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The most amazing thing to me is that the 0bama administration was very good at Orwellian manipulation, yet it was rarely remarked upon. I mean, the guy got a N

The most amazing thing to me is that the 0bama administration was very good at Orwellian manipulation, yet it was rarely remarked upon. I mean, the guy got a Nobel Peace Prize, then proceeded with eight years of undeclared war on many different countries. "Droning" became a verb...

anjc 10y ago
....can't we just drone this guy?
- roastbeef 10y ago
  fake news!
reddytowns 10y ago
zero-bama?
- MagnumOpus 10y ago
  It's a dog-whistle term. Politically neutral persons think it is a typo, but it is recognised by the anonymous poster's fellow associates, and marks the poster as someone they should upvote, endorse and agree with.
  - ElectronCharge 10y ago
    It is very simply a spelling that reflects my opinion of 0bama. I normally spell it as "0" but I wasn't sure if it would be clear in context. The net effect of his presidency will surely be near zero. While I don't agree with everything on the Trump agenda, much of it is long overdue. Of most relevance to HN, I expect the economy to boom!
    - davexunit 10y ago
      You are a fascist.
      - sctb 10y ago
        Please don't post like this, no matter what you're responding to. Flagging (by clicking on the linked timestamp of the comment in question, then clicking the 'flag' link) is the thing to do.
    - reddytowns 10y ago
      > The net effect of his presidency will surely be near zero. Did you forget about the 9 trillion dollars of debt he managed to rack up? I think you need to add a few extra zeros to his name.
zigzigzag 10y ago
It was remarked on, just using different terms that weren't in use back in 1948 and generally not by the media who were complicit in the manipulation (and frequently the target of it). The whole phenomenon of political correctness and the flattening of unrelated things into hate words e.g. how dislike of Islam (not a race) is now routinely called "racism" is all very reminiscent of how Big Brother set about restricting the space of what citizens could think by changing the language. Of course the strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has largely been discredited now, but the basic tendencies still exist. And lots of people have been expressing frustration with a PC culture for years, Trump simply realised that giving lip service to the concept of being anti-PC was far less effective than actually being anti-PC. The way the administration manipulated the media through controlling access to press conferences, and then eventually abolishing media Q&A entirely, was remarked on at the time. But it was a subtle move that most people were not consciously aware of, they just felt at a subconscious level that the telescreens were more overtly propagandistic than in the past.
SquareWheel 10y ago
"0bama" Is this a typo or some snarky attack? That seems distasteful.
tim333 10y ago
I don't think you can call getting the Nobel manipulation by the Obama administration. They didn't arrange that I believe.
- erroneousfunk 10y ago
  Obama seemed a little embarrassed by the prize, although he handled it in a graceful way. It would have been a bigger blunder for him to reject the prize. I certainly don't think that anyone can call him a hypocrite for receiving the Nobel Peace prize though. If anything, it reflects badly on the Nobel committee.
dang 10y ago
Please don't use HN for partisan battle. It's not what this site is for, you're way off topic here (even more than others in the thread), and dropping a lit match like '0bama' on a petrol-soaked battlefield amounts to trolling whether you meant it that way or not.

anjc 10y ago

....can't we just drone this guy?

roastbeef 10y ago
fake news!

reddytowns 10y ago

zero-bama?

MagnumOpus 10y ago
It's a dog-whistle term. Politically neutral persons think it is a typo, but it is recognised by the anonymous poster's fellow associates, and marks the poster as someone they should upvote, endorse and agree with.
- ElectronCharge 10y ago
  It is very simply a spelling that reflects my opinion of 0bama. I normally spell it as "0" but I wasn't sure if it would be clear in context. The net effect of his presidency will surely be near zero. While I don't agree with everything on the Trump agenda, much of it is long overdue. Of most relevance to HN, I expect the economy to boom!
  - davexunit 10y ago
    You are a fascist.
    - sctb 10y ago
      Please don't post like this, no matter what you're responding to. Flagging (by clicking on the linked timestamp of the comment in question, then clicking the 'flag' link) is the thing to do.
  - reddytowns 10y ago
    > The net effect of his presidency will surely be near zero. Did you forget about the 9 trillion dollars of debt he managed to rack up? I think you need to add a few extra zeros to his name.

zigzigzag 10y ago

It was remarked on, just using different terms that weren't in use back in 1948 and generally not by the media who were complicit in the manipulation (and frequently the target of it). The whole phenomenon of political correctness and the flattening of unrelated things into hate words e.g. how dislike of Islam (not a race) is now routinely called "racism" is all very reminiscent of how Big Brother set about restricting the space of what citizens could think by changing the language. Of course the strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has largely been discredited now, but the basic tendencies still exist. And lots of people have been expressing frustration with a PC culture for years, Trump simply realised that giving lip service to the concept of being anti-PC was far less effective than actually being anti-PC. The way the administration manipulated the media through controlling access to press conferences, and then eventually abolishing media Q&A entirely, was remarked on at the time. But it was a subtle move that most people were not consciously aware of, they just felt at a subconscious level that the telescreens were more overtly propagandistic than in the past.

SquareWheel 10y ago

"0bama" Is this a typo or some snarky attack? That seems distasteful.

tim333 10y ago

I don't think you can call getting the Nobel manipulation by the Obama administration. They didn't arrange that I believe.

erroneousfunk 10y ago
Obama seemed a little embarrassed by the prize, although he handled it in a graceful way. It would have been a bigger blunder for him to reject the prize. I certainly don't think that anyone can call him a hypocrite for receiving the Nobel Peace prize though. If anything, it reflects badly on the Nobel committee.

dang 10y ago

Please don't use HN for partisan battle. It's not what this site is for, you're way off topic here (even more than others in the thread), and dropping a lit match like '0bama' on a petrol-soaked battlefield amounts to trolling whether you meant it that way or not.