2014 Is 1984

     In George Orwell's classic novel 1984 about a society ruled by big government statism, the Ministry of Information was responsible for propagating the lies with which the government leaders used to oppress the average citizen. Today we have an entire media complex that has become nothing more than a Ministry of Information for the Democrat party generally, and for Barack Obama specifically. The sycophant nature of the media is not just limited to the news media, but traverses all media outlets whether they be sports, entertainment, or even financial.
     Yesterday morning the government released the first time claims for unemployment for the prior week, an exercise that becomes more irrelevant because of the record number of people that are unemployed, therefore leaving few workers in the work force left to be laid off. The report showed there were 16 thousand more laid off workers applying for new unemployment benefits than the prior week. This was not the Orwellian part, that being reserved for the story on the CNBC website that went along with the news. They so casually stated that the government, i.e., the Obama administration, had changed the model used to figure weekly unemployment claims in order to make it more "flexible" when adjusting for seasonal fluctuations. The Obama administration also changed the data going back to 2009 using this new model.
     So not only have the central planners in the Obama administration changed a model used to figure a key economic data point, as they did with the decades old formula used to calculate the unemployment rate, but they have changed historical data to make it reflect more favorably on Obama policy. These actions are eerily similar to ones that would have been taken by the statists in Orwell's novel. The Democrat party has been well practiced at changing history and convincing Americans that what they saw, or lived through, did not actually exist.
     I suspect in the decades to follow, the Obama economy will be hailed by those on the Left as a boon time, with a chicken in every pot and a paycheck in every pocket. After all, I have actually talked with Democrats that believe the economy was prosperous and growing under Jimmy Carter and it only declined once Ronald Reagan became president. And the economic data for that time period would inform any interested party of the Carter malaise which was followed by the Reagan economic boon. How much more likely is it for the politically blind and ignorant to believe in the myth of Obama prosperity with data that has been manipulated to support it.
     As I read Orwell's 1984 as a high school student in the 1970s, I took it as a cautionary tale that had about as much chance of becoming reality as something like the World Wide Web. Today the Internet is a daily part of almost everyone's lives, and Orwell's world of an ever powerful state has come to fruition in the full operation of the Obama administration. Yes, Orwell had it right, only he was thirty years early on his predictions. The world of 1984 is the world of 2014.