-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: September 15, 2007 7:10:58 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: "1984" the Neocon's Bible
Friday, September 14, 2007
http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2007/09/why-bush-regime-is-
orwellian-threat.html
Why the Bush Regime
is an Orwellian Threat
It was Margaret Atwood who called Bush, the greatest threat to
world peace. What Atwood didn't mention was that Bush derives his
power from a deliberate and well-planned attack on our language.
George Orwell predicted it in the now classic 1984. His works
remain the textbook examples of how governments manipulate people
by first manipulating the language.
Orwell describes a fascist, totalitarian government that spies on
its own citizens, denies reality, and exploits a perpetual state of
war. Orwell's Big Brother succeeds in re-writing History, reshaping
thought by reshaping language, creating an alternate reality.
It is true that in a fascist state all is done in order to maintain
the regime in absolute power. Nevertheless, the lesson of 1984 is
less about the state than it is about the individual. When states
are absolutely powerful, the individual ceases to exist.
Individuals robbed of the ability to exercise free will are denied
personhood. From a theological standpoint, individuals are robbed
of their very souls.
In order to acknowledge the collapse of Soviet Communism and the
failure of fascism to reemerge as a potent political force, I
ditched Orwell's oppressive totalitarian state in favor of an
entertainment-fueled nihilism in which dimwitted citizens frittered
away their lives watching web TV and working at slightly overpaid
jobs to buy worthless junk ... on web TV, natch. Where Orwell
envisioned endless rows of soldiers marching in perfect unison to
the strains of the Two-Minute Hate, I saw a world where nations had
been replaced by trading blocs and the objects of hatred were the
immigrants in our midst.
--Ted Rall, Why Bush Is Addicted To Perpetual War
Images of 1984 are seared into our memories --big brother, the
telescreen, the grotty bedroom, the cubicle, the memory hole, the
drab gray existence, the rat cage. But 1984 is as much about
language. Not just sub-text, language is a major player. It is the
means by which Big Brother creates an alternate reality, the source
of "his" power. Language is how Big Brother gets inside your head.
The "official language" is Newspeak, remembered for the slogans:
war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. From
newspeak we derive doublespeak which most certainly describes how
the Bush administration and a sycophantic news media has empowered
Bush --Homeland Security for the unlawful and omnipresence of Big
Brother itself; operation Iraqi freedom for what is, in fact, a war
of naked aggression; war on terrorism for a perpetual war which, on
its face and by definition, cannot be won.
Interestingly, the origin of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" gives the
game away. It was originally called Operation Iraqi Liberation, or
OIL.
When the GOP uses the term "war" it is done so for the emotional
reaction that it is sure to provoke. Americans rallied to defeat
real enemies in World War II, a lesson that the GOP has never
forgotten. The GOP is altogether too eager to elicit the same
response with phony wars waged on crime, porn, drugs, and illegal
immigrants. Real wars, however, are fought between armies
representing nations. The GOP has always envied FDR his real war.
The War on Terrorism is a GOP code word for global police state or
police action. A very hardcore GOP base knows precisely what Bush
is up to and supports it. Like Reagan's War on Drugs or the war on
porn, some kind of war will always be waged so that the GOP might
maintain themselves in power.
The most glaring use of Newspeak is the invention of what I have
chosen to call "focus group phrases" as they are invented, full
cloth, in focus groups. "Al Qaeda in Iraq" is just such a phrase,
designed make a lazy populace forget that the war was begun upon a
pack of blackhearted lies about WMD. The GOP use it because it
tests well in focus groups. The media like it because it wraps up
in three little words a long and complicated lie. It omits the
obvious fact that al Qaeda had not been "in Iraq" until the US was
"in Iraq". The US in Iraq is a threat to civilization, the world.
When WMD were not found, the history of the Bush administration
became the list of equally absurd ex post facto rationales for a
war of aggression. It is significant that Bush will never tell the
nation his real reasons he bombed Afghanistan, his real reasons for
attacking and invading Iraq. I will. Bush bombed Afghanistan so
that Unocal might build a pipeline through that country to the
Caspian Sea. The Taliban was targeted because they had apparently
driven a hard bargain in a meeting they held with Unocal officials
in Tom DeLay's old stomping grounds --Sugar Land, TX. Iraq was
invaded because Saddam Hussein controlled the amount of oil exports
and thus the world price of oil. Persian Gulf I had been fought for
the same reasons. Bush Sr --as evil as Jr --was at least smart
enough to know when to pull out.
Indeed, Orwell understood as few have the power of language and in,
1984 the "tool of power" is language. The institutions of state
maintain power by exploiting the power of language to shape the
nature of thought itself. In the novel, 1984, the state
manipulation of language is the job of protagonist, Winston Smith.
Smith's personal tragedy is symbolic of the tragedy of our
civilization, if not our species.
Examples abound in the Bush administration. The Bush regime's use
of the phrase "Total Information Awareness" very nearly gave the
game away. In response to criticism, the regime stopped using the
name "Total Information Awareness" to denote their program of
widespread domestic surveillance. But that does not mean that Bush
has stopped spying on you, invading your privacy, or violating your
Constitutional right to be safe and secure in your own home. It
does not mean that your email is not fair game. It does not mean
that your phone is not tapped. It does not mean that you have
nothing to fear from this venal administration. "Total Information
Awareness" is no doubt called something else, a name designed not
to attract the attention of the media, a less scary name to lull
the "folk".
Orwell is most famous for 1984 but his great essay on politics
should also be required reading. He explores how politicians
explore language to accrue absolute power.
The White House saw September 11 as a golden opportunity. The first
catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil sparked an
unprecedented case of leadership projection: desperate for
protection and answers (why do they hate us? can we kill them
before they kill us?), Americans wishfully compared Bush to FDR and
Churchill. Approval ratings hit 92 percent. But Bush's political
advisors knew that peaking early wouldn't guarantee reelection in
2004. Bush's father had been turned out of office just 20 months
after the Gulf War ratcheted his score up to 91.
The Bushies have lifted their reelection strategy straight out of
"1984," and not just by creating ominous-sounding agencies like the
Office of Homeland Security, the supposedly-closed Office of
Strategic Information, and a "Shadow Government." As in "1984," the
Bush regime tolerates zero dissent --a two-party system in name
only has been distilled to one in which only Republicans express
acceptable opinions. And an absence of follow-up attacks has been
met by endless alerts, advisors and empty hysterics in the name of
security, most recently culminating with Tom Ridge's much-mocked
color-code warning system.
--Ted Rall, Why Bush Is Addicted To Perpetual War
In fact, all who have read Orwell's essay on how easily politicians
debase the language for nefarious purposes have recognized in the
Bush administration the very techniques that Orwell warned us about.
Orwell: Politics and the English Language
To be fair, it is not only politicians but bullshit artists who
have made us vulnerable to tyranny. This is done by dumbing down
the language, dumbing down our ability to think critically.
As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not
consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and
inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists
in gumming together long strips of words which have already been
set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by
sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is
easy. It is easier -- even quicker, once you have the habit -- to
say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than
to say I think. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don't
have to hunt about for the words; you also don't have to bother
with the rhythms of your sentences since these phrases are
generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious.
--George Orwell, Politics and the English Language
Until Bush, even Republican "Presidents" paid lip service to the
Constitution. But there were warnings.
“"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and
carrying a cross."”
—Sinclair Lewis, author of "It Can't Happen here!
The characteristics of the fascist state so vividly described by
both authors are to be found in abundance in Bush's fascist regime.
That millions are in denial is merely evidence of the truth that is
denied.
A quote from Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here":
"Senator Windrip has got an excellent chance to be elected
President, next November, and if he is, probably his gang of
buzzards will get us into some war, just to grease their insane
vanity and show the world that we’re the huskiest nation going." –
page Page 20, "It Can't Happen Here," Sinclair Lewis
Clearly Orwell and Lewis not only warned us, they predicted very
precisely how it would be done. As Shakespeare would have said:
"All is true!"
So why didn't we listen?
Because this nation has a fierce anti-intellectual streak which at
its best makes us independent but at its worst makes us STUPID!
1984 Trailer
Big Brother is Watching You
Big Brother Loves Torture
Apple's 1984 Take-off
Here's the searchable version in its entirety:
George Orwell: 1984
Scary shit!
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