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After enduring yesterday’s mutterings from Shermp (h/t to TM), who is a lot less fun than you’d expect the love child of Moe Howard and Carol Channing to be, I thought it might not be a good idea to go cold turkey; so I dropped by WorldNetDaily this afternoon for what we might call a nicotine patch of paranoia.

elliswashington.jpg

Thou shall not lie

I end my series on the Ten Commandments with the ninth commandment; “Thou shall not lie.”

Unfortunately, when the Ten Commandments were syndicated, they had to trim the last one to make room for more commercials.

George Orwell (1903-1950), that magnificent literary prophet from a bygone era, eloquently warned us that demagogues, dictators and tyrants would arise as wolves in sheep’s clothing.

aesop and son.jpg Actually, I believe you’re thinking of Aesop.  But they both wrote allegories using animals, so I can see where you might easily confuse them.  Here’s a little trick I learned for telling them apart:  Orwell’s the one who did not appear on the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show.

“Big Brother,” the State, if you will, was the invisible, ubiquitous, omnipresent figure that followed you everywhere you went, even into the deep recesses of your mind. It told you what to think, how to think and when to think (which wasn’t very often).

And Woody Allen kidnapped his nose in Sleeper.

Another sinister figure from Orwell’s “1984″ was “Goldstein.” Although not as prolific as Big Brother, nevertheless Goldstein was a salient figure in Orwell’s work and in his futuristic society called “Oceania.” If Big Brother was the equivalent of Die Fuhrer (The Leader) as in Germany’s dictator, Adolf Hitler, then surely Goldstein would be the counterpart to Hitler’s minister of propaganda (Josef Goebbels).

If Goebbels had been a renegade ex-Nazi who formed an underground resistance movement and was constantly vilified by the Third Reich for writing a book which exposed the rotten foundations of fascism, then…sure.  Yeah.  I can see that.

I cite Hitler’s Third Reich only as a point of reference, for I believe Goldstein to be such an evil, diabolical figure as to be beyond the sphere of mere men, but is in the realm of ideas much like Rousseau (a return to a savage state of nature); Karl Marx (From each according to his ability, to each according to his need), or Nietzsche (God is Dead; Will to Power).

Right.  Have you actually read Nineteen Eighty-Four?  Because Emmanuel Goldstein, as far as I recall, wasn’t exactly Big Brother’s spin doctor.

All of these infamous men are liars, and their philosophies are lies and damn lies – yet these men and their ideas are lionized even to this day. Why? Exhibit 1:  President B. Hussein Obama.

Okay, hang on here, Professor — let me just make sure I’m following you.  Rousseau is more evil than Hitler and Goebbels; Nietzsche really thought God was alive, but just had to be a dick about it; and kids today think Karl Marx is cool because Obama has him in his Fave Five.  That about right?

No, Obama is not a Hitler, but he is utilizing many of the techniques Hitler outlined in his treatise, “Mein Kampf.”

So then Obama’s worse than Hitler, right?  I mean, say what you want about the Fuhrer, at least he didn’t plagiarize his books from Bill Ayers.

For example, once power is secured, move quickly to take more and more of the liberty and natural rights of the people in exchange for an ever-expanding, nationalist, socialist State. This is the Big Lie Orwell wrote about.

Actually, that was Hitler in Mein Kampf.  Hey, now you’re doing it!

To demonstrate how vast and acceptable lying has become in public discourse, when was the last time you heard one journalist in the propaganda media refer to a politician, a political appointee, a judge, or a CEO of a corporation as a liar (unless he is a conservative)? Yet Washington, D.C., and the halls of power throughout America are teeming with liars like maggots over a fresh corpse.

That’s how you can tell when meat is really fresh:  all the maggots.

Why is there not a single Republican with the courage and the intellect to call a weekly 5 p.m. press conference in the alcove of the U.S. Capitol and, line by line, precept by precept, lie by lie, state what Obama has promised – transparency, bipartisanship, reasonable policies, truth – versus what Obama has delivered in his first 100 days in office –

Because that kind of thing is usually more effective when screamed at commuters by a stinky, ragged, wild-eyed man standing on the edge of the subway platform, urinating on his shoes.

…obstructionism, Saul Alinsky partisanship, Marxist economic policy, genocidal abortion policy and giving away for free our most sensitive interrogation techniques to Osama bin Laden.

…even though bin Laden only signed up for the Basic Membership, and it was clearly stated in the Terms of Service that our most sensitive torture techniques are only available to Premium and Gold Club Members!

Indeed, Obama is a pathological liar.

You’re making that up.

Every speech, every domestic and foreign policy, every executive order, every economic policy, every political appointee and every future Supreme Court nominee … all LIES!

Wait — he’s taken out an advance on future lies?  Doesn’t he know what kind of interest those places charge?!

If the Supreme Court ever gets the guts to grant certiorari (allow a full appeal) of one of the dozens of pending cases that have brought a constitutional challenge regarding Obama’s “natural born citizen” status according to Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution…

Hoo boy, here we go…

…then my statement in the previous paragraph will become more than a literary flourish.

So diagnosing the President of the United States as a pathological liar is just a “literary flourish?”  You know, that’s the kind of thing that can get a fellow’s poetic license revoked.

In other words, if B. Hussein Obama isn’t a legitimate American citizen according to the Constitution, then every executive order, policy, appointment and treaty will become null and void because Obama has treasonously violated God’s ninth commandment, Thou shall not lie.

“Treasonous?”  Are we talking about commandments or amendments here?

Returning to Orwell’s “1984,” which character would Obama be if instead of “1984″ Orwell wrote “2009″? While most would probably answer Big Brother, I would disagree, for Big Brother was the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent machinery of the State. Obama, the transcendent, messianic, FDResque figure is more akin to Goldstein, the minister of propaganda who with the help of his fascist legions spent day and night following one credo: Your liberty, your money, your property, your soul all belong to the State (federal government).

You realize that Emmanuel Goldstein is not the “minister of propaganda” in the novel, that he’s not analogous to Joseph Goebbels.  You know that, right?  Goebbels and Hitler were on the same team; Goldstein was the ne plus ultra of treachery, Public Enemy Number One, the focus of the Two Minute Hate.  Goldstein was to Big Brother as Al Franken is to Bill O’Reilly.

Now it has, I admit, been many years since I’ve read the book, and I don’t have a copy close at hand, but I really think you could find a better candidate for your weird little analogy.  But that’s just me…

This is the Big Lie Orwell so eloquently wrote against in his books, “1984″ and “Animal Farm.” What is different about 2009 versus 1949 when these literary works were conceived?  The major difference is that 60 years ago the Stalinist state-run public schools hadn’t taken full control over the education of all citizens. However, in modern times tens of millions of people here in America gleefully accept the propaganda and lies of the State (Big Brother) as delineated by Obama (Goldstein) because, in the words of Orwell, “Always there were fresh dupes waiting to be seduced by him.”

Right…I apologize for harping on this, but if Obama is the Stalinist dictator who’s robbing us of our liberties, shouldn’t he be Big Brother?  Goldstein was not a member of the Inner Party; in fact, it’s possible his existence was a government hoax.  And anyway, if Orwell based him on anyone, it was most likely Leon Trotsky, so unless Obama went into exile during his recent trip to Mexico City and was killed by a blow to the skull with an ice axe and no one in the media’s thought to mention it until now, I’m thinking your parallel may be a little shaky.

Since the ideal of a universal Veritas (truth) is viewed by many as a relic of a bygone Christian past, it is therefore both irrelevant and inconsequential to societies’ march toward utopia. Obama’s willing accomplices in Congress, the secular academy, the propaganda media, Wall Street, corporations, unions and the anti-Christian courts across America slavishly bow to his will.

You left out International Jewry and the Freemasons.

One of my many intelligent readers

Sorry…just need a second…got something stuck in my throat…

…recently answered this question when he wrote: “Obama is trying to destroy the U.S. ASAP, and when he is done by 2012, there will be no law, no regulation left that will allow a fair opponent to compete against him – and the constituency will be so beholden to big government they wouldn’t dare vote against their jobs.

I’m tempted to say something snarky, but I know better than to get in a debate with somebody that smart.

America, choose Veritas over liberalism, job security, doublespeak, propaganda and treason. Go with God! – Thou shall not lie.

Join Ellis Washington for another edition of Literary Criticism the 10 Commandments Way.  Next week:  It’s E.B. White’s charming and heartwarming childhood favorite, Charlotte’s Web of Lies and Deceit.

35 Responses to “Everything I Say Is A Lie. Actually, That’s Not True…”

he is utilizing many of the techniques Hitler outlined in his treatise, “Mein Kampf.”

And who am I to get all pedantic about what Hitler did in fact write, and not write, in his memoirs at a time when he knew he wanted power but had no idea what techniques he should use to get there?
Hint: It’s not actually a ‘How-To’ manual.

Yet Washington, D.C., and the halls of power throughout America are teeming with liars like maggots over a fresh corpse.

If you pay enough episode during episodes of ‘Bones’, you learn how the various successive generations of liars enable you to date just how long a democracy has been dead.

If you pay enough attention while writing comments, you only have one ‘episode’.

Why is there not a single Republican with the courage and the intellect to call a weekly 5 p.m. press conference in the alcove of the U.S. Capitol and, line by line, precept by precept, lie by lie, state what Obama has promised?

Yes! The Republicans should demand everyone take 5 minutes out of every day and just Hate this “Goldstein”!

To demonstrate how vast and acceptable lying has become in public discourse…
And, just who has controlled this “public discourse” lo these many years? As a former projectionist (albeit only for a year or so), I find myself in total awe over these people…

Astounding. This left me breathless. A veritable (truthfully) singularity of stupid. Obviously, this asshat has never read Orwell’s novel. A classic example of someone with no scholarship whatsoever trying to present himself as an intellectual (smart person).

Here’s a nice summary of Washington’s “Obama derangement.”

Oh, and Savannah State was ranked fourth tier in the U.S. News & World Report America’s Best Colleges 2008 (Universities–Master’s (South) category).

However, in modern times tens of millions of people here in America gleefully accept the propaganda and lies of the State (Big Brother) as delineated by Obama (Goldstein)

pssst, hey Washington, try that little rant with Bush in the “Big Brother” role and Osama bin Laden in the “Goldstein” role and it fits the original “1984″ a whole lot better. of course it helps if you read the original and not the “Clint’s Notes*” version
*guaranteed to have at least 5% of the words used in the original version at a fraction of the price of “Cliff’s Notes(TM)”

Another sinister figure from Orwell’s “1984″ was “Goldstein.” Although not as prolific as Big Brother, nevertheless Goldstein was a salient figure in Orwell’s work and in his futuristic society called “Oceania.” If Big Brother was the equivalent of Die Fuhrer (The Leader) as in Germany’s dictator, Adolf Hitler, then surely Goldstein would be the counterpart to Hitler’s minister of propaganda (Josef Goebbels).

The Mind Wobbles
– tm Kelly Bundy

This jackass missed the entire point of Orwell’s body of work.

He was not railing against Nazi Germany. 1984 is not about Hitler.

Goldstein was TROTSKY!

“My recent novel [Nineteen Eighty-Four] is NOT intended as an attack on Socialism or on the British Labour Party (of which I am a supporter) but as a show-up of the perversions … which have already been partly realized in Communism and Fascism. …The scene of the book is laid in Britain in order to emphasize that the English-speaking races are not innately better than anyone else and that totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere.”

Collected Essays[10]
In his 1946 essay, “Why I Write”, Orwell described himself as a Democratic Socialist.[11]

Holy fucking shit, and even allowing for his completely flawed analogy, Goldstein was not the enabler and propaganda minister! His was the opposition party!

Scott, I give you credit and wonder about your sanity in the same breath. How did you manage to dig up such a wrong-headed allegoric fossil?

I thought the 9th commandment was “that shalt not bear false witness” which he does here and his Republican buddies on the radio do 24/7.

Left by actor212 on Your comment is awaiting moderation. April 27th, 2009

Scott, when you get a chance…

How did you manage to dig up such a wrong-headed allegoric fossil?

That’s the great thing about WorldNutDaily — no excavation necessary. They’re just laying on the ground in plain sight, like big, sparkly nuggets of rhetorical pyrite.

A true masterpiece of derangememt.
Might I offer you a specimen of another WND screed by this gentleman?

“The future war between America (Israel) and Iran is imminent, and I believe it will ignite before the 2008 elections. Why?

Know for a certainty that the Lord your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you [Israel]; but they [the children of Ishmael=the Arabs] shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which the Lord your God hath given you.

~ Joshua 23:13

Well, I guess the Bible proved his point, particularly as the verse above makes it crystal clear that God was referring to the modern state of Iran.

Now I am desperately afraid of a war between Iran and America(Israel), wherever that may be, particularly as I am convinced that it will come before the 2008 election.

Frankly, at this stage I’m inured to the whole “I understand Nietzsche because I read the titles of two of his works” business, and I was already familiar with the varieties of Professor Washington’s certifiable foolishness, but the idea of a professor of “law and political science” who doesn’t appear to have made it all the way through the introduction to the Cliffs Notes version of The Social Contract piqued my interest. It may be difficult to believe, but we’re going to have to give Ellis Washington’s internet c.v. a provisional Hinky, mostly because the Savannah State University site is as whacked out as he is, although I’m going to try again later with Navigator 4.0.

What I did get, in addition to spinning beachballs, timed-out messages, and twenty minutes to download one-third of a 60MB file, was “no results” from a faculty search for “Ellis Washington”. Can’t find any mention of SSU having a law school, either, although by the time I’d started looking their website had already used up 240% of the time I’d budgeted for all of this.

And that’s just the first clause, and though it might the product of online confusion, the next isn’t: twenty years later “an editor of the Michigan Law Review” and “law clerk for the Rutherford Institute” are at the top of his resumé, after which he apparently travelled around the country haranguing grade schoolers and getting published (somehow) before his gig at World Net Daily gets him a professorship. Though we repeat that at this point Wingnut Welfare is mere speculation.

“They’re just laying on the ground inplain sight, like big, sparkly nuggets of rhetorical pyrite.”

Funny, that’s not the image I’d conjure up when looking at WorldNut Daily. It’s more akin to an overturned litter box.

DH is right, SSU doesn’t appear to have a law school. They do list Ellis Washington as a “part-time Instructor” (not an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, or Professor) in the Political Science, Public Administration, and Urban Studies Department, so when he says in his bio that he’s “currently a professor of law and political science at Savannah State University,” I guess we can assume that SSU’s Faculty/Staff Director is out of date, or the Professor is shaving the 9th Commandment a bit fine.

the Professor is shaving the 9th Commandment a bit fine.

The 9th Commandment is like a truffle or a nutmeg. A few very fine shavings sprinkled over the dish are all you want; too much spoils the effect.

I imagine Washington’s version of Room 101 would consist of him being strapped to a chair and forced to actually read 1984.

Har-de-har-har. Suckered in by the straw-man that Big Brother created for him to be suckered in by.

How does that happen?

You left out International Jewry and the Freemasons.

They’re who’s pulling the Prez’s strings. We don’t really need to mention them over & over.

“They’re just laying on the ground inplain sight, like big, sparkly nuggets of rhetorical pyrite.”

“Funny, that’s not the image I’d conjure up when looking at WorldNut Daily. It’s more akin to an overturned litter box.”

Pyrites, coprolites, what’s the difference?

The general fucktardery of the whole piece is foreshadowed right up there in the title. If you’re going to try to sound all portentous and biblical, then you need to understand that “Thou shall not lie” doesn’t cut it. The Big Fuck-Off Beard version is “Thou shalt not lie.” If you’re going to employ archaisms, do so consistently and correctly.

I know that’s a little thing, but think of it as the tapping of the conductor’s baton on the rostrum before the brass section strikes up the article proper’s fanfare proclamation that Alas Washington has neither read nor comprehended either literary linchpin of his disgorgement. You just knew what followed was going to be… special.

Bush’s Goldstein was Saddam, the powerless loser he blamed all his excesses on, and whom he used to justify an endless war.

Interesting that he mentions “doublespeak” but not “doublethink,” the ability to hold two mutually contradictory thoughts as true as the same time. As in “Bush was protecting our freedoms by taking them away!”

Oh, waitaminnit–there’s no “doublespeak” in 1984! That’s “newspeak,” the manufactured language that makes every word an either/or, black vs white proposition! Like “being against a needless war” means “I hate America and the troops”!

Remember when the newspeak was “Criticizing the president is TREASON!”? Oh, those halcyon days of yore, so many two months ago!

Pyrites, coprolites, what’s the difference?

Pyrites used to hang in the Carribean, now in Somali waters, coprolites hang out in revival houses watching “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” “Meet John Doe” and others of that ilk

“prolific”?? “salient”????

…somebody’s been using the word-a-day toilet paper again (and not very carefully, I might add)

and der Fuhrer might be wondering who the other one was…

My brain hurts. I’m all for Theater of the Absurd, big fan of Vian and Ionesco, but the whole point is you take your absurd premise and develop it with some internal logical consistency. What is it with the crazy right always trying to co-opt people like Orwell, or for that matter Twain, the latter a founding member of the Anti-imperialist League at a time when hardly anyone in America even credited non-whites with being fully human.

Orwell would have viewed the Ellis Washingtons of the world, in so far as he recognized them as something other than what one scrapes off the bottom of one’s shoe, as low rent versions of Sir Oswald Moseley.

As I understand it, Orwell intended to call the book 1948, and was convinced instead to place it in the future. He was very much writing about the trends he saw in the post war west, not the Soviet Union.

Sorry, one too many e’s, that should read Mosley.

So to sum up: Ellis Washington, who claims professional qualifications that are not recognised on the website of his employer and uses the wrong German article when helpfully explaining the meaning of ‘Fuhrer’ to his readers, has written a lengthy attack on the intellectual integrity of your current president. In it, he cites three books: Mein Kampf, 1984 and the Old Testament. He has not read either of the first two — judging from his ignorance of the contents of the first and the language (“Newspeak”) and character parallels (Stalin and Trotsky) of the second — while if he has read the third then he does not seem to be feel personally constrained by its prohibitions against lying and bearing false witness.

I can only hope that WorldNetDaily realise what a catch they have in him.

So, if you’re going to make the case that someone is a liar, wouldn’t it be appropriate to, like, give some actual examples of, you know, LIES? (Birth certificate silliness doesn’t count.)

It’s as if they’re just going down the list of every accusation leveled against Bush for the last eight years, and parroting them. Thing is, Bush’s lies, totalitatarian leanings, arrogance, inexperience, stupidity, etc. were well-documented, whereas this stuff is more like, “You said mean things about our guy, now we’re going to say mean things about your guy! See how it feels? Don’t you feel sorry?” They were ten-year-olds when they ran the place, and they’re still ten-year-olds out of power.

totalitatarian

Critiquing this idiocy makes me stutter with rage.

No doubt he also uses “preventative”, “orientated”, and “conversate”.

Although I read 1984 in the late 1970s, I recall that Big Brother’s image was ominipresent and therefore BB (my pet name) was not invisible.

I’ve never read 1984 and even I know that Goldstein was the object of the Five Minute Hate, not the perpetrator.

In the article trenchcoat linked, they quoted Washington referring to Don Corleone’s muscleman, “Lou Cabrachi.”

I’d say he has to be a parody, nobody could possibly be that stupid, but after reading that survey about how conservatives think Stephen Colbert is a secret conservative, I’m just not sure about anything anymore.

I like the fact that, in his article on honoring the Ten Commandments, he sums up Marx’s decadent, evil philosophy by boiling it down into a bible quote.

Washington referring to Don Corleone’s muscleman, “Lou Cabrachi.”

I think that’s “D’Encore Lyonne.”

America, choose Veritas over . . . job security,

Huh?

Something to say?