, so far, just as the citizens of Oceana were powerless to confront Big Brother, the Democrats do not have an effective strategy to fight him.
And that is very bad news for all of us.
