Word for the day: Orwellian

Sure commies are ruthless do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do-or-you-get-a-bullet-in-the-back-of-the-neck totalitarians but when you don't have to live under them they're ever so entertaining -- their attempted manipulation of language is hilarious. Take North Korea, a totalitarian state if ever there was one, yet it's billed by its leadership as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Of course it's democratic; the people get to decide which dirt and grass to eat when the shelves in the government store are bare, again. Meat? Yeah, I've heard of it...

Anyway, Fidel Castro, the far Left's favourite retired octogenarian dictator, had an opinion piece in The Age the other day that's an Orwellian comedy classic. In it he argues that "Mother Earth" must be saved from capitalism, "the culture of death" but in the very next paragraph demands that "the culture of death" start delivering big wads of cash to the deprived, like those unfortunate enough to live under central planning mismanagement, especially now that there's no Soviet Union to prop up the dysfunctional economy:

[Bolivian President Evo] Morales described as "ridiculous" the figure of $10 billion offered per year up until 2012 when, in reality, hundreds of billions of dollars are needed every year.

Yep, let's take up a collection for the Cuban basket-case. Granted that's more ironic than funny but Castro soon launches into the humour in earnest:

The Danish police are resorting to brutal methods to crush resistance [at the Copenhagen conference]; many protesters are being preventively arrested. I spoke on the phone with our Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, who was at a solidarity rally in Copenhagen with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Cuban Vice-President Estenban Lazo and other ALBA representatives. I asked him who those people were that the Danish police suppressed with such hate, twisting back their arms and beating them repeatedly across the back. He said they were Danish citizens and people from other European nations as well as members of the social movements who were demanding from the summit an immediate solution to deal with climate change.

A lecture on human rights from a former dictator whose government ruthlessly crushed any and all political opposition. But there's more;

Our comrades in the Danish capital told us an even worse situation occurred on Friday, Decembe 18. At 10am the UN Summit was adjourned for two hours while the Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen met 20 heads of state invited by him to discuss "global problems" with US President Barack Obama. That was what they called the meeting, which was aimed at imposing an agreement on climate change.

Even though all of the official delegations are to take part, only "invited guests" were allowed to express their views. Of course, neither Hugo Chávez nor Evo Morales are among those entitled to express their opinions.

Chavez and Morales not being allowed to speak is worse than police beating protesters and arresting them pre-emptively? Right. Give Chavez the Microphone? Nobody in his right mind want to listen to that pig-faced authoritarian megalomaniacal nut-job talk complete and utter commie crap about nothing in particular for three or four hours -- talk about cruel and unusual punishment. But the transcendent humour is yet to come:

As television channels have broadcast the footage, the world has been able to see the fascist methods used against the people in Copenhagen. The protesters, young people in the main, who have been repressed, have earned the solidarity of the peoples.

Despite the manoeuvres and unprincipled lies of the leaders of the empire, the moment of truth is drawing closer. Their own allies are increasingly losing confidence in them. In Mexico, as in Copenhagen or anywhere else in the world, they will be met by the growing resistance of the peoples who have not lost the hope of surviving.

And what of those Cubans who resisted and ended up imprisoned or shot? Did they hope to survive or were they resigned to their fates? But, you know, you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs or shooting a few thousand people to set an example.