1984 - Orwell's warning - Big Brother is watching you! - Eerie interview from decades ago

[WhoIsNumberNone]

"Orwellian" is an adjective describing the situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free and open society. It connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past, including the "unperson" — a person whose past existence is expunged from the public record and memory, practiced by modern repressive governments. Often, this includes the circumstances depicted in his novels, particularly Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Nineteen Eighty-Four uses themes from life in the Soviet Union and wartime life in Great Britain as sources for many of its motifs.
Orwell's ideas about personal freedom and state authority developed when he was a British colonial administrator in Burma. He was fascinated by the effect of colonialism on the individual, requiring acceptance of the idea that the colonialist exists only for the good of the colonised.
There has also been a great deal of discourse on the possibility that Orwell galvanized his ideas of oppression during his experience, and his subsequent writings in the English press, in Spain. Orwell was a member of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) militia and suffered suppression and escaped arrest by the Comintern faction working within the Republican Government. Following his escape he made a strong case for defending the Spanish revolution from the Communists there, and the misinformation in the press at home. During this period he formed strong ideas about the reportage of events, and their context in his own ideas of imperialism and democracy.
This often brought him into conflict with literary peers such as W.H. Auden and Stephen Spender

[heaven05]

1. great post

I always liked his work. Prescient. I like the reference to McCarthy's fascism.

[zeemike]

2. Proof that some saw it for what it was.

Too bad the TV and the media had the loudest voice.

[RVN VET]

3. Harlan Ellison is an American treasure

He'd punch me in the mouth -- seriously -- for calling him that. But he is. Fantastic writer, outspoken defender of writing, writers, and freedom of speech.

He did an excellent -- I'll even call it wonderful -- screenplay for Asimov's "I Robot" that really should have been made into a movie. But it wasn't because he, apparently, called one of the money guys at Warner a brainless artichoke! He speaks his mind, in other words.

It's interesting hearing what he had to say about Government snooping a waaaay back in 1984.

I'm guessing he'd have a much more vitriolic view of things today.