"Winston Smith: Does Big Brother exist?
O'Brien: Of course he exists.
Winston Smith: Does he exist like you or me?
O'Brien: You do no exist."
~George Orwell, 1984
Given recent events I thought it was about time I read 1984. I had a chance to do so, when I was in high school, but didn't. It was in a list of books we could read to complete our literature course, but I didn't choose it because my father had referenced it many times in our political conversations, and I felt I knew the plot. LOL. Silly me. When I was in high school there were computers, of course, I'm not quite that old, but given the brouhaha over the Nixon tapes, and countless references thereof in TV, movies, and literature, I foolishly thought American's would safe from being spied upon by our own government. I wish I would have thought that one through. Anyway, while it comes as no real surprise that a government program like Prism exists, I don't feel any safer. If this highly successful government program is such a smashing success, why were 26 souls... 20 children... 6 adults killed in Newtown? If our government is doing such a good job keeping us safe, why were two young men, able to carry out an act of terrorism at the Boston Marathon a couple months ago?
I don't buy... "It's for your own good."
9/11 was the worst day for America, since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
In the days after 9/11 we were told our freedom was attacked. We say Thank You to members of the armed services for "protecting our freedom."
If we continue to compromise what freedom means to us, we will no longer have any freedom to worry about. What happens then? When you close your eyes, and imagine that world, what do you see? Smell? Hear? Where does compromising freedom end? Do you have a specific tipping point? Is there a line that shouldn't be crossed?
Sarah Palin agrees with me... FUCK ME!
"Don't you see the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the language of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible because there will be no words in which to express it."
~George Orwell, 1984
Is the conversation, if there is one, an honest one? Half of congress claims that even they didn't know how far reaching the Patriot Act went. I guess all the wiretapping stuff was in the fine print.We are being told that if we had the Prism project in place prior to 9/11 we might have been able to prevent it. I can't help but wonder about what we found out about 9/11 in the official 9/11 Report. Didn't it say that the system had been blinking red? We also found out that President George W. Bush had neglected to read a file titled... "Bin Laden Determined To Attack." Hmmm... Could his having read THAT REPORT maybe saved us that day?
I read on Salon the other day, that sales of George Orwell's 1984, at Amazon.com, were up by as much as 5,000 Percent. In particular, the Centennial Edition. I bought the 60th Anniversary Edition. Hmmm... up 5,000 percent... not bad for a book written in 1949.
"Then the face of Big Brother faded away again and instead the three slogans of the party stood out in bold capitals:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"
~George Orwell, 1984
Mood: Quiet
~Me
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