The Party Controls The Past

General Lee

“He who controls the past controls the future… He who controls the present controls the past,” wrote Orwell. Here in 2017, the left is firmly in control of both academia and media and is using both to control the past. That’s what played out last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Charlottesville City Council voted 3-2 to remove a statue of General Robert E. Lee which had been there for a century. Nearby is a statue of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Both Lee and Jackson were southern heroes. They were also Democrats, but you won’t hear about that in media or academia.

Stonewall Jackson

They fought for the Confederacy and that makes them villains in the view of the 21st century left, which is in firm control of the Democrat Party. No matter that most slaveholders were Democrats. No matter that Democrat US Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia who served until his death in 2010, had also been a member of the KKK. There was so many Democrats south of the Mason/Dixon line, the party referred to it as “The Solid South.”

Byrd eventually apologized for his KKK membership and denounced the organization, but it remained part of his history: “I apologized a thousand times ... and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened,” he wrote. He was right to apologize and also right that he could not erase his personal history.

But the Democrat Party believes it can and continues trying to pin its own shameful heritage onto Republicans — the party of Lincoln. Just prior to its 2008 convention, the Democrat National Committee erased fifty years of party history from its web site. How many Democrats lynched blacks? There isn’t room here to list them. How many Republicans? None that I know of. The Democrat Party has never apologized for protecting slavery before the war or for preserving Jim Crow for a century afterward.

Recorded under cover by James O'Keefe

Leftist media from the Huffington Post to CNN is downright gleeful as it tries to associate today’s Nazis and KKK with the Trump Administration. Trump issued a statement after Charlottesville saying: “We condemn in strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence — on many sides.” It was a reasonable response considering all the violence leftist groups perpetrated during his campaign, beating up Trump supporters as they left his rallies. Many of those agitators were were paid by the Democrat National Committee and the Clinton Campaign and wore “Trump is a Nazi” T-shirts. They violently shut down Trump rallies in Chicago and New Mexico.

Jared Loughner was obviously nuts

Then came James Hodgkinson, a Democrat Bernie Sanders supporter, who shot Republican Congressman Steve Scalise and several other people at a Republican softball practice two months ago. The New York Times editorial board blamed “both sides” for political violence claiming that Sarah Palin caused Jared Loughner to shoot Democrat Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and political rhetoric motivated Hodgkinson to shoot Republican Rep. Scalise. Trouble is, there’s not a scintilla of evidence associating Palin and Republicans with Loughner who was obviously nuts, whereas Hodgkinson had long, strong association with Democrats. He had a hit list of Republicans.

It’s okay for the NYTimes, but Trump is not allowed to blame “many sides.” Leftist media demand that he specifically denounce white supremacists which he subsequently did. NBC’s Chuck Todd called his "many sides" statement, “a failure of presidential leadership,” From his "Meet The Press” platform, he assembled a panel who did their best to associate white supremacists with the Trump Administration and Republicans.

Media went out of their way to avoid blaming President Obama’s anti-cop rhetoric after five Dallas policemen were murdered by a black man who “wanted to kill white people, especially white police officers." Few people reading this will have heard that several police officers and a former federal prosecutor have sued President Obama, his Attorney General Eric Holder, Black Lives Matter, and others for sparking the murders of policemen around the country. That’s because leftist media controls perception and in politics, perception is reality. Thus it controls the present, and the past.

Back to Orwell:

Party official O’Brien asked Winston Smith where history exists. “In records… In the mind. In human memories,” said Winston under torture.

O'Brien and Winston Smith

“Very well then,” said O’Brien. “We, the Party, control all records and we control all memories. Then, we control the past, do we not?”

“But how can you stop people remembering things?” asked Winston.

“You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right,” said O’Brien. “…When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists… only in the mind of the Party …Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party.”

The New Telescreens

Sunset over Portland Maine from Bug Light Park July, 2016

My wife and I often take a seaside strolls evenings around Bug Light Park in South Portland, Maine. Others enjoy that too and most look to be in their twenties and thirties. I can’t help noticing how many stare at their cell phones and one night I decided to count exactly how many. It was a lovely evening with a warm breeze. Planes were gently descending toward the Portland Jetport, ferries were coming and going, the salt air was sweet and Portland’s lights twinkled across the harbor. About twenty young people were standing around the lighthouse in small groups, while others sat on benches facing the water. All were looking at their cell phones — every single one.

Moonset over Portland, Maine from Bug Light Park 2013

That must have diminished their appreciation of a special time and place. That night we saw no one in our sixties demographic, but when I do happen to see some they don’t have a phone in their hand. Some may occasionally talk on one briefly, but I almost never see them just staring at the screen. There’s definitely a generation gap in use of cell phones. While nearly everyone my age I know has one, they use them about as they would use a handkerchief — taking it out only when they need it.

Tanker from Bug Light Park 2012

I’d like to know exactly what those young people were doing with their phones. They weren’t talking to anyone on them and they weren’t talking to the others who were physically present either. It was as if they were in an airport where no one knew each other, but clearly those at the park did know each other even if they were not conversing. They weren’t texting either: I saw no thumbs moving. They were just staring at screens. It would have been rude to go up and stare over their shoulders to see what so engrossed them, so I can’t say what the were looking at.

Sunrise at Bug Light Park 2013

We were holding hands as we sauntered along the paved walkway next to the water. I run the same path mornings and have to keep an eye out for dog poop, but at night I’m not able to see it. Most dog people are good about cleaning up after their pets, but occasionally I’ve had to dodge a turd. I’m thankful that so far I have not felt that sickening squish underfoot during our evening stroll.

Flying kites at Bug Light Park

I shouldn’t let other people’s cell phone behavior trouble me but it does, and it has for a long time and I’m still not sure why. It bothered me the first time I noticed it while walking on a sidewalk in Boston years ago and I wrote about it. Today, phones do many more things and their use had greatly increased. That is changing us in some basic way because, after all, we are what we do every day. I’m not sure if the change is good or bad. We’re communicating more, but in a more indirect way. People used to write letters, then letters morphed into emails. Now texts predominate. Volume of communication has increased, but quality has diminished.

Another sunset at Bug Light Park 2012

Sometimes I take my evening walk there alone. Smell of the sea brings with it memories of nighttime adventures with my teenaged friends in Newburyport and Gloucester, Massachusetts fifty years ago. We were part of a loosely-organized Sea Scout troop in the sixties and spent weekends sanding, painting, and varnishing pleasure boats while they were on dry dock in late winter and spring. Doing so, we earned the privilege of using those boats to cruise around Cape Cod Bay, Martha’s Vineyard and Provincetown. Pleasant memories, those.

My demographic at Bug Light alone with his thoughts

People pass by but I’m alone with my thoughts and it’s nice, very nice, but it just wouldn’t be the same if I were staring at a screen. What’s the point of being in a special place like that if I’m looking at something else while there? Yet I see young couples walking along each staring at a screen. They’re there, but they’re not there. They’re together, but they’re not together. Something very basic has changed for them.

A poignant youtube video called “I forgot my phone” has gotten nearly 50 million views in three years. It depicts a 20-something feeing isolated as she goes through her day without her phone. All with whom she comes in contact are glued to theirs and she seems to have an epiphany, an insight into what her demographic has become.

Orwell described Winston Smith’s resentment of the ubiquitous telescreens in his novel, 1984. Unlike cell phones, those screens were fixed to a wall. Smith’s fellow citizens stared at them and Big Brother could monitor them as they did. Our cell phones go around with us and are equipped with GPS, so our whereabouts can be known by anyone with the desire to track us. That’s concerning, but not so much as what I see young people doing every day of their own free will.

UPDATE 8-3-16: Bar owner in England blocked cell phone signals in his establishment. The BBC reported: "He said he was tired of people coming in and not socialising with each other or with anyone else in the building. 'I've seen it progressively get worse and worse and I thought, "I want to stop this,"'Mr Tyler told BBC Sussex.'I want people to socialise with the people they are with, rather than the people they are not with.'"

Say What?

Don’t tell someone to “Man Up” at Duke University. It’s “offensive language” according to an official campaign on campus called “You Don’t Say.” There are black and white posters all around picturing three wimpy-looking young men cautioning against certain words or phrases. The first proclaims: “I don’t say ‘Man Up’ because the strongest people I know have cried in front of me, regardless of their age, gender or sex.” Masculinity isn’t politically correct on today’s campuses and it’s scary for 21st century progressives.

Another claims “I don’t say ‘Tranny’ because it’s insulting to transgender and genderqueer communities.” Wasn’t “queer” deemed offensive way back in the 20th century? Did the word get a progressive pardon I didn’t hear about? And I thought a “tranny” was a transmission in a truck or a car. Boy, am I out of touch. Hope it’s still okay to say “boy.”

Duke University shouldn’t be telling anyone what to say or not say, but it is anyway. The university lost all credibility when it hung its own lacrosse team out to dry based on the false charges of an unstable woman working as a stripper. They were obviously bogus, but because the accuser was a black female and the accused were “privileged” upper-middle-class white males, eighty-eight of Duke’s faculty signed a petition that presumed them guilty “regardless of the results of the police investigation,” as part of their introductory paragraph read.

No matter that the accuser was proven to have lied and is now in prison for murder. No matter that the district attorney was removed and disbarred for his conduct in the case. No matter that the university settled out of court for an undisclosed sum in a lawsuit by the falsely-accused players. None of the eight-eight progressive faculty members have apologized for what they did to those “privileged” white guys.

What difference does it make!

Other things we shouldn’t be saying include words like “bitch” and the slang word sometimes used to describe a cat or part of the female anatomy. Heck, my mother told me not to say those things fifty years ago. I’m okay with discouraging them on campus, but other words my mother hated are fine for progressives, especially that four-letter f-word. That’s ubiquitous as an adjective, noun, verb, or any other way you wish to say it. On other campuses are campaigns to eliminate the word “bossy” when describing any female. It’s just as bad as “bitch” in progressive nomenclature. My mother was okay with us saying “bossy” when describing my sister because she definitely was. You can’t say “illegal immigrant” either, even when describing someone who immigrated illegally. Many media outlets have banned it too, including the Associated Press.

Progressives believe that if they can control what words we use, they can control how we think. The “Gay and Lesbian Advocates And Defenders” or GLAAD, issued the 8th edition of its “Media Reference Guide” in 2010. They list as “Problematic” such phrases as “sex-change” or “pre-operative” or “post-operative.” They recommend “transition,” cautioning to “avoid over-emphasizing surgery when discussing transgender people.” Got that? And never say “bathroom bill” either because “it’s a term used by far-right extremists to oppose non-discrimination laws that protect transgender people. The term is geared to incite fear and panic at the thought of encountering transgender people in public restrooms. Use non-discrimination law/ordinance instead.”

So ladies: If you see a huge man who claims he’s a woman come into the ladies’ room, don’t even think about whether he’s had his you-know-what cut off or not. It’s offensive even to let that enter your mind.

GLAAD even calls the word “homosexual” offensive. The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Associated Press evidently agree because they’ve banned the word in their style manuals. To say “homosexual relationship” is “extremely offensive” because such a phrase is “frequently used by anti-gay extremists to denigrate gay people.” Neither can you say “gay agenda” because there isn’t any gay agenda - in spite of the what their Media Reference Guide obviously embodies. It’s offensive to say so, just like it’s offensive to describe an illegal immigrant as an illegal immigrant. Got it?

“Disordered” is defamatory too says GLAAD. So when the Catholic Church teaches that homosexuality is both “intrinsically disordered” and “objectively disordered,” it’s on a collision course with GLAAD. The organization praises the Washington Post’s guidelines which caution against mentioning homosexuals in anything but a positive light, as in: “Describing a slaying, for instance, should suffice without referring to it as a homosexual slaying.” All these guidelines are voluntary, of course. If anyone might think about violating them, they should first think about what GLAAD did to Phil Robertson and Brendan Eich. If you don’t watch what you say, they’d be more than GLAAD to do it to you too.