Orwell's 1984
George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1984) trailer
George Orwell’s guide to the news (staging terror)
Americans are now living in a society that in some cases is more draconian, more invasive and more Orwellian than the dystopian tyranny fictionalized in Orwell's chilling classic Nineteen Eighty-Four. On almost every front, American citizens are under an equal or greater threat of abuse, control and more pervasive and high-tech surveillance than anything Winston Smith ever faced.
Compare life in Oceania to life in 2011 America, with quotes from George Orwell's 1984 appearing in italic.
"In general you could not assume that you were much safer in the country than in London. There were no telescreens, of course, but there was always the danger of concealed microphones by which your voice might be picked up and recognized."
Americans will now too have their every utterance listened to by Big Brother in public through surveillance-capable street lights now being installed in major cities across the country which can record private conversations. Just as the citizens of Oceania could never be sure of their privacy, Charlotte's Deputy Homeland Security chief told the local Fox network earlier this week that Americans "would never know" whether or not the government was listening.
“In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into people’s windows.”
America in 2011 is more advanced than Orwell’s Oceania in that it doesn’t have to rely on expensive helicopters to spy on citizens. That job has now been entrusted to unmanned drones that not only act as surveillance devices, they can also carry tasers that deliver incapaciating electric shocks to “suspected” criminals.
"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself - anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called."
Facecrime is now a reality in 2011 with the aid of
behaviometrics – a new omnipresent surveillance
technology developed for the US Air Force and destined to be used in law
enforcement to “monitor suspicious behavior”. The system revolves around a camera
that tracks facial movements biometrically in order to build a psychological
profile of the individual under surveillance. The movements of the muscles in
your face will alert Big Brother, through the process of “behavior analysis,”
to your presence as a suspicious individual who may be engaging in the act of
thought crime, or God forbid, planning a public protest.
"It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which The Times did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak - 'child hero' was the phrase generally used - had overheard some compromising remark and denounced its parents to the Thought Police."
As part of
Homeland Security’s See Something, Say Something program, Americans are being
bombarded at every level, from Wal-Mart, to football games, to hotel rooms,
with messages encouraging them t to report their fellow citizens for engaging
in “suspicious activity,” which as we have documented, includes mundane
behavior such as paying with cash, opposing surveillance, using a video camera,
talking to police officers, wearing hoodies, driving vans, writing on a piece
of paper, and using a cell phone recording application.
Schools are also now training children to be “eco-spies” by reporting on their parents’ bad recycling habits, encouraging kids to “re-educate” them into compliance.
Just
as the citizens of Oceania were constantly bombarded with propaganda from the
state via telescreens, Americans are now being subjected to the same onslaught
in the form of spurious “alerts” from the federal government that are delivered
through numerous platforms, including LED screens on
the ‘Intellistreets’ lighting network, televisions at
Wal-Mart storesthat play Janet
Napolitano’s “See Something, Say Something” diatribe, FEMA’s Emergency
Alert System that can hijack all conventional boradcast communications, and mandatory government messages that will appear on all
new cellphones from the end of next year. And if that isn’t enough, the Washington Post
today called for the Internet to also be brought under
the auspices of a government takeover switch. Whereas Winston Smith only had to
put up with Big Brother lecturing him via telescreens, Americans will be
peppered with propaganda from every conceivable direction.
American
citizens are not merely “disappearing” without a trial, as happened those who
had comitted thoughtcrime in 1984, they are being directly assassinated via Predator
drone strikes with no oversight and no legal process whatsoever. As the case of
U.S. citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki shows, Americans are now at risk of falling victim to a program of
state-sponsored assassination should they be designated “terrorists”. In
Orwell’s 1984, miscreants were tortured and brainwashed, but they were not
murdered on a whim by government decree before at least being given the
opportunity to recant.
"In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science'. The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty."
Technology
is being used to crush human liberty and eviscerate our privacy. Every
technological advancement, from Facebook to the IPhone, brings with it a further
assault on privacy. The U.S. judicial system is identifying ways to legalize
constant surveillance over every American, most recently with the effort to
give authorities the power to secretly track
Americans through clandestine global positioning systems attached to their vehicles.
Orwell's "bellyfeel" is our cognitive dissonance. This is the process of having blind faith in an explanation or a fact so long as it comes from the establishment - the actual truth of the matter bears no significance. Bellyfeel enables Americans to unquestionably accept everything they are told without the need for critical thinking. On the eve of the invasion of Iraq, 69% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks, despite there being no evidence whatsoever that it was true.
These are just a handful of examples that illustrate how Americans and westerners in general are now living in a society that rivals and in some cases outstrips the world of Winston Smith in 1984. Smith was eventually made to love Big Brother and accept that two plus two equals five if the authorities say it does.
The question is, will Americans ever reclaim their sense of dignity and freedom or - like the Party members in Orwell's Oceania - will they learn to love their servitude?
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They want to watch us, I watch THEM!
and I do not like, the future described in 1984 ....write a future you do like."
At the time I thought she was "wierd"...we are in worse times than described in 1984.
As it happens...I did write a future I do like...and had to create a historical new technology
of fuel/energy management to be able to live it.
Sometimes.....Truth is stranger than fiction.
Robert W Hull...Founding Father of The Hull Effect Technology
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Government is death. There is nothing redeeming, good, worthwhile or honest that is done by stealing other people's wealth with the threat of death if you don't pay their taxes. They are criminals or are paid by criminals, every single one from school teacher to soldier. All part of the problem and not part of the solution.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has enlisted a new partner in its fight against terrorism: Wal-Mart.
"If you see something suspicious in the parking lot or in the store, say something immediately," Napolitano said in the video. "Report suspicious activity to your local police or sheriff. If you need help ask a Wal-Mart manager for assistance."
If You See Something, Say Something" has become a familiar sight for New York subway riders since 2002. The campaign was created by The New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority and funded, in part, by $13 million from a Homeland Security grant program. (wasteful spending)
The Homeland Security Department has subsequently expanded the program to other transit agencies and some private entities, including the Mall of America, the American Hotel & Lodging Association and sports and general aviation industries.
"It may make shoppers feel cared for," Kerkian said. "But others may say, 'Who are you to bring me this message?'"
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Washington Post: Where's an Emergency Alert System for the Internet and the phone?
At 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, television programs and radio shows will be interrupted with a familiar message: "This is a test. This is only a test."
It will be the first time the Federal Emergency Management Agency has attempted to alert the entire nation at once with its Emergency Alert System. While the program hopes to reach as many people as possible as quickly as possible, two means of communication are still missing from the system: the Internet and mobile phones.
