welcome to 1984

by Gordon Cooper

From Broader View Weekly, May 13, 2010

In his epic novel published in 1949, George Orwell painted a picture of a dystopian world that awaited his readers in the year 1984. Among the many fearful aspects of that world there was the introduction of a policy called Newspeak and within that policy was a practice known as “doublethink” in which the word blackwhite was used to alter the perception of the adherent of Newspeak in such a way as to think that black is white and to eventually force them to forget that black and white were ever, well, black and white.

Today we see that fearful scenario played out in the debate over Arizona’s SB1070 and HB2162 legislations, which, in essence, do little more than allow law enforcement officials to arrest anyone who, after being interrogated in the course of a “lawful stop, detention or arrest” or during the apprehension of someone committing a civil crime, is reasonably suspected of being in our nation illegally. In other words, anyone who cannot produce a valid form of legal identification like a driver’s license or a tribal enrollment card would be subject to being charged with a state misdemeanor, which carries a maximum fine of $100 or a maximum sentence of 20 days.

A few weeks back, my fellow columnist waxed philosophic about the difference between responsible and irresponsible speech. I find it very ironic that that word – responsible – has become the very word manipulated by our president in the aforementioned Orwellian use of Newspeak.

Following the signing of SB1070 by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, President Obama made the following statement:
“Indeed our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others. And that includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona.” He further added another incendiary remark in an Iowa town hall meeting, when he said: “You can imagine, if you are a Hispanic American in Arizona…suddenly, if you don’t have your papers and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you’re going to be harassed.”

Despite the fact that Obama has, time and again, acted below the level previously described as Presidential, these words are much worse than just being inaccurate or exaggerated campaign speech. These words were intended to alter the very meaning of words and to inspire fear and anger among the intended audience, which could only be the future voters from the Hispanic community.

First of all, his altered use of the word “responsible” is problematic because it was partly true in that the feds have been less than responsible in enforcing their own immigration laws. It was not true, however, in claiming that Arizona’s new law is “irresponsible” nor is it even remotely true that a legal citizen, regardless of her/his race, will be “harassed” as a result of this law.

The catch phrase used by Obama and his fellow Newspeak adherents in their criticism of all things Arizonan, is the “show your papers” line. As if Arizona just became the epicenter of neo-Nazism or a revived stronghold of apartheid. From Desmond Tutu to Cardinal Mahony and from Dana Milbank in the Washington Post to the editorial board of the New York Times, many examples of intentional doublethink can be cited. Those quotes can be found in Byron York’s article, titled “The 10 dumbest things said about the immigration law”, in washigntonexaminer.com, dated 5/01.

The sad and scary fact is that most readers or listeners of the above voices will never take the time to actually read the law in question, but will be led, lemming-like, to the cliff of ignorant activism with cries for boycotts and/or even worse, may be inspired to act out in violent protest like the instances in Phoenix and Santa Cruz in which windows were smashed and vandals destroyed public property.

The reality behind both the necessity for and the wording of the Arizona law has been shaded by the hyperbolic, hate-filled and race-baiting rhetoric of the vocal critics. The reality is that Arizona is the epicenter of the illegal immigration plague that has diminished the wages of legal citizens, burdened our schools and health care facilities, increased the crime rate, introduced gang violence to border states, and has weakened our national security by allowing terrorists an easy access to our once sovereign soil.

With almost 500,000 illegal immigrants in this relatively small state, Arizona was forced to take responsibility (there’s that word again) when the feds failed to act responsibly. The state budget was being stretched to the point where legal immigrants were suffering, which is why over 70% of Arizonans support the law, many of those supporters being of Hispanic descent and here legally, if I may be redundant for the sake of emphasis.

My concern is, first of all, for the protection of our borders, our rule of law and our national sovereignty, and secondly, for the protection of our vocabulary, meaning that I want words to have meaning and speakers to have responsibility for how they use those words