America's disastrous 60-year war (tags)
America's 60-year war, a losing proposition for many, turned out to be a clear winner for a few, In his book,1984, Orwell wrote about permanent war as a way to consume the products of modern capitalism without a higher standard of living for workers..
Constant State of Emergency (tags)
The wars are waged by special forces, while the population is kept quiet in a permanent state of emergency under the slogan "war is peace" by full technical control, including mental and health surveillance. Anyone who questions this kind of peace is threatened with annihilation.
Will Orwell's prediction in `1984' become reality? (tags)
Basic elements of a development such as Orwell describes are emerging from the fog of current war propaganda, as it is being pursued by the West, attempts to drive the population into acceptance of a constant exceptional situation where war appears as the guarantor of peace.
Russia really wants only one thing: to prevent Ukraine from becoming a full NATO country. Against the background of the current overall political situation, the West's behavior points to one thing above all: Its own population is to be kept in suspense by a succession of shocks.
The Perfect Totalitarian Rule: Orwell (tags)
The security state is different than the constitutional state and is marked by the generalization of fear, de-politization and forms without substance. In 1984, Orwell warned of totalitarianism where the past was erased and the Party created a new language.
Three reading samples on George Orwell's "1984" (tags)
George Orwell was a great uncompromising political author who sought to warn of the evil of totalitarianism. Neoliberalism is an ideology that mutates into a quasi-natural law and a totalitarianism leading to exploding inequality.
1100 free movies are ours on www.openculture.com. How can you be hard-nosed with 1100 free movies?
VIDEO: What "Orwellian" Really Means (tags)
The population is inundated with propaganda. Labor camps are called joy camps. With cognitive dissonance, individuals are left completely dependent on the state. Orwell urged us to protect our language in a world where war is slavery and freedom is peace.
George Orwell in the Government (tags)
Writing in 1948 off the coast of Scotland, George Orwell foresaw the time when war would become a domestic necessity to divert the people from economic contradictions. Newspeak is used so lies are called truth and slavery freedom.
Inside the Whale: On the Origin of the Democratic Consensus (tags)
In his 1940 short story "Inside the Whale," George Orwell satirizes the focus in Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. Miller's characters are protected by the fat of the whale and never discuss the challenges and tasks of their historical time. In his poem Is this an apt characterization of our time?
The old gives way to the new as the snow gives way to the spring (Rilke)
AN EYEWITNESS TO THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR (tags)
THIS YEAR MARKS THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BEGINNING OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR.
They Will Never Stop, We Must Stop Them. (tags)
I think it's important to remember that in the novel 1984, Orwell drew a world where, despite the crushing uniform behavior enforced by the ruling elite, even a remaining avenue of escape; language, was being destroyed. The despotism was unrelenting, ever enclosing and absolute in it's reduction of the individual to an insect. This, I believe is the kernel of the warning given to us by Mr. George Orwell.
2004: Year of the Documentary (& Hopefully, Political Reform) (tags)
(mini reviews of "The Corporation" "Control Room" "Orwell Rolls in His Grave" and "Uncovered")
History- 17 Years Later (tags)
A wonderful piece by John Bennett in a time of conglomorate-controlled media.
. In the New York Times (October 14, 2002), Leslie Wayne described how a very old war praxis is revived in the pentagon with the war against terror: the hiring of mercenaries. Today they are called “private military contractors”. Some of these mercenary firms are sub-contractors of corporations from the Fortune 500 list (the 500 largest in assets). “The Pentagon cannot wage war without them… Private military contractors are the new business face of war.” These agencies have their people in Bosnia, Nigeria, Macedonia, Colombia and elsewhere. MPRI, one of the leading military firms, boasts of “more generals per square foot than the Pentagon”. In peace times, they can carry out secret missions with the exclusion of the public. Without any chain of command, they are not accountable to the US Congress, only to their clients, the Pentagon or the State Department.
"There is every reason today to refer the negative utopia of George Orwell to the only remaining superpower - the America of George W. Bush. This is true for that schizophrenic form of mental indoctrination called `double think'.' Translated fr German
Big Brother isn't Coming; He's here. (tags)
And so it was with every recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain." --Excerpted from the book, 1984, by George Orwell
A May 31, 2002 internal memo from the Education Department, "Criterion and Process for Removing Old Content from www.ed.gov," the department's Web site, is strangely akin to what occurs in 1984.
Orwell's words are still fresh. . .
George Orwell Exposed Pacifists' Political Motives (tags)
An exposure of the timeless 'peace activist'.
orwell :: barcelona :: 2001 (tags)
And the Word, is Orwell (tags)
He created Big Brother and defined the Cold War, becoming a century's most prescient political writer. But it's a long time since the wall came down. And his terrifying dictator is now a prime-time voyeur. Yet, writes Timothy Garton Ash, George Orwell is more relevant than ever.