REVISED LIST OF AMERICAN PRESIDENTS

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has now undone Obama-era regulations that protected campus victims of sexual assault, and Scott Pruitt just eviscerated Obama's Clean Power Plan. Those are just two pebbles in a bucketful of progressive changes implemented during the Obama administration that Trump, his appointees, and the current Republican-dominated Congress have erased or reversed, with more to come.

The list of Obama-era policies that have already been erased includes expansion of overtime pay, rules to reduce race-based pay differences, protections for women workers, rules to protect investors, a phase-out of private prisons, protections for voters, protections for the Arctic, fracking regulations, fuel-efficiency standards, and of course the Paris Climate Agreement and Obama's clean power plan. Next on the chopping block, the Iran nuclear deal.

The pattern is so clear that we think it's fair to say that a deep, underlying drive shared by Trump and his allies is to undo everything that Obama accomplished during his eight years as President, no matter the merits. Given that Trump kick-started his campaign by weaponizing the rumor that Obama was not born in the United States--birtherism--and so was not a legitimate President, it doesn't seem that far-fetched to infer that Trump and many of his supporters would be delighted simply to erase Obama, 1984-style, from the history books.

Ever helpful, here's a sample from the forthcoming edition of The Real True Americans: Fair and Balanced American History for Real American High School Students:

21-st Century American Presidents:

Bill Clinton, 1993-2001

George W. Bush, 2001-2009

Barry Whatshisname, 2009-2017

Donald Trump, 2017-

Barry Whatshisname

44th US President

2009-2017

Credit: rishtabliss.com

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ORWELL STRIKES AGAIN, THIS TIME AT THE US DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

In his prescient novel, 1984, George Orwell introduced the world to Newspeak, a minimized and simplified revision of English designed to make nuanced, reasoned, independent thought impossible.

Inspired by our current president and his climate-change denial, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)--the agency whose mission is to guide and enhance American agriculture, conserve and improve the rural environment, and help feed America and the world--has decided to outlaw phrases such as "climate change," "climate change adaptation," "reduce greenhouse gases," and "sequester carbon." Newspeak is alive and well at the USDA.

Flooding in New Orleans--yet again

Credit: www.goodfreephotos.com

Those now-forbidden terms are to be replaced in official communication by what Orwell would call "goodthink"--terms approved by the all-powerful Party. "Climate change" becomes "weather extremes" or "intense weather events," "climate change adaptation" becomes "resilience to weather extremes," while "reduce greenhouse gases" and "sequester carbon" become "build soil organic matter" or the mind-numbing "increase nutrient use efficiency."

Wildfire, Black Forest, Colorado, June 12, 2013
Credit: DoD--photo by Master Sgt. Christopher DeWitt, U.S. Air Force

In Oldspeak--plain old English--it's at least possible to think and speak clearly about the global problem of climate change and ways to minimize or adapt to it. But, in Newspeak, in Trump's Department of Agriculture, that's now a thoughtcrime, or, better yet, simply unthinkable.

The flash drought that's currently decimating the high plains' wheat crop is simply an isolated weather extreme. It can't be linked to the raging wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, flooding in New Orleans, the fact that Virginia's Tangier Island is washing away or that Death Valley just experienced the hottest month ever measured anywhere on Earth. The concept that ties these "weather extremes" together no longer exists, at least at the USDA.

You can see this in action at the EPA, where scientists explaining how climate change has added to the destructive power of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Harvey are being accused of politicizing the storm. In other words, understanding is politicizing. Remaining ignorant is the right thing to do.

 Credit: Stephen Bettany

One of the three guiding slogans of the Party in 1984 was "Ignorance is Strength." If that's true, Trump's USDA is certainly flexing its muscles.

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You can read environmentalist Bill McKibben's comments  on this issue here.

You can read about an outbreak of Trump-mandated Newspeak at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) here, or at this URL.Newly banned words and phrases include "vulnerable," "entitlement," "diversity," "transgender," "fetus," "evidence-based," and "science-based." I, for one, start to feel pretty vulnerable when concepts like "evidence-based" and "science-based" are banned. What will replace them? The Republican party line? Trump's latest whim?

Part of the CDC's "Pledge to the American People" is to "Base all public health decisions on the highest quality scientific data that is derived openly and objectively." They should amend that to read, "Base all public health decisions on the current political directives from the President and his appointees, derived behind closed doors to advance a partisan agenda."

And you can see how far this fascist penchant for censoring words and ideas can go in this recent news item about the censorship of words, phrases and internet search terms in China. Just to put the cork in the bottle, they've banned references to George Orwell, 1984 and Animal Farm.

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WELCOME TO 1984, BIG BROTHER AND THE MINISTRY OF TRUTH

"WAR IS PEACE."

"FREEDOM IS SLAVERY."

"IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH."

--GEORGE ORWELL, Nineteen Eight-Four

"HILLARY CLINTON . . . STARTED THE BIRTHER CONTROVERSY."

--DONALD TRUMP, 2016

Credit: Stephen Bettany

Doublethink at its best. The Ministry of Truth will be very busy rewriting the history of the last five years.

For a quick review of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, click here.