Showing posts with label george orwell updates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label george orwell updates. Show all posts

March 30, 2008

Get 1984 online FREE!!

From the most interesting, provocative Knight Shift blog!!

http://theknightshift.blogspot.com/

Read George Orwell's NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR online for free

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (or 1984 as it's more commonly written), the all-time classic novel about totalitarianism and the destruction of privacy, is now available for free reading on the web... and legally, too!

I read this book during the spring break of my senior year of high school. In many ways, Nineteen Eighty-Four broke the ground for much of the foundation of my personal philosophy and beliefs. And it's probably a safe assumption that to most people who've read the book, mentioning it brings to mind Big Brother, or the Thought Police, or Room 101. Certainly the telescreens of the book can now be seen as greatly prescient, considering how our own government is now fully capable of spying on regular American citizens without a warrant or any real oversight (I'll leave it as an exercise for any readers as to whether this government is actually doing it, but have you ever known of a government given power and then choosing not to use that power?).

But to me, the scariest concept of Nineteen Eighty-Four was always Newspeak and Doublethink. Because each day we see Newspeak all around us. Most people don't even care that it's there at all, they have become so inured to it. In Nineteen Eighty-Four Orwell shared the brilliant observation that without adequate language to share ideas, those ideas and thoughts were rendered utterly impotent... right to the point that over time, it would become impossible for a person to even be capable of the thought at all. Hence, the Party's systematic destruction of language as a measure of controlling the people. Most often this was done by cramming many disparate thoughts beneath the umbrella of generic terminology.

Now think about how many - some would even say "most" - Americans are intellectually incapable of thinking about this country's politics beyond the entrenched two-party system. Very many Americans only think that they are capable of deep meditations about this nation's politics... when in fact their thoughts have already been dictated by language and those who control it: the leadership of the two parties, with the eager assistance of a corporate press.

Don't even get me started on Doublethink. I've had a long day and don't feel like trying to educate some people for whom it would be lost in a cloud of cognitive dissonance.

But I must ask: how is what America is turning into not like the Oceania of Nineteen Eighty-Four?

Read the book, if you haven't already, and judge for yourself.


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March 23, 2008

Electric shock for airplanes, torture for travel from Canadian inventors. NOT impressed.

Air travel security method, system and device

Abstract
A method of providing air travel security for passengers traveling via an aircraft comprises situating a remotely activatable electric shock device on each of the passengers in position to deliver a disabling electrical shock when activated; and arming the electric shock devices for subsequent selective activation by a selectively operable remote control disposed within the aircraft. The remotely activatable electric shock devices each have activation circuitry responsive to the activating signal transmitted from the selectively operable remote control means. The activated electric shock device is operable to deliver the disabling electrical shock to that passenger.

Inventors: Hahne; Per K. (Oakville, ON, CA), Wark; Ray (Halton Hills, ONT, CA)
Appl. No.: 10/225,071
Filed: August 21, 2002

Current U.S. Class: 340/573.4 ; 340/505; 340/539.11; 340/573.1
Current International Class: B64D 45/00 (20060101); G08B 15/00 (20060101); G08B 023/00 ()
Field of Search: 340/505,506,539.1,539.11,573.1,573.4,945 244/118.5 361/179,232 235/375,462

References Cited [Referenced By]

U.S. Patent Documents



3835673 September 1974 Kwan
4943885 July 1990 Willoughby et al.
5159344 October 1992 Robinson et al.
5401944 March 1995 Bravman et al.
5528450 June 1996 Willoughby et al.
5841622 November 1998 McNulty, Jr.
6147602 November 2000 Bender
6246320 June 2001 Monroe
6766039 July 2004 Al-Sheikh

Foreign Patent Documents







10150929
Oct., 2001
DE

Primary Examiner: Trieu; Van T.

Parent Case Text



This application is a provisional of No. 60/381,368, filed on May 20, 2002.
Claims



We claim:

1. A method of providing air travel security for passengers traveling via an aircraft, said method comprising the steps of: (a) prior to the flight, making a determination of passengers to be monitored during the flight; (b) generating a unique flight code for each flight and storing the unique flight code into electronic circuitry of remotely activatable electric shock devices to be worn by the predetermined passengers during the flight wherein the unique flight code is generated in a manner so as to prevent unauthorized use and tampering of the remotely activatable electric shock devices by making it impossible for a predetermined passenger to predict or determine the unique flight code for the flight; (c) situating a remotely activatable electric shock device on predetermined passengers to be worn during the flight such that, for each predetermined passenger, the situated electric shock device is in position to deliver a disabling electrical shock to that passenger and reading the unique flight code stored in the electronic circuitry of the remotely activatable electric shock device worn by each predetermined passenger and verifying the unique flight code relative to the flight; (d) arming said electric shock devices for subsequent selective activation of said electric shock devices by a selectively operable remote control means, wherein each activated electric shock device situated on a predetermined passenger is operable to deliver said disabling electrical shock to that passenger; and (e) subsequent to the flight, removing said electric shock devices from said predetermined passengers.

18. An air travel security system for providing air travel security for passengers traveling via an aircraft, said air travel security system comprising: a plurality of remotely activatable electric shock devices each having an armed state wherein said electric shock device produces, upon activation, a disabling electric shock; said remotely activatable electric shock devices being adapted to be situated, one on each of predetermined passengers during a flight on the aircraft such that, for each predetermined passenger, a situated electric shock device is in position to deliver a disabling electrical shock to that predetermined passenger; a selectively operable remote control means adapted to be disposed within the aircraft during the flight for producing and transmitting an activating signal for activating said electric shock devices; each of said remotely activatable electric shock devices having activation circuitry responsive to said activating signal which causes, upon receipt of said activating signal, said remotely activatable electric shock devices to produce a disabling electric shock; means for coding flight specific information into said remotely activatable electric shock devices wherein said means for coding includes means for generating a unique flight code for each flight and storing the unique flight code into electronic circuitry of the remotely activatable electric shock devices wherein the unique flight code is generated in a manner so as to prevent unauthorized use and tampering of the remotely activatable electric shock devices by making it impossible for a predetermined passenger to predict or determine the unique flight code for the flight; and means for reading the unique flight code stored in the electronic circuitry of the remotely activatable electric shock device worn on each predetermined passenger and verifying the unique flight code relative to the flight.

27. The air travel security system of claim 18, wherein each of said remotely activatable electric shock devices comprises a main body in a form of a bracelet.

28. The air travel security system of claim 18, wherein each of said remotely activatable electric shock devices comprise a main body and a strap means secured to said main body.

39. The remotely activatable electric shock device of claim 38, wherein said bracelet is movable between a closed in-use configuration and an opened situating configuration.

40. The remotely activatable electric shock device of claim 39, wherein said remotely activatable electric shock device comprises alarm circuitry, which alarm circuitry produces an alarm if said bracelet is removed from its closed in-use configuration, when said electric shock device is in an armed condition.

Snip all the way past number 59 of this Orwellian folly down to:


BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Recently, specifically since Sep. 11, 2001, security at major airports throughout the world has become a very serious concern. Security measures at such major airports have been increased very significantly, in many ways. Passengers are now checked much more thoroughly for identification and for weapons. There are also many more security personnel at major airports and also many more air marshals present on commercial flights. In spite of all the presently used tight security precautions, there is still no effective way to subdue a terrorist, a hijacker, or an unruly passenger. Even new "high-tech" biometric systems (e.g. iris scans, thumb prints, voice identification) might all fail in preventing a hijacker or terrorist from gaining entry to an aircraft.

and on and on and on . .. surely one of the weird documents I have EVER read.




More can be discovered looking up the patent .. I see no reason to post it in its entirely. What could be done just working on the seats of the plane instead (if that was what had to be done?) Why destatus everyone with torture implements?

It's PATENTLY absurd!

But if you need a dose of ORWELLIAN BAFFLE GAB This is a fascinating read for everyone!!

On a CDROM or a DVD I'll include it in its entirety ..

Too much!!

Really TOO much!!


March 22, 2008

Police State Conclusion


The Tripods novels described a dystopia of high-tech feudalism. More>>
Headache? Maybe it's that new electronic circuit printed on your skull....
More>>

Conclusion
First published January 2004
Last updated March 2005

Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible
- Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society

THE FUTURE

Aired in 1984-5, the BBC serialization of John Christopher's novels, The Tripods, was one of the longest adaptations on British television. In this sci-fi drama, The City of The Masters was home to an unseen elite who occasionally ventured out into the countryside in giant three-legged machines to lord it over the technologically impoverished populace. Children would be taken up into the Tripods to undergo 'capping', the surgical attachment of an electrical circuit to their skulls.

Unlikely as it is that we will open the curtains one morning to find a 30 metre tall metal leg in front of the window, the Tripods contains the essential theme of our current predicament: The dawn of a new dark age of global technocratic feudalism.

Most human beings are targeted for extermination and the remainder will be indentured on the global plantation. The 'sort of character' that the authorities consider desirable is the diseased, impoverished, infertile, sexless, dumbed down automaton, whose function in life is merely to enact the Masters' business plan. Some of the character-altering weaponry already at their disposal includes: Media brainwashing; water fluoridation; vaccination; gender altering foods and chemicals; neurotoxic food additives; and psychotropic drugs. Life expectancy is being gradually reduced by the modern day concentration camp which masquerades as the public healthcare system. On the horizon are: Implantable microchips; vaccines to alter brain chemistry; genetically modified pharmacological food; human cloning; and nanotechnology

Under pending U.K. legislation, the process of generational transformation will be monitored on a special children's database. Family life will be replaced by a gigantic welfare apparatus and state controlled childcare.

Privacy will become an alien concept. Citizens will be permanently logged on to the Big Brother surveillance grid, through their implanted microchip, the face scanning CCTV in the street, the RFID tracking chips in every supermarket product, and the biometric identification that accompanies every transaction. Government will have instant access to all public and private sector databases.
Don't think of getting in your car and heading for hills. Under current proposals, Big Brother will be able to track cars by satellite and disable them by remote control. Think you can escape to another country? Sorry, under world government, there is no 'other country'. The Tripods series ended with the heroes fleeing across the Alps with their giant three-legged oppressors in hot pursuit. If you want to escape, think about becoming an astronaut.

How about joining the rebel forces? Well, this may land you in some serious hot water. Literally in hot water, because already, the U.S. Government is shipping out 'terrorists' to foreign countries to be tortured. With distinction between ordinary crime and terrorism swept aside, rebels can expect the harshest treatment. Orwell observed that,' reprisals against prisoners which extend even to boiling and burying alive, are looked upon as normal, and, when they are committed by one's own side and not by the enemy, meritorious.'

What about voting the regime out? Votes cast on electronic voting machines will disappear straight down the memory hole.



A DIFFERENT COURSE

How did we get into this mess? Observing that the gap between rich and poor was getting wider, the BBC's Jeremy Paxman wondered whether someone could become too rich. The capitalist system is destined to create a financial elite as the big fish get bigger and bigger. The financial barons provide the money and organization for all the utopian dreamers who believe in a command and control society. But the Devil's greatest trick is to persuade man that he does not exist. The ablility of the hidden hand to manipulate policy depends upon concealment. It has been assisted by the widespread apathy towards public affairs, generated largely by the relative tranquillity of life in the West over the last sixty years.

However, through the internet, it is becoming much easier to demonstrate and communicate both the existence of the cartel and the cumulative toxicity of its various activities. Support for the party line will dwindle as soon as its real purpose and its beneficiaries are exposed.


The State Road Map

George Orwell
1903-1950
1984: Only 20 years after the year in which Orwell set his vision of the future, we are now entering a worse nightmare
Read it on-line

The Police State Road Map

First published January 2004.
Last updated March 2005.



Contents



Part 1

Three Hundred Trillion Dollars and Counting



1.1 The Money Magicians
1.2 The Banking Cartel


2.1 The Military-Industrial Complex
2.2 Five Monopolies
2.3 Who Owns the Stock?
2.4 Who Owns the Media?


3.1 International Relations Policy Groups
3.2 Tax Exempt Foundations and Charity Funding
3.3 The IMF and World Bank
3.4 Control over Western Governments


4.1 The Heart of the Issue: Power and Property Rights
4.2 Lessons From History


5.1 Empowering Third World Governments
5.2 The Sell Off


6.1 Public Private Partnership
6.2 The Policy Comes from the Top


Part 2

The Art of Killing Quietly



7.1 The Function of Poverty
7.2 Monetary and Fiscal Policy
7.3 Free Trade Agreements
7.4 Open Borders
7.5 The Environmental Movement
7.6 War as a Means of Planned Waste
7.7 Criminalizing Society
7.8 Disease


8.1 The Future of Democracy
8.2 Banning Opposition to World Government
8.3 Creating Regional Governments
8.4 World Government or World War Three


9.1 CIA/MI6/Mossad/ISI: The Global Terrorist Network
9.2 Proliferating Weapons of Mass Destruction


10.1 Martial Law Legislation
10.2 Foreign Troops
10.3 Gun Confiscation


11.1 Integration
11.2 UK Mental Health Laws
11.3 Abolition of Juries and Arbitrary Detention
11.4 Expanding the Definition of 'Terrorism'
11.5 Surveillance Legislation
11.6 The Ruling Class Above the Law


12.1 ID Cards and Biometric Identification
12.2 Computer Databases
12.3 DNA Databases
12.4 Implantable Microchips
12.5 Radio Frequency Identification
12.6 Car and Mobile Phone Tracking
12.7 Surveillance Cameras
12.8 Black Budget Funding


13.1 Elitism and the New Age Religion
13.2 Caught in the Act at Bohemian Grove
13.3 Targeting the Young
13.4 Banning Monotheism
13.5 Enforcing Love of Big Brother
13.6 Sexual Abuse


14.1 Funding Population Control
14.2 Aims and Methods
14.3 Environmentalism
14.4 Public Health Policy and Western Medicine
14.5 Cancer
14.6 Vaccination
14.7 Mind Control Technology
14.8 Junk Food
14.9 Fluoride
14.10 Germ Warfare
14.11 Depleted Uranium
14.12 Forced Abortion and Sterilization
14.13 GM Food
14.14 Weather Modification
14.15 Nanotechnology
14.16 Eugenics

March 16, 2008

Torturegate AND - Sex HAS diverted our attention this week

There were more important things than the Spitzer spectacle going on last week

By ERIC MARGOLIS

There are few more riveting spectacles than the public exposure and humiliation of a major hypocrite. So it was with New York State's fallen governor, Eliot Spitzer.

As a former prosecutor Spitzer relentlessly crusaded against financial, political and moral malefactors, including those involved in prostitution cases. Some saw him as a future presidential candidate.

Watching this modern Savonarola exposed dallying with outrageously priced call girls suggests there is indeed natural justice -- except, of course, for the humiliation inflicted on his brave, loyal wife.

U.S. media has overflowed with silly commentary by feminists and shrinks about "why did he do it." He did it because he was a typical man, genetically programmed to lust after multiple sexual partners. As the old saying goes, if a man isn't thinking about sex, his mind is wandering.

Too many Americans still have adolescent views of sex and marriage.

Europeans, by contrast, shrug off men's need to stray as normal and acceptable, provided it is done discreetly. Powerful, busy men such as Spitzer who have no time to court and romance women resort to prostitutes for simple physical release.

However ruthless, self-serving and hypocritical Spitzer was about prostitution, he was doing one good thing: Going after Wall Street's crooks and fraudsters largely responsible for the current financial crisis.

Spitzer's downfall this week unfortunately obscured two far more important events.

SADDAM AND AL-QAIDA

First, the White House refused to release an exhaustive Pentagon review of 600,000 Iraqi documents that found no evidence that Saddam Hussein had any links with al-Qaida.

This al-Qaida connection was the second big lie propagated by the Bush White House to justify invading Iraq. So successfully was it spread by the administration and tame media, that on the eve of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, 80% of Americans blamed Saddam for 9/11.

A small, al-Qaida affiliate appeared in Iraq only as a result of the U.S. invasion. But most misled Americans still believe they are fighting Osama bin Laden's men in Iraq. No wonder the White House is trying to suppress the Pentagon study.

Spitzer's pillorying also masked another profoundly shameful act. On Tuesday, 188 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to uphold President George Bush's veto of a Democratic-sponsored bill to ban the CIA from using torture to interrogate enemy detainees. Their party-line vote was strong enough to prevent the 225 Democrats who voted to overturn the president's veto from achieving the required two-thirds majority.

Republicans now have become the party of torture. Never has the Grand Old Party sunk so low. Those great Republicans, Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan, must be weeping in their graves.

Among tortures America now routinely inflicts on captives: Water torture, near suffocation, beatings, confinement in cramped positions, sleep and sensory deprivation, freezing rooms, ear-splitting noise, mock executions, psychotropic drugs, food laced with excrement and, of course, water-boarding.

CONDONING TORTURE

The White House and Republicans claim none of these is really torture. Republicans just love euphemisms. These tortures are merely "enhanced interrogation." Overthrowing foreign governments is "regime change;" assassination, "taking them out." George Orwell warned such double-talk was the hallmark of totalitarian regimes. Even the KGB did not use all these tortures.

The president and his party are violating American and international law, and UN agreements against torture.

Their sanction of torture, and its apotheosis in the Guantanamo gulag, have disgraced America's name around the globe and will continue to haunt the United States for decades to come. Captured American soldiers now know what to expect.

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain -- the latter a torture victim -- all properly condemn the White House for promoting torture. But McCain, who should know better, fudges, saying he won't restrict the CIA to interrogations in the Army Field Manual, which bans most forms of real torture. That is ominous.

The Spitzer follies should not distract us from the Bush administration's continuing violations of American and international law, and the values America used to hold dear. Nor ally Ottawa's slide in the same illegal direction.


Posted by CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS mparent7777 Marc Parent CCNWON at 2:46 PM
Labels: Bush, governor, New York, Orwellian, President 2008, scandal, totalitarianism

January 23, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts: How Did Western Civilization Get A Monopoly On "Moral Conscience" When It Has No Morality?

How Did Western Civilization Get A Monopoly On "Moral Conscience" When It Has No Morality?

By Paul Craig Roberts

"The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction."

Five Western military leaders.

I read the statement three times trying to figure out the typo. Then it hit me, the West has now out-Orwelled Orwell: The West must nuke other countries in order to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction! In Westernspeak, the West nuking other countries does not qualify as the use of weapons of mass destruction.

The astounding statement comes from a paper prepared for a Nato summit in April by five top military leaders--an American, a German, a Dutchman, a Frenchman, and a Brit. It can be found here: [Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option, Nato told, By Ian Traynor, The Guardian, January 22, 2008 ]

The paper, prepared by men regarded as distinguished leaders and not as escapees from insane asylums, argues that "the West’s values and way of life are under threat, but the West is struggling to summon the will to defend them." The leaders find that the UN is in the way of the West’s will, as is the European Union which is obstructing NATO and "NATO’s credibility is at stake in Afghanistan."

And that’s a serious matter. If NATO loses its credibility in Afghanistan, Western civilization will collapse just like the Soviet Union. The West just doesn’t realize how weak it is. To strengthen itself, it needs to drop more and larger bombs.

The German military leader blames the Merkel government for contributing to the West’s inability to defend its values by standing in the way of a revival of German militarism. How can Germany be "a reliable partner" for America, he asks, if the German government insists on "special rules" limiting the combat use of its forces in Afghanistan?

Ron Asmus, head of the German Marshall Fund and a former US State Department official, welcomed the paper as "a wake-up call." Asmus means a call to wake-up to the threats from the brutal world, not to the lunacy of Western leaders.

Who, what is threatening the West’s values and way of life? Political fanaticism, religious fundamentalism, and the imminent spread of nuclear weapons, answer the five asylum escapees.

By political fanaticism, do they mean the neoconservatives who believe that the future of humanity depends on the US establishing its hegemony over the world? By religious fundamentalism, do they mean "rapture evangelicals" agitating for Armageddon or Christian and Israeli Zionists demanding a nuclear attack on Iran? By spread of nuclear weapons, do they mean Israel’s undeclared and illegal possession of several hundred nuclear weapons?

No. The paranoid military leaders see all the fanaticism, religious and otherwise, and all the threats to humanity as residing outside Western civilization (Israel is inside). The "increasingly brutal world," of which the leaders warn, is "over there." Only Muslims are fanatics. All us white guys are rational and sane.

There is nothing brutal about the US/Nato bombing of Serbia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, or the Israeli bombing of Lebanon, or the Israeli ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, or the genocide Israel hopes to commit against Palestinians in Gaza.

All of this, as well as America’s bombing of Somalia, America’s torture dungeons, show trials of "detainees," and overthrow of elected governments and installation of puppet rulers, is the West’s necessary response to keep the brutal world at bay.

Brutal things happen in the "brutal world" and are entirely the fault of those in the brutal world. None of this would happen if the inhabitants of the brutal world would just do as they are told. How can the civilized world with its monopoly on morality allow people in the brutal world to behave independently? I mean, really! God forbid, they might attack some innocent country.

The "brutal world" consists of those immoral fanatics who object to being marginalized by the West and who reply to mass bombings from the air and to the death and destruction inflicted on them through myriad ways by strapping on a suicide bomb.

Unable to impose its will on countries it has invaded with conventional arms, the West’s military leaders are now prepared to force compliance with the moral world’s will by threatening to nuke those who resist. You see, since the West has the monopoly on morality, truth, and justice, those in the outside world are obviously evil, wicked and brutal. Therefore, as President Bush tells us, it is a simple choice between good and evil, and there’s no better candidate than evil for being nuked. The sooner we can get rid of the brutal world, the sooner we will have "freedom and democracy" everywhere that’s left.

Meanwhile, the United States, the great moral light unto the world, has just prevented the United Nations from censuring Israel, the world’s other great moral light, for cutting off food supplies, medical supplies, and electric power to Gaza. You see, Gaza is in the outside world and is a home of the bad guys. Moreover, the wicked Palestinians there tricked the US when the US allowed them to hold a free election. Instead of electing the US candidate, the wicked voters elected a government that would represent them. The US and Israel overturned the Palestinian election in the West Bank, but those in Gaza clung to the government that they had elected. Now they are going to suffer and die until they elect the government that the US and Israel wants. I mean, how can we expect people in the brutal world to know what’s best for them?

The fact that the UN tried to stop Israel’s just punishment of the Gazans shows how right the five leaders’ report is about the UN being a threat to Western values and way of life. The UN is really against us. This puts the UN in the outside world and makes it a candidate for being nuked if not an outright terrorist organization. As our president said, "you are with us or against us."

The US and Israel need a puppet government in Palestine so that a ghettoized remnant of Palestine can be turned into a "two state solution." The two states will be Israel incorporating the stolen West Bank and a Palestinian ghetto without an economy, water, or contiguous borders.

This is necessary in order to protect Israel from the brutal outside world.

Inhabitants of the brutal world are confused about the "self-determination" advocated by Western leaders. It doesn’t mean that those outside Western civilization and Israel should decide for themselves. "Self" means American. The term, so familiar to us, means "American-determination." The US determines and others obey.

It is the brutal world that causes all the trouble by not obeying.

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

May 17, 2007

From firedoglakeblog this morning:

Who said:

8. I don't know. I think what happened is, again, as you're taking a reveiw,
it became clear to us that this - as you develop - as you move into a new
phase of the war - keep in mind, we are still in the process of
deploying people in this new way forward, as the President called it,
and therefore, it seems proper at a time like this also to task
somebody with the job of keeping an eye n all the different players
who are involved in it.

Quote by Tony Show, trying not to answer the question:
"why did it take so long to find a war czar?"

Comment by totally loved me ... in firedoglake blog comments section.


* * *

It is indeed morning in America, isn’t it?

drive-by; my Thursday $.02.

What’s interesting to me is that 7 of the 8 statements are fairly
straightforward.

Tony Snow, however, needs a refresher from George Orwell:

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of
the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India,
the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on
Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too
brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed
aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist
largely of euphemism., question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.
Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out
into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire
with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of
peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no
more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or
rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial,
or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in
Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable
elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without
calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable
English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say
outright, “I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good
results by doing so.”
The whole essay - Politics and the English Language - speaks to the
modern GOP, and to Doctor Frank Luntz, who was so memorably awful on
Real Time last week. Orwell had them nailed 61 years ago.


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