How do you change the way people think? You start by changing the words they use.
In totalitarian regimesâa.k.a. police statesâwhere conformity and compliance are enforced at the end of a loaded gun, the government dictates what words can and cannot be used. In countries where the police state hides behind a benevolent mask and disguises itself as tolerance, the citizens censor themselves, policing their words and thoughts to conform to the dictates of the mass mind.
Dystopian literature shows what happens when the populace is transformed into mindless automatons. In Ray Bradburyâs Fahrenheit 451, reading is banned and books are burned in order to suppress dissenting ideas, while televised entertainment is used to anesthetize the populace and render them easily pacified, distracted and controlled.
In Huxleyâs Brave New World, serious literature, scientific thinking and experimentation are banned as subversive, while critical thinking is discouraged through the use of conditioning, social taboos and inferior education. Likewise, expressions of individuality, independence and morality are viewed as vulgar and abnormal.
And in Orwellâs 1984, Big Brother does away with all undesirable and unnecessary words and meanings, even going so far as to routinely rewrite history and punish âthoughtcrimes.â In this dystopian vision of the future, the Thought Police serve as the eyes and ears of Big Brother, while the Ministry of Peace deals with war and defense, the Ministry of Plenty deals with economic affairs (rationing and starvation), the Ministry of Love deals with law and order (torture and brainwashing), and the Ministry of Truth deals with news, entertainment, education and art (propaganda). The mottos of Oceania: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
Orwell understood what many Americans, caught up in their partisan flag-waving, are still struggling to come to terms with: that there is no such thing as a government organized for the good of the people. Even the best intentions among those in government inevitably give way to the desire to maintain power and control over the citizenry at all costs. As Orwell explains:
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.
In fact, Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother, and we are now ruled by the Corporate Elite whose tentacles have spread worldwide. For example, USA Today reports that five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the homeland security business was booming to such an extent that it eclipsed mature enterprises like movie-making and the music industry in annual revenue. This security spending to private corporations such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others is forecast to exceed $1 trillion in the near future.
The government now has at its disposal technological arsenals so sophisticated and invasive as to render any constitutional protections null and void. Spearheaded by the NSA, which has shown itself to care little to nothing for constitutional limits or privacy, the âsecurity/industrial complexââa marriage of government, military and corporate interests aimed at keeping Americans under constant surveillanceâhas come to dominate the government and our lives. At three times the size of the CIA, constituting one third of the intelligence budget and with its own global spy network to boot, the NSA has a long history of spying on Americans, whether or not it has always had the authorization to do so.
Money, power, control. There is no shortage of motives fueling the convergence of mega-corporations and government. But who is paying the price? The American people, of course.
Our world is characterized by widespread surveillance, behavior prediction technologies, data mining, fusion centers, driverless cars, voice-controlled homes, facial recognition systems, cybugs and drones, and predictive policing (pre-crime) aimed at capturing would-be criminals before they can do any damage.
Surveillance cameras are everywhere. Government agents listen in on our telephone calls and read our emails. Political correctnessâa philosophy that discourages diversityâhas become a guiding principle of modern society.
âPeople sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.ââGeorge Orwell
The courts have shredded the Fourth Amendmentâs protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. In fact, SWAT teams battering down doors without search warrants and FBI agents acting as a secret police that investigate dissenting citizens are common occurrences in contemporary America. And bodily privacy and integrity have been utterly eviscerated by a prevailing view that Americans have no rights over what happens to their bodies during an encounter with government officials, who are allowed to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.
âThe creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.ââGeorge Orwell, Animal Farm
We are increasingly ruled by multi-corporations wedded to the police state.
What many fail to realize is that the government is not operating alone. It cannot. The government requires an accomplice. Thus, the increasingly complex security needs of the massive federal government, especially in the areas of defense, surveillance and data management, have been met within the corporate sector, which has shown itself to be a powerful ally that both depends on and feeds the growth of governmental overreach.
Tread cautiously: the fiction of George Orwell has become an operation manual for the omnipresent, modern-day surveillance state.
Itâs been 70 years since Orwell â dying, beset by fever and bloody coughing fits, and driven to warn against the rise of a society in which rampant abuse of power and mass manipulation are the norm â depicted the ominous rise of ubiquitous technology, fascism and totalitarianism in 1984.
Who could have predicted that 70 years after Orwell typed the final words to his dystopian novel, âHe loved Big Brother,â we would fail to heed his warning and come to love Big Brother.
âTo the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone â to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink â greetings!â â George Orwell
1984 portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. People are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought-crimes. The government, or "Party," is headed by Big Brother, who appears on posters everywhere with the words: "Big Brother is watching you."
We have arrived, way ahead of schedule, into the dystopian future dreamed up by not only Orwell but also such fiction writers as Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood, and Philip K Dick.
You had to live â did live, from habit that became instinct â in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
Strange how Trump can bomb countries on a whim, but he's suddenly powerless about importing refugees.
If kids canât try to be entrepreneurs anymore,
how do they expect future generations to become creative, innovative, and have a grasp on economics?
Life may be all fun and games now in the USA, but as offshoring increases, illegal immigration rises, hard-working Americans die off or dropout due to higher taxes and more regulations, the national debt climbs, there is more terrorism as the result of illegal American wars, the police become more brutal enforcing draconian decrees, the US Ponzi economy and stock markets collapse, cash is banned, Americans are implanted with microchips, and real crises and false flags are used to force Americans to go to the gulags and finally to the gas chambers and ovens, will Americans wish that they had spoken out earlier against the dangers of wars, debt, and tyranny?
Americans scream Obama ended the wars.
Americans say anyone who wants to reduce the US debt is an asshole.
Americans insist that loving freedom means that you hate freedom.
Americans say Americans must submit their DNA, give their fingerprints, and get microchip implants to fly because illegal immigrants might want to travel.
Americans say the government should close newspapers because of fake news.
Americans insist free speech must be illegal because someone might say mean words.
Americans say advertising must be outlawed because products sell themselves.
Americans swear protesting must be illegal because windows might be broken.
Americans say churches must be shut because Muslims exist.
Americans scream guns must be outlawed because bump stocks are just toys.
Americans say NSA wiretapping is fine because Americans have nothing to hide.
Americans insist forfeiture is wonderful because someone might use drugs.
Americans think torture is great because other countries do it.
The destruction of the US cannot come quickly enough.
Everyday prices increase, the US debt grows, US wars continue, and freedom declines.
The police state seems to be expanding faster than the population is waking up about the dangers of tyranny.
Maybe the most infuriating part of the US collapse is the absolute refusal of Americans to admit anything is wrong and the eagerness to shut down anyone who raises the issue and the hypocrisy of Americans who say that they are holy saints and not responsible for anything while blaming everybody else for the decay.
- Libertarian
- https://neinchan.com/pol/
Joined May 2019
