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Old 09-28-2011, 09:29 AM   #1
JohnnyD
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"1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual"

From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
— George Orwell; 1984


I'm sure someone else has recognized the similarities but I haven't personally read similar observations anywhere.

It seems every day our government (and society as a whole) takes micro-steps that lead towards the big brother theme of 1984. Even the reporting of our troops' "victories" overseas are startlingly similar to those of Oceania's victories over Eurasia and Eastasia.

Our government preaches "vigilance" and "report any suspicious activities". The results of which have turned into innocent Americans being investigated or detained for extended periods of time.

Earlier this month on 9/11, there were numerous cases of Homeland Security taking "suspicious parties" off of planes and detaining them for hours and sometimes days - revoking their right to life, liberty and justice - because someone else reported to the authorities that they looked suspicious. Yet, not a single one of those situations resulted in detaining an actual person of interest.

The cliche example is the Patriot Act. Broad, unwarranted surveillance of any American for any reason. Just this morning I read an article about a photographer/stormchaser that was on a bridge taking pictures of Irene and someone reported his activity. Homeland security called his family and friends and had been investigating him for an undetermined length of time. I'd bet his phones were tapped, email/internet was monitored and total privacy was invaded - all because he was taking pictures of a hurricane.


I started this post with no real "point" but hopefully to foster some non-partisan discussion. These situations supersede political parties and bold examples of similarities to 1984 can be made during both Bush and Obama's presidencies.

Anyone have any thoughts?
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Old 09-28-2011, 09:33 AM   #2
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I decline to post a comment here as I fear big brother is listening!
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device
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Old 09-28-2011, 09:53 AM   #3
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I decline to post a comment here as I fear big brother is listening!
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device
and watching....................

"I know a taxidermy man back home. He gonna have a heart attack when he see what I brung him!"
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Old 09-28-2011, 09:54 AM   #4
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Does anyone, who is afraid of the vision of 1984 - "Big Brother is Watching"....Have a MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter Acount.....makes it pretty easy

"If you're arguing with an idiot, make sure he isn't doing the same thing."
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Old 09-28-2011, 09:58 AM   #5
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Does anyone, who is afraid of the vision of 1984 - "Big Brother is Watching"....Have a MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter Acount.....makes it pretty easy
There's a difference between the voluntary dissemination of personal information and a complete invasion of privacy through illegal search and surveillance techniques.

I have a Facebook and Twitter account. However, I filter the information made available on there based to broad info that is pretty readily available through other means. On the other hand, I do not post to Facebook about my personal browsing habits, purchases on Amazon, the restaurants I eat at, every location I go to and the people I associate with on a daily basis.
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Old 09-28-2011, 10:17 AM   #6
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Funny - 1984 (the year) I was living overseas where we had to be vigilant , aware, and prepared in case some yahoo terrorist, communist, (Bader Meinhof/RAF/ Dem Greeks) or terrorist, islamic militant (Libya anyone), or dictator (Libya two strikes) because people were blowing things up.

So while it is easy to scream Big Brother, there is also a bit of prudence that rational people should take to be aware and prepared.

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Old 09-28-2011, 11:03 AM   #7
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Old 09-28-2011, 12:55 PM   #8
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Throw in credit card records, EZ Pass, and now Govt. wanting everyones
health records your pretty much covered.

" Choose Life "
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Old 09-28-2011, 01:02 PM   #9
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do you think an organization (our govt) that cant pass any legislation, cant balance a budget and cant agree on anything can possibly be that sophisticated?
Take a look at the TSA, that would be the calibre of "enforcers" for Big Brother....I'm not worried.

But....big business is another story - Facebook, Google - they're not racking in billions because they have nice websites. They are making $$$$ off the info they have on YOU. Thats scary and will be more so.
Want an example? Last week, while in a parking lot, I found a womans drivers license from my town. I googled her to get her number to return it.
In seconds, I not only got her phone #, I knew her kids were honor role students, what business her husband was in and that she ran in the Boston Marathon. Imagine if my intent was to do harm? I could use that info for a variety of purposes. That is SCARY.

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Old 09-28-2011, 01:09 PM   #10
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There's a difference between the voluntary dissemination of personal information and a complete invasion of privacy through illegal search and surveillance techniques.
Oh, I know there's a difference....I just get a kick out of the fact that people used to freak out about Big Brother watching when home computers were in there infancy.....and now everyone volunteers everything you ever wanted to know about them to the entire world w/ out a second thought.

"If you're arguing with an idiot, make sure he isn't doing the same thing."
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Old 09-28-2011, 01:20 PM   #11
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Oh, I know there's a difference....I just get a kick out of the fact that people used to freak out about Big Brother watching when home computers were in there infancy.....and now everyone volunteers everything you ever wanted to know about them to the entire world w/ out a second thought.


We had a Co-Op student one time in the Arkitext depahtment that used to disconnect the network cable AND POWER cable every night before leaving work because he felt the NSA and other guvmint entities were monitoring his computer at night when no one was looking. And that they were so good they could infiltrate the computer over the power cord.

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Old 09-28-2011, 01:37 PM   #12
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I remember the looks when we started to use VNC in the Office....

"If you're arguing with an idiot, make sure he isn't doing the same thing."
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Old 09-28-2011, 01:58 PM   #13
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do you think an organization (our govt) that cant pass any legislation, cant balance a budget and cant agree on anything can possibly be that sophisticated?
Take a look at the TSA, that would be the calibre of "enforcers" for Big Brother....I'm not worried.
I don't believe that the ineptitude and impotence of our legislative branch indicates similar traits within the intelligence community.

As an explicit and recent example of the game changing abilities of our intelligence branch, look up the precision-targeted damage the Stuxnet worm caused on the Iranian nuclear program.

I'm a firm believer that the NSA has current technological capabilities won't even be known to be possible for decades.
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Old 09-28-2011, 04:10 PM   #14
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I remember the looks when we started to use VNC in the Office....



Yep - wiggle the mouse on them just a little, wait until they turned their head, then minimize the Word doc. Though I would only do that to people I was friendly with and could bust stones. Too easy to abuse the powahh.

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Old 09-28-2011, 06:44 PM   #15
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You never really worry until a judge rules that even after being cleared you can still be retained on a "no-fly" list...happened just today...overstepping boundaries? That's anyone's guess...I shan't say more...
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Old 09-30-2011, 06:29 PM   #16
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Originally Posted by JohnnyD View Post
From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
— George Orwell; 1984


I'm sure someone else has recognized the similarities but I haven't personally read similar observations anywhere.

It seems every day our government (and society as a whole) takes micro-steps that lead towards the big brother theme of 1984. Even the reporting of our troops' "victories" overseas are startlingly similar to those of Oceania's victories over Eurasia and Eastasia.

Our government preaches "vigilance" and "report any suspicious activities". The results of which have turned into innocent Americans being investigated or detained for extended periods of time.

Earlier this month on 9/11, there were numerous cases of Homeland Security taking "suspicious parties" off of planes and detaining them for hours and sometimes days - revoking their right to life, liberty and justice - because someone else reported to the authorities that they looked suspicious. Yet, not a single one of those situations resulted in detaining an actual person of interest.

The cliche example is the Patriot Act. Broad, unwarranted surveillance of any American for any reason. Just this morning I read an article about a photographer/stormchaser that was on a bridge taking pictures of Irene and someone reported his activity. Homeland security called his family and friends and had been investigating him for an undetermined length of time. I'd bet his phones were tapped, email/internet was monitored and total privacy was invaded - all because he was taking pictures of a hurricane.


I started this post with no real "point" but hopefully to foster some non-partisan discussion. These situations supersede political parties and bold examples of similarities to 1984 can be made during both Bush and Obama's presidencies.

Anyone have any thoughts?
Sure. Orwell and Aldous Huxley were prophets of sorts, and you're seeing the arrival of some of their predictions here and in all the "developed" countries. Orwell's vision of control by propaganda, force, and fear has always been a means of controlling a populace. We are recirculating it in our society. But it seems less oppressive because we are combining a soft despotism with Huxley's vision of control by technology and seduction. Orwell's propaganda persuades us, and Huxley's technology conditions us to love it. We have evolved from a culture of "rugged individualism" to one of normative behaviorism.
Trinkets of pleasure fed to us by mass production and mass media and mass business intertwined with mass government satisfy us and medical advances, especially drugs, sustain us. But, Orwell and Huxley took their vision to the extreme. We might be, as Spence might say, "vectoring" in that direction, but, I think human nature is stronger than fiction, and it will prevail with minor or major revolutions.

We did have a revolution that gave us a Constitution which, if followed, would make the Orwellian vision impossible. On the other hand, if we keep slipping into the Huxley dependence on the elite to pleasure us with trinkets and give us drugs to blunt the pain of existence . . .

Last edited by detbuch; 10-01-2011 at 11:24 AM..
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Old 09-30-2011, 08:45 PM   #17
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Just another b.s. book off the 11th grade reading list. Mr. Orwell should have tried writing something when he was not tripping.
Big Brother does not have enough people fluent in Arabic and Farsi to catch the really scary mofos.
Us? Let's not flatter ourselves. We're so far down the food chain we count for nothing. All they're trying to get from us is an advertising database that appeals to our purchase history.

I just read a biography of Huxley. He was a 'faddist.' He tended to gravitate to whatever new idea was floating around at the time as the end-all-be-all answer to the mysteries of the universe. The whole Bloomsbury crowd spent an inordinate amount of time cheating on their respective wives and husbands and then writing thinly veiled compositions about themselves to further their egos.

Last edited by Joe; 10-01-2011 at 06:51 AM.. Reason: missing preposition

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Old 10-21-2011, 10:18 AM   #18
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Just another example:
Tennessee Becomes First State To Fight Terrorism Statewide - NewsChannel5.com | Nashville News, Weather & Sports
Quote:
It's all meant to urge every driver to call authorities if they see something suspicious.

"Tuesday Tennessee was first to deploy VIPR simultaneously at five weigh stations and two bus stations across the state.

Agents are recruiting truck drivers, like Rudy Gonzales, into the First Observer Highway Security Program to say something if they see something.

...

Somebody sees something somewhere and we want them to be responsible citizens, report that and let us work it through our processes to abate the concern that they had when they saw something suspicious," said Paul Armes, TSA Federal Security Director for Nashville International Airport.
They are injecting a worrisome state of paranoia.
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Old 10-24-2011, 04:35 PM   #19
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Yeah, that can be seen as Orwellian constant surveillance--Big Brother is watching, and the necessary fear needed to control the people can also be seen in the perpetual wars in which we engage as well as the constant defining of problems as crises.

We can also see similarities of the erasure of the past in 1984 necessary to brainwash the people, to subtle present ways such as the changing of the meaning of words even to the point where they mean the opposite of what they used to mean (Orwells 1984 slogans "war is peace," "ignorance is strength," etc.) such as the shifting meanings of "liberal" and "conservative", legislation that uses words or phrases like "for the children" which often restrict freedoms of children and parents. And, most dangerously, interpreting words in the Constitution such as "commerce" to mean anything that affects commerce (which is just about everything) and also to mean even activities that are not actually commerce, and "between the States" to mean within a State or within a community or between two people in their home, or to one person acting for his own benefit. Or to interpret the Constitution totally differently than it was written or intended. Further erasure of the past, more subtle and hidden, is the altering and changing of curricula in K-12 to minimize or ignore past history and magnify the present in ways that devalue the mores, politics, and philosophical and religious beliefs of the past and give credence to modern "progressive" views. The temple of these views from whence they flow to the rest of society is our university system, which teaches our present day elite that we are shackled to an outmoded past by strictly constitutional governance and we would be better suited to rule by centralized administrative "experts." Though this is all somewhat Orwellian, it is not strictly so. It is not the hard despotism of 1984, and the populace does have rights and can still vote.

What we may have more to fear is the soft despotism prophecied by Tocqueville. He believed that democracy could drift into despotism, a "soft" despotism, in which "an immense protective power" would be responsible for all of society's well-being as long as that society allowed it to be the "sole agent and judge of it." This despotism would be as a parental authority that kept its people "in perpetual childhood" that left its children"free from all the touble of thinking and all the cares of living." Democracy's descent to despotism would be "soft" as opposed to the harsh despotism of dictatorial forms, because it would be allowed by consent of the people who vote for politicians who promise to give them an easy comfortable life--to trade the hard life of liberty and personal responsibility for the soft life of cradle to grave government care. Tocqueville saw the threat to liberty and civic virtue in the elimination of "intermediate bodies" (local governance). Without local self-governance democracy would be transformed by expert, well-meaning, administrators appointed by the elected rulers into a "soft," benevolent, despotism where a central government would regulate all details of an individuals life--for his good.

In 1984, Orwell had his various ministries such as those of "truth," "plenty" and "peace" which were methods of brainwashing the people into acquiesence and to loving Big Brother.

Tocqueville says "After having thus successfully taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends his arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." Though he feared centralization of government, he understood that there is a need for some basic centralizing of power. He saw democracy as divided between legislative and administrative centralization. The legislative type was more cumbersome and most difficult to centralize the distribution of power. The administrative type most easily gathers that power by circumventing the legislative process. Administrative centralization of power was, to Tocqueville, the most dangerous to individual liberty.

In the Declaration of Indepence there were 18 charges against the King including "He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." And "for taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:"

We now have hundreds of government administrative boards, departments, commissions, corporations, committees, and independent agencies many of which unconstitutionally bypass separation of powers by posessing legislative, executive, and judicial power, and are administered by unelected "experts" in their fields which includes most of the functions of our lives. Their intent is to ease the process by which those functions are performed--to make our lives better, easier, to help in dispensing government largesse to its people. We have a growing percentage of our population that has been convinced this shifting of personal responsibility to government functionaries is good.

Or has there, through our progressive education, media propaganda, and political maneuvering, been an Orwellian brainwashing? Do we have the growth of a soft despotism? Are these administrative agencies "swarms" of officers "sent hither", for our good, "to harass our people and eat out their substance"? And are we now about to alter "fundamentally the forms of our governments" so the soft despotism will be complete?

Last edited by detbuch; 10-25-2011 at 09:57 AM.. Reason: typos and additions
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Old 10-24-2011, 05:12 PM   #20
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i think
a billion online Chinese are more of a threat
than big brother snoopin...
protect your identity at all costs
i NEVER EVER use my "REAL" identity
that way it cannot be stolen
it was already ONCE (SS number)
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