Nineteen Eighty-Four

[everythingsxen]

The other night I bought a "new" (new to me anyway ;-) ) copy of 1984. My previous copy was left in Florida with all my other books. It's a 31st printing, from 1964. This particular copy of the book is older than I am. The story it contains is older still. Yet, the tale of 1984 itself is truer now than ever before, even in 1984. I had read 1984 several dozen times, but I think only once after 9/11. Returning to it now, almost 6 years later with a different field of perspective in this "post 9/11" world, it haunts me now more than ever.

The thing, it seems to me, is that we as Americans have constructed our own version of 1984. Instead of Big Brother or BB we have The President or POTUS. Instead of The Party/INGSOC we have Republican/Right or Democrat/Left. Instead of Telescreens we have Cable Television and Sweeps Week. We voluntarily give up our rights without even thinking about it. We are our own Thought Police. Every decision in our society has become compartmentalized and at the same time conflated with every other issue until everything is politicized and polarized. We always DoubleThink. We never DoubleThink.

Yet as much as there is The Party, there is no party. We are all proles voluntarily, submissively. We believe in the illusionary world we have constructed for ourselves. We have the illusion of Democracy, the illusion of Freedom. We attack other countries to spread our brand of Freedom and Democracy, yet we ourselves are neither free, nor do we live in a Democracy. Instead of the Socialist fascism that Orwell showed us, we chose to have Capitalist fascism.

We are all Proles. We cannot escape from our prisons, for our prisons are our lives. We hope for things to get better, some of us may even write a stirring essay or article. Perhaps a television spot or radio spot. We will fight the good fight, smugly satisfied that we have done the right thing. All too likely though, that stirring article, essay, column, radio or tv spot will either be ignored by the audience that needs to hear it, or it will partisan and base all of its importance on the need to get the Red Party out of Power so that the Blue Party can be in Power, or that the Red Party is the enemy and that the Blue Party is your friend. Or any number of other variations.

We have always been at War with Eurasia. It gets a little fuzzier every year doesn't it? When the War started it, who started it, how far back it really goes, which conspiracy ties into what, who really attacked who. It just goes on and on. Most of us now are sure when the War started. When did the Civil War end? Why did it end? Was there ever really a Civil War? As everything becomes digital more and more, day by day, we invite the existence of the Ministry of Truth a little more, day by day. Today you search and find out that the Civil War ended April 9th 1865. Tomorrow though... perhaps new evidence suggests that it ended in 1864. Maybe instead it ended in 1862, not long after the crushing defeat of the Confederate Army in the Battle of Bull Run.

The problem with our eternal war of course is that opposition to the Government is terrorism and terror is the enemy. Most of you here, Proles that you are, see the Democrats as your shining Blue champions who will make everything good and wonderful again. You know for certain that they will fix all that the evil Red Republicans have wrought. I myself get swept up in the moment frequently. I think to myself how great it will be to finally be free again. Then I remember sometimes, that we have never been free. We have always lived in these gilded cages. Every year the bars get prettier and more bejeweled, but they get smaller with each passing year. We have forgotten that we have wings and that we are meant to fly. We should be soaring free, but we are all trapped here, together, in a cage we built ourselves to keep us safe and happy.

I can say all these things because there is no vast conspiracy. No evil overlords. We built this thing ourselves. I can say these things because most who read it will ignore it. It will either be considered to be a left-wing rant and ignored by right wingers, or it will be seen as a right-wing rant and ignored by left-wingers. I am sure plenty will read this, agree with it and then go back to the important things in their lives, you know a new TV, paying your bills, going to work, watching the big game, checking your lottery tickets.

I can say all these things because I know they are futile and irrelevant. Thanks to the perfected art of DoubleThink everyone knows that we are free and that we are prisoners. We want peace and are always at War. We do not torture and we torture.

I can say all these things just to prove that I can say them, to prove to myself that I do not fear the constructions of our minds.

[bluerum]

1. There are two of you, don't you see? One that loves, and one that kills.

A quote from the movie "Apocalypse Now".

[jannyk]

2. Yep, there have been many times

over the past 6 years that I have truly believed 1984 was this administrations playbook. Not Bush so much - he's too fucking stupid, but Cheney/Rove/Rumsfeld either studied '1984' and/or Mein Kampf. Many of their propaganda strategies are so Orwellian it's creepy.

[eagler]

3. You are waking up!

If we could just get more to see the similarities.

[everythingsxen]

12. It isn't just the past 6 years though...

It's the past 12, the past 18, the past 24, the past 48. How long has it been like this? How long have we been backsliding into a worse and worse condition? At least since the end of WW2, though I suspect the first step happened long before that. I would say it began during the Civil War. Lincoln took huge grabs of power for the Federal Government. Power it was never supposed to have.

Perhaps though it stated while the ink was still drying on the Constitution. I don't know. The America I have lived in my entire life bears little resemblance to the America I was raised to believe in.

[flakey_foont]

4. Knocking on your door!

someone will be waiting for you at your door

when you get home tonight

ah yes he's gonna tell you darkness gives you much more

than you get from the light

classic plastic guards well they're your special friends

they see you every night

well they call themselves your brothers

but you know it's no game

you're never out of their sight



it's time you started thinking inside your head

that you should stand up and fight

oh where will you be when the freedom must end

just one year from tonight

classic plastic coppers are your special friends

they see you every night

well they call themselves protection

but they know it's no game

you're never out of their sight



I'm gonna run through the jungle

I'm not going to ever come back

[dipsydoodle]

5. The film is very good too

The only problem is copies on Amazon.co your side cost bundles and I'm not sure if you've got multiregion players or not - copies cost less on Amazon.co.uk over here in the UK. I guess they could be played on a computer DVD player by changing the region.

[bryant69]

6. The life of the mind

may or may not bear any resemblance to reality.

Anyway Brave New World has always been the horse to bet on in the dystopian sweepstakes.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Vorta]

7. I always thought people made too much out of 1984

I still do.

[madmusic]

9. I always thought a lot of people didn't understand it.

And they still don't.

[Vorta]

10. I've always associated it with pseudo-intellectuals ...

who think that if you didn't think that 2001 Space A Space Odyssey was anything other than a total bore, then you must not have understood it.

[everythingsxen]

15. Have you personally read 1984?

Or have you simply always associated it with pseudo-intellectuals and decided not to read it?

[Marr]

18. Have you read it? It's an amazing book, in my humble opinion.

Back when I was a teenager, I thought it was so unbelievable as to be comedic. But I've slowly come to see what Orwell was talking about.

[zeemike]

8. A nice little essay on how I feel

And I understand how you feel.
It feels hopeless and like there is no use even trying.
But that is the insidious thing about "the Party" is that every hopeless feeling created is a bullet in the head of freedom. The red and the blue both profit from this just as the game of good cop bad cop works on the suspect.
But there is only one way out of a big brother society and that is to never louse hope and try to project that hope on to people that may see what you are saying is right but turn away.
My only hope is that the Democrats will move us at least some small way to and enlightened world.
I have no expectations that they will actually solve any problems but just might work to raise the consciousness of enough people to make a difference.

[everythingsxen]

11. Thanks

I do try to keep up the hope.

I also hope that the Democrats will change things, but all available evidence suggests that is an impossibility. The system itself will not allow a true change to true freedom and true democracy. I like to believe that some members of both parties are genuinely good people who see the terrible flaws in our system and struggle, as best they can, to change it. Most I suspect though simply see "Politician" as a career goal with all the profit and power it can bring. They are not in politics because they have a genuine altruistic desire to help their fellow man and improve anyones lives other than their own. They are in politics because they believe political office will bring them wealth and power.

[Generic Other]

13. I am also haunted...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j704r2SKHo4

[everythingsxen]

14. That was disturbing

Very sad too.

I weep for the future.

[everythingsxen]

16. I also found this...

It is a good watch as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqtI8eS4mOg

[everythingsxen]

17. Kick(nt)

[dipsydoodle]

19. Just found the whole film for you

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15531.htm

I came across it accident while searching for something else.