WAR ON TERROR IS ORWELL'S NEVER ENDING WAR

[Clara T]

WAR ON TERROR IS ORWELL'S NEVER ENDING WAR


What started as a war of liberation in Iraq has now become the front for an Orwellian never ending war on terror which is slowly draining the heart, resources and spirit of America: Allen L Roland


The Cheney/Bush War on Terror is a never ending war and no one understood the long war better than George Orwell.

With a 1.5 billion dollar embassy being built in Iraq along with four super bases ~ the Cheney/Bush/Rumsfeld cabal have a vested interest in not only staying in Iraq but keeping the war on terror active and alive in everyone's minds. 

The object of this war, as Orwell describes, is to keep a society or ' Our Way of Life ' intact ~ The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. 

http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/

Here's a primer on Orwell's thinking ~ courtesy of the Progressive Review.

Allen L Roland

GEORGE ORWELL ON THE LONG WAR

GEORGE ORWELL, 1984 - In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistakable victory or defeat. In the past, also, war was one of the main instruments by which human societies were kept in touch with physical reality. . . Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an airplane they had to make four.

Inefficient nations were always conquered sooner or later, and the struggle for efficiency was inimical to illusions. Moreover, to be efficient it was necessary to be able to learn from the past, which meant having a fairly accurate idea of what had happened in the past.

Newspapers and history books were, of course, always colored and biased, but falsification of the kind that is practiced today would have been impossible. War was a sure safeguard of sanity, and so far as the ruling classes were concerned it was probably the most important of all safeguards. While wars could be won or lost, no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.

War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word 'war', therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist.

http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/17/

[liberal N proud]

1. And keeping the people deep in FEAR is the tool to which allows the

regime to conduct this Orwellian adventure.

I never thought we would actually get to live out science fiction.

[file83]

6. We learned that 1984 was a warning - to the Neo-Cons, it was a blueprint.

[Clara T]

The Straussian philosophy

In essence, the Straussian philosophy and teachings are now known as Neo-Conservatism. Below are some of the more interesting and perhaps surprising or even disturbing aspects of Neo-Conservatism as taught by Strauss:
• Nations cannot consider collective action and multilateralism unless it is 100 percent in line with their own selfish interests
• Strong leadership is required
• Military power is essential
• Leadership ought not be encumbered by human rights discourse or a moral conscience but nonetheless must "appear" to advocate such ideas.
• Rulers need not observe the laws they impose on the ruled.
• A ruler can cheat and lie and do all sorts of things but should at all time maintain the outside appearance of adherence to human rights and caring for people.
• Leaders can use religion as one of many tools to ensure the nation keeps on course as formulated.
• Outside threats help ensure social cohesion under domestic leadership
• Altruism, environmental protection, justice etc, are not the concern of governments and ruling elites. They have no part to play in the equation of power


Machiavelli’s political doctrine serves as the foundation of Neo-Conservatism and it denies the relevance of morality in political affairs. It states that that craft and deceit are justified in pursuing and maintaining political power.  It implies that when it comes to achieving or maintaining power the end justifies the means. This is essentially the core of Machiavellianism and serves as the foundation for Neo-Conservatism: The priority for the power holder is to keep the security of the state regardless of the morality of the means. Machiavelli discusses frankly, the necessity of cruel actions to keep power. He was in the business of power preservation not piety. According to the originator of Neo-Conservative ideology the leader of the state must stick to the good so long as he can, but, being compelled by necessity, he must be ready to take the way of the evil.
http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/the_truth_about_george_w__bush.html



Alexis de Tocqueville wisely observed, "I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America."

[file83]

11. I first learned of Leo Strauss and the Neo-Cons in

the documentary "Power of Nightmares" produced by the BBC. I'm glad to see others know of this history and are spreading the word! Your photo of the police line is the manifestation of the Police State. The costumes are designed to both protect, but more importantly, intimidate and dissuade political dissenters from exercising their Constitutional rights to free speech.

"Remember, remember, the 5th of November."

[Clara T]

9. "Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia."

"On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns -- after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces -- at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally."
-Orwell

[Clara T]

2. It is always the same war

To understand the nature of the present war -- for in spite of the regrouping which occurs every few years, it is always the same war -- one must realize in the first place that it is impossible for it to be decisive. None of the three super-states could be definitively conquered even by the other two in combination. They are too evenly matched, and their natural defences are too formidable. Eurasia is protected by its vast land spaces. Oceania by the width of the Atlantic and the Pacific, Eastasia by the fecundity and industriousness of its inhabitants. Secondly, there is no longer, in a material sense, anything to fight about. With the establishment of self-contained economies, in which production and consumption are geared to one another, the scramble for markets which was a main cause of previous wars has come to an end, while the competition for raw materials is no longer a matter of life and death. In any case each of the three super-states is so vast that it can obtain almost all the materials that it needs within its own boundaries. In so far as the war has a direct economic purpose, it is a war for labour power. Between the frontiers of the super-states, and not permanently in the possession of any of them, there lies a rough quadrilateral with its corners at Tangier, Brazzaville, Darwin, and Hong Kong, containing within it about a fifth of the population of the earth. It is for the possession of these thickly-populated regions, and of the northern ice-cap, that the three powers are constantly struggling. In practice no one power ever controls the whole of the disputed area. Portions of it are constantly changing hands, and it is the chance of seizing this or that fragment by a sudden stroke of treachery that dictates the endless changes of alignment.

http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/17/

[Burried News]

3. And they use the Prince of Peace as a tool for more war. Does a

man as well as a country die when Irony reaches a point that we cannot bear? I don't think so, but with every dose of it surely our soul sickens.

[arendt]

4. Thanks for the link.

Useful to hear this about once a week. Big lies require constant refutation.

The Bush administration doesn't even bother to invent this crap. They
just steal it from Orwell's satire. Only it isn't funny.

arendt

[file83]

5. This post is DoublePlusGood....oh, by the way, can you spare some razors?

[Clara T]

7. He understood how; he did not understand why.

"He had still, he reflected, not learned the ultimate secret. He understood how; he did not understand why. Chapter I, like Chapter III, had not actually told him anything that he did not know, it had merely systematized the knowledge that he possessed already. But after reading it he knew better than before that he was not mad. Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad. A yellow beam from the sinking sun slanted in through the window and fell across the pillow. He shut his eyes. The sun on his face and the girl's smooth body touching his own gave him a strong, sleepy, confident feeling. He was safe, everything was all right. He fell asleep murmuring 'Sanity is not statistical,' with the feeling that this remark contained in it a profound wisdom."

http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/17/

[Clara T]

8. "Doublethink"

"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies -- all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Ultimately it is by means of doublethink that the Party has been able -- and may, for all we know, continue to be able for thousands of years -- to arrest the course of history. "
-From George Orwell's "1984"

[file83]

10. In reality, cognitive dissonance forces the mind to choose one of two

contradicting pieces of information, it's almost impossible to avoid. In BushWorld, DoubleThink allows both contradicting pieces of information, no matter how false, to occur simultaneously in ignorant harmony with one another in the Bush supporter's mind. This must occur for it would be impossible to believe in him.

[tabasco]

12. The haves & have-mores are the party members.

The rest of us are proles.

[Clara T]

13. The Manufactured Minute of Hate

"There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy. Winston was taking part in a demonstration in one of the central London squares at the moment when it happened. It was night, and the white faces and the scarlet banners were luridly floodlit. The square was packed with several thousand people, including a block of about a thousand schoolchildren in the uniform of the Spies. On a scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner Party, a small lean man with disproportionately long arms and a large bald skull over which a few lank locks straggled, was haranguing the crowd. A little Rumpelstiltskin figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the neck of the microphone with one hand while the other, enormous at the end of a bony arm, clawed the air menacingly above his head. His voice, made metallic by the amplifiers, boomed forth an endless catalogue of atrocities, massacres, deportations, lootings, rapings, torture of prisoners, bombing of civilians, lying propaganda, unjust aggressions, broken treaties. It was almost impossible to listen to him without being first convinced and then maddened. At every few moments the fury of the crowd boiled over and the voice of the speaker was drowned by a wild beast-like roaring that rose uncontrollably from thousands of throats. The most savage yells of all came from the schoolchildren. The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker's hand. He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys. But within two or three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed."
- George Orwell "1984"

[Nutmegger]

14. Hey! A new OBL tape came out!

It's Hate Week all over again!!!

I have to go now and prepare for the Two Minutes Hate...

:yoiks::yoiks:

[Junkdrawer]

15. For those too busy/lazy to read, free/cheap audiobook versions:

Free (except benburch would appreciate a contribution ;) ):

Mike Malloy is reading 1984 one small segment a night. The first 17 are here:
http://server4.whiterosesociety.org/content/malloy/1984/
(Donate here: http://www.whiterosesociety.org)


Cheap:

Blackstone books has a single MP3 CD for around $16 here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/offer-listing/0786188162/ref=dp_olp_1/102-7074570-8928941?%5Fencoding=UTF8

[Clara T]

16. Bush's Mysterious 'New Programs'

Bush's Mysterious 'New Programs'

By Nat Parry
February 21, 2006

Not that George W. Bush needs much encouragement, but Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a new target for the administration’s domestic operations -- Fifth Columnists, supposedly disloyal Americans who sympathize and collaborate with the enemy. “The administration has not only the right, but the duty, in my opinion, to pursue Fifth Column movements,” Graham, R-S.C., told Gonzales during Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Feb. 6.

“I stand by this President’s ability, inherent to being Commander in Chief, to find out about Fifth Column movements, and I don’t think you need a warrant to do that,” Graham added, volunteering to work with the administration to draft guidelines for how best to neutralize this alleged threat.
“Senator,” a smiling Gonzales responded, “the President already said we’d be happy to listen to your ideas.”

In less paranoid times, Graham’s comments might be viewed by many Americans as a Republican trying to have it both ways – ingratiating himself to an administration of his own party while seeking some credit from Washington centrists for suggesting Congress should have at least a tiny say in how Bush runs the War on Terror. But recent developments suggest that the Bush administration may already be contemplating what to do with Americans who are deemed insufficiently loyal or who disseminate information that may be considered helpful to the enemy.

Top U.S. officials have cited the need to challenge news that undercuts Bush’s actions as a key front in defeating the terrorists, who are aided by “news informers” in the words of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/022106a.html