1984 by George Orwell

To me, the most jaw-droppingly horrifying thing about the book is that Orwell's version of the future is in many ways much less extreme than the present-day Formerly America.

• In the book, only government employees were subject to monitoring- a tiny, miniscule part of the populace. The proles, you will recall, were not subjected to monitoring. In the USA, everyone is subject to careful examination.

• As in 1984, we've lost the right to trial by jury, lost the right to have a public trial, lost the right to counsel, lost the right to be set free if not formally accused of anything (though so far it's only being applied in test cases, so that the government's "rights" in such matters aren't seriously challenaged, see the case of Padilla v. Rumsfeld for details).

• In the book 1984, transactions such as routine purchases of food, were not electronic and thus couldn't be monitored. Today, nearly all transactions of all types are electronic, with cash being used only for purchases of illegal products, or for emergencies. All electronic transactions of all types can be examined by law enforcement without a warrant and without any demonstration of probable cause.

• Whole books could be written about the Bush Admin's abuse of language, it's too much to even begin to discuss with what little time I have. But it's quite astonishing that so many people have fallen trap to it for so long a time period.

• Remember the rat cage torture thing, where people are exposed to animals to which they have a true phobia? Their worst fear? Room... whatever room number it is? Well, in King George's empire, that's not only legal, but encouraged in torture prisons managed by "Americans" around the world. Prisoners could be dumped into large vats filled with spiders, cockroaches, snakes, dogs, etc. It's not only legal, but it's not even considered to be torture by the Bush idiots, since it doesn't cause the same level of physical pain as "death or organ failure."

I truly believe that at some point George W. Bush must have encountered the book 1984, had someone read part of it to him, and gave orders that every idea in the book be implemented as a top national priority. Nothing else could really explain the extent to which they use Orwell's tactics. It's much too close and methodical to be written off as coincidence, in my opinion.

As much as I hate "the turra ists," I'm really not sure the human species will survive much longer if today's "American values" are permitted to exist. I wish it wasn't so, but we might really be the greatest threat to humanity since the smallpox virus.

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." -Benjamin Franklin

I personally think it's nearly time for mobs to descend with torches upon the offices of every member of the US Congress, shove their way inside, and spraypaint that eternal quote in red spraypaint on the inside walls. Just to remind the no-good bastards that paybacks are a motherfucker. Imagine that, on the wall of every congressional office in the country. When the summer is over, if we're still in the hands of a police state government, I might just lead the charge to really do just that.

Orwell would approve, too, I'm sure. After all, there was one type of person that Orwell hated as passionately as tyrants. The people he regarded as the enablers of tyranny: pacifists. Or as someone else once put it (quote only approximate), "Don't fear your friends, for they can only betray you. Don't fear your enemies, for they can only kill you. Fear the apathetic, for they pave the road for betrayers and killers."

Okay, rant over

 

The book is obviously prolific and very original in insight considering the time. I wonder how much of an impact it made at the time. It is a book that is likely to induce paranoia, I would think, and I do agree that some of the ways of monitoring people can be seen in our time. So far, I've derived a lot of meanings and ideas from the book that serve as warnings, but when presented with a dystopia or any hypothetical situation that is supposed to serve as a an abstact idea of the way things could be, there will be the absense of a solution as well as difficulty finding direct blame if these sort of things do take place. There are a great many things that the Party in the book does wrong and they aren't all drawn back to totalitarianism, but also to lies. The aim for perfection is interesting, since their ideas for perfectionism are only those which align within the Party's system of thought, and are obviously questionable. Not only that, but besides lies, they are extreme hypocrits. The lies present themselves in a lot of ways: their mixing up the truth about what Capitalism is (claiming that it was a sort of oligarchal monarchy, which was ironically more like what they were then what capitalism, with all its flaws, would have been in their past). The fact that INGSOC was formerly called English Socialism was the funniest of all, considering that the Party owned everything. The motivations for complete control are easily understood, but the fact that they could maintain it seemed not plausible. Basically the premise seemed to be somewhat contraditory. We aren't really sure about the truth of things, because our summation of the present day Airstrip One comes from Goldstein and Winston, and Goldstein is actually O'Brien! I thought that it was interesting, the way that Winston was broken down through a series of events and tortures and their avoidance of martyrdom- was really brilliant. The way that Winston was brought to actually love Big Brother and had an admiration for O'Brien was also interesting. O'Brien actually "contained his mind", so his intelligence kept Winston in check. But the thing is, was the idea that if only the proles could be given intelligence...or independent thought, they would be able to break free...yet, O'Brien truly believed in the doctrines of the Party. Goldstein's book says that people who don't care about comfort as much as have a zealous support of the Party, would be the creators of this totalitarian gov. that has everyone in subjection. It was the pure desire for power...but doesn't that desire for power merely boil down to a desire for comfort? It was also interesting the way that they said that comfort leads to education and education to independent thought and that would lead to rebellion. There is a lot I don't quite understand. I really thought that the connection from thought to language was interesting, and the way that the were cutting down on vocabulatry with Newspeak was also fascinating. I don't buy into the idea that if the word Rebellion disappears, that the concept/idea would altogether disappear also...unless one managed to disable independent thought. Its interesting that the Party is immoral, but the way that Winston rebells is by going against what the Party claims is moral.

 

People keep recommending this book and say how the world is so similar to it today... I got to read it soon..

 

"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."
-George Orwell

 

I remember reading it for fun one time, I couldn't tell you exactly what happened during it, but I do know I liked the whole thing, very nice book.

 

Amazing book. Read it my senior year.
While I was reading it someone said to me: "I will never forget the last line."
After I finished it... I realized that I probably won't either. Gave me chills.

 

I saw in the news a few days ago that some kids in Florida hacked their high school's intercom system, and began reading to the school. The Administrators, believing it to be communist propaganda written by Fidel Castro, called in police, and the culprits are up on multiple charges and are facing serious jail time.

But the administrators didn't realize the kids were reading Orwell's "1984," and were too stupid to tell the difference between that and Castro propaganda.