posted on August 29, 2002 09:32:04 PM new
In 1984, the state was perpetually at war against a vague and ever-changing enemy --
a convenient way to fuel hatred, nurture fear and justify the regime’s autocratic practices.
Bush’s war against terrorism is almost as amorphous. Exactly what constitutes success in this war remains unclear, but Bush is clear on one point: the war will continue indefinitely.
In 1984, an omnipresent and all-powerful leader, Big Brother, commanded the unquestioning support of the people. He was both adored and feared. No one dared speak out against him.
President Bush is not as menacing, but he has quietly achieved the greatest expansion of executive powers since Nixon. His minions cultivate an image of infallibility and impugn the patriotism of anyone who questions his leadership.
In 1984, Big Brother’s ever-watchful eye kept tabs on the citizens of Orwell’s totalitarian state.
The Bush administration has its new TIPS program to enlist citizen-spies as extra eyes and ears for law enforcement. And the Justice Department, thanks to the hastily passed USA Patriot Act, has sweeping new powers to monitor phone conversations, Internet usage, business transactions and library records.
Could America become an Orwellian society that accepts war as peace, freedom as slavery and ignorance as strength? Can it happen overnight, or would it involve a gradual erosion of freedoms with the people’s consent?
So powerful was the state’s mind control and manipulation in 1984 that, eventually, everyone came to love Big Brother.
posted on August 29, 2002 10:54:22 PM new
It's worse than that, with the Republicans and Bush utilizing the techniques shown by Auldus Huxley's story Brave New World to achieve the horrific world envisioned by Geroge Orwell's book 1984. The end-goal is to create an aristocracy in America with a Royal Monarchy -- a dynasy headed by the Busche Family. That can only be achieved by the dumbing down of Americans -- people who don't even know what the concept of Citizenship means, for instance . . .
posted on August 30, 2002 11:30:55 AM new
When Orwell was reporting on the Spanish Civil War he saw the political dishonesty and wrote,
"I saw newspaper reports which did not bear
any relation to the facts ... I saw great battles
reported where there had been no fighting, and
complete silence where hundreds of men had
been killed ... I saw, in fact, history being written
not in terms of what happened but of what ought
to have happened according to various 'party
lines.'"
—George Orwell,
That is exactly what we are seeing now. In fact, in the Afghanistan war, reporters were not allowed to accompany troops and pilots - or even interview military personnel after their missions. Rumsfeld was their only source. In the never ending war that Bush plans, I doubt that that policy will change.
There are an awesome number of other parallels between our situation today and the novel, 1984 written by Orwell in 1948.
Today, citizens are detained and arrested without being charged and without benefit of legal counsel. Personal surveillance in Airports, schools and the internet is unceasing. TV cameras that receive and transmit simultaneously are everywhere. Wiretaps on our phone conversations may be legal. Ordinary citizens live in constant fear of arrest and imprisonment for unsubstantiated "terrorist activities".
Big Brother would be proud.
And, of course, we have a never ending war.
Colin Powell said that he thinks that this war will never end, at least in his lifetime, or ours. So bush's legacy will be perpetual war just as Orwell described.
I have an old, 1977 copy of 1984 with a preface by Walter Chronkite in which he pointed out that 1984 is not a prophecy but a warning. Maybe now he would see it as a prophecy.
From that introduction...."we hear echoes of that warning chord in the constant demand for greater security and comfort, for less risk in our societies. We recognize, however dimly, that greater efficiency, ease and security may come at a substantial price in freedom, that law and order can be a doublethink version of oppression, that individual liberties surrendered for whatever good reason are freedom lost.
