GEORGE ORWELL 1984

 

 

THE EQUIVALENCE IS STARTLING

George Orwell’s 1984, published in 1949, portrayed a democracy taken over by an oligarchic government headed by a charismatic con man. 

War is Peace

Freedom is Slavery

Ignorance is Strength

 

“The enemy of the moment always represents absolute evil.”

 

If all others accepted the lie which the party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became true.  Who controls the past, ran the party slogan, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.

 

Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version.  A great deal of the time, you were supposed to make them up out of your head.

 

The aim of the high is to remain where they are. The aim of the middle is to change places with the high.

 

It was still true that men were not equal in their native talents and that functions had to be specialized in ways that favored some individuals against others.

 

Imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages, and the deportation of whole populations – not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.

 

In the past, no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance.”

 

Doublethink: (reality control)

Thou shall not kill, but glorification of war heroes.

New Speak: (propaganda)

designed to diminish the range of thought

 

“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 facts that have become inconvenient.

 

We know that no one ever seized power with the intention of relinquishing it.  Power is not a means; it is an end.”

 

Orwell warns that a totalitarian government can successfully manipulate the minds of a large population to the point where a person can think the opposite of what is true.  Trump and his Republican Ing Soc have accomplished this with MAGA.

We are nearly there

2+2 = 5

the Ol'Buzzard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1984 REVISITED

“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 facts that has become inconvenient, …”

Trump and the Republican Party are turning back the clock, not to the 1950’s as some opponents say, but to George Orwell’s 1984.   We have gone down the rabbit hole of 1984 without even realizing the journey.

I fear that the country will not recover from the Trump fascism.  The expectations of a government of checks and balances has been permanently broken.  

The third of the country that is racist, homophobic, fundamentalist and easily manipulated have found their power and will control elections in the Republican party for decades to come.

  “Ingsoc successfully manipulated the mind to the point that a person thinks the opposite of what is true”

Even with a Democratic majority in the House, regardless of the crimes Trump commits, cries for impeachment are like an old man yelling at clouds.   Impeachment would require a vote of sixty-six senators and that will never happen: it would require 14 Republican Senators to cross over and all Democrats to vote as a block. 

The way Senators are elected – two from every state – it is not likely that Democrats will take over the Senate anytime in the future: California (thirty-seven million population) has two Senators, North Dakota (seven hundred thousand population) has two Senators.

The best-case scenario is that the permanently angry, poorly informed, easily manipulated base of the Republican party, controlled by rich capitalist, will continue to elect Senators that will permanent block any progressive agenda.   

The worse case is that the Republican party of Trump has so normalized malfeasance that the United States will never recover as a nation of laws that has been the underpinning of our society. 

the Ol’Buzzard