Oceania is in a perpetual state of war. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia...except when its the other way around! Whichever enemy is named is the enemy for all-time...except when it's not. Simple, isn't it?
It's nice always to have an enemy to direct your citizens to hate. If you can keep the people focused on the soup du jour, then they'll stay out of the kitchen! They will never know that you're using roadkill as your base ingredient.
When I was a young lad the "communists" were the sworn enemy of the United States. The commies were the reason we had to stockpile nuclear weapons and all sorts of chemical and biological agents. The reds were the reason we had to have military installations all over the globe and why we had to send the CIA to Central and South America to overthrow democratically-elected governments.
The big Red Menace was so evil and diabolical (their people were ugly too!) that we couldn't let down our guard for even a nanosecond lest they sweep over the world and ultimately defeat us. We had to protect ourselves and the world from them.
But then an odd thing happened. The USSR fell apart. The enemy we had spent the better part of 4 decades hating with a blind passion dematerialized before our eyes. There was still China, but, at that time, their army and military might was no match for ours and we knew it.
The powers that be went into panic mode. They had been able to divert the public's attention away from the shenanigans they had been up to behind the proverbial curtain for so long; with no sworn enemy for the people to focus on -- egads -- the public might begin to figure out that the corporatists were stealing the country blind.
And so, they needed to create a new Public Enemy #1 and they needed to do it damn fast. What they came up with were the Muslims. The Muslims, they told us, are bloodthirsty terrorists. They hate our freedoms so much that they want to destroy the US of A.
To insure that the public would embrace the Muslims as our new sworn enemy, the government set out to provoke as many Arab nations as possible. They employed every trick in the book and, in time, they began to provoke violent responses. A few disaffected Muslims committed some violent acts and so the deal was sealed. Muslim terrorists slid seamlessly into the place that had been occupied by the dirty commie Russians.
Our new sworn enemy has provided our corporatist state with the political cover to attack a wide variety of Muslim nations. If they possess a natural resource we're interested in (oil) or we simply don't like their ruler (Libya), our government can go blow up their country to smithereens and the majority of the public will give them a big thumbs up because they are killing and maiming the people we've been conditioned to hate.
Just like Oceania, our leaders always will have enemies for us proles to despise. Once we've dispatched with the Muslims, a new group of vile miscreants will be ushered in to take their place. Who knows! Maybe the Red Menace will return in the form of China.
This series of posts based on George Orwell's novel, 1984, will be rather avant-garde. My focus will not be to explain Orwell's premises or what HE meant -- it is more about what his prose stirs in me, often in relation to the way I view the world today. Some of my observations may fall in line with Orwell's intent, but others will go off in a wholly different direction. To read my intro to this series, go here.
It's nice always to have an enemy to direct your citizens to hate. If you can keep the people focused on the soup du jour, then they'll stay out of the kitchen! They will never know that you're using roadkill as your base ingredient.
When I was a young lad the "communists" were the sworn enemy of the United States. The commies were the reason we had to stockpile nuclear weapons and all sorts of chemical and biological agents. The reds were the reason we had to have military installations all over the globe and why we had to send the CIA to Central and South America to overthrow democratically-elected governments.
The big Red Menace was so evil and diabolical (their people were ugly too!) that we couldn't let down our guard for even a nanosecond lest they sweep over the world and ultimately defeat us. We had to protect ourselves and the world from them.
But then an odd thing happened. The USSR fell apart. The enemy we had spent the better part of 4 decades hating with a blind passion dematerialized before our eyes. There was still China, but, at that time, their army and military might was no match for ours and we knew it.
The powers that be went into panic mode. They had been able to divert the public's attention away from the shenanigans they had been up to behind the proverbial curtain for so long; with no sworn enemy for the people to focus on -- egads -- the public might begin to figure out that the corporatists were stealing the country blind.
And so, they needed to create a new Public Enemy #1 and they needed to do it damn fast. What they came up with were the Muslims. The Muslims, they told us, are bloodthirsty terrorists. They hate our freedoms so much that they want to destroy the US of A.
To insure that the public would embrace the Muslims as our new sworn enemy, the government set out to provoke as many Arab nations as possible. They employed every trick in the book and, in time, they began to provoke violent responses. A few disaffected Muslims committed some violent acts and so the deal was sealed. Muslim terrorists slid seamlessly into the place that had been occupied by the dirty commie Russians.
Our new sworn enemy has provided our corporatist state with the political cover to attack a wide variety of Muslim nations. If they possess a natural resource we're interested in (oil) or we simply don't like their ruler (Libya), our government can go blow up their country to smithereens and the majority of the public will give them a big thumbs up because they are killing and maiming the people we've been conditioned to hate.
Just like Oceania, our leaders always will have enemies for us proles to despise. Once we've dispatched with the Muslims, a new group of vile miscreants will be ushered in to take their place. Who knows! Maybe the Red Menace will return in the form of China.
This series of posts based on George Orwell's novel, 1984, will be rather avant-garde. My focus will not be to explain Orwell's premises or what HE meant -- it is more about what his prose stirs in me, often in relation to the way I view the world today. Some of my observations may fall in line with Orwell's intent, but others will go off in a wholly different direction. To read my intro to this series, go here.
Unfortunately there are lots of people who are drooling at a prospect of taking China on...the hatred and ignorance of history are frightening.
ReplyDelete''In society today the public is essentially kept distracted and uninformed. This is the way that governments maintain control. If you review history, power is maintained through ignorance.'' ~Peter Joseph
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPmHaTirnCc