Hate Update

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Every day at 11:00, work would stop as people congregated around the ubiquitous two-way telescreens for the ritual two-minute hate: As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had flashed on to the screen. There were hisses here and there among the audience. Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party In his inaugural address in January, Barack Obama promised to put “an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.” I hope you’ve noticed how free from petty grievances, false promises, recriminations, and worn out dogmas public discourse has been since that glorious new dawn, 20 January 2009. He doesn’t explain it. He blames others, especially President Bush. What was unseemly in January is almost risible now.