In politics, truth really IS relative

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible … thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.

• George Orwell, Politics and the English Language