Why the Bush Regime is an Orwellian Threat

[babylonsister]

Friday, September 14, 2007
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 person hood. 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rows of soldiers marching in perfect unison to the strains of the Two-Minute Hate, I saw a world where nations had been replaced by trading blocs and the objects of hatred were the immigrants in our midst.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. Language is the means by which Big Brother creates an alternate reality, the source of Big Brother's 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.

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http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2007/09/why-bush-regime-is-orwellian-threat.html