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The World We’ve Constructed Is Far Beyond George Orwell’s Worst Nightmare
by John Pilger
AlterNet
Orwell's chilling vision of the future in '1984' is happening today in the form of media manipulation and unnecessary wars.
The other night, I saw George Orwell’s 1984 performed on the London stage. Although crying out for a contemporary interpretation, Orwell’s warning about the future was presented as a period piece: remote, unthreatening, almost reassuring. It was as if Edward Snowden had revealed nothing, Big Brother was not now a digital eavesdropper and Orwell himself had never said, “To be corrupted by totalitarianism, one does not have to live in a totalitarian country.”
Acclaimed by critics, the skilful production was a measure of our cultural and political times. When the lights came up, people were already on their way out. They seemed unmoved, or perhaps other distractions beckoned. “What a mindfuck,” said the young woman, lighting up her phone.
As advanced societies are de-politicised, the changes are both subtle and spectacular. In everyday discourse, political language is turned on its head, as Orwell prophesised in 1984. “Democracy” is now a rhetorical device. Peace is “perpetual war.” “Global” is imperial. The once hopeful concept of “reform” now means regression, even destruction. “Austerity” is the imposition of extreme capitalism on the poor and the gift of socialism for the rich: an ingenious system under which the majority service the debts of the few.
In the arts, hostility to political truth-telling is an article of bourgeois faith. “Picasso’s red period,” says an Observer headline, “and why politics don’t make good art.” Consider this in a newspaper that promoted the bloodbath in Iraq as a liberal crusade. Picasso’s lifelong opposition to fascism is a footnote, just as Orwell’s radicalism has faded from the prize that appropriated his name.
A few years ago, Terry Eagleton, then professor of English literature at Manchester University, reckoned that “for the first time in two centuries, there is no eminent British poet, playwright or novelist prepared to question the foundations of the western way of life”. No Shelley speaks for the poor, no Blake for utopian dreams, no Byron damns the corruption of the ruling class, no Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin reveal the moral disaster of capitalism. William Morris, Oscar Wilde, HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw have no equivalents today. Harold Pinter was the last to raise his voice. Among the insistent voices of consumer- feminism, none echoes Virginia Woolf, who described “the arts of dominating other people … of ruling, of killing, of acquiring land and capital”.
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Source: http://www.riseearth.com/2014/07/the-world-weve-constructed-is-far.html
The world “we’ve” constructed” ??
I’m truly tired of being blamed as if “I”, or “we” had something to do with the destruction of this country. I was merely born into it. So were you. The destruction started generations ago — 100 years in fact, with the installation of the Federal Reserve. Some argue it began prior — back to the Civil War. We’ve been caught in the matrix ever since.
I could protest in the street and write every congressman & woman from dawn to dusk daily and it wouldn’t change a damn thing. That’s an illusion.
What “protest” of substance ever changed anything in the U.S.? Nam? Roe v Wade? The “Occupy” movement? Ha !! Even the Liberal hippies, who are pro protesters, haven’t changed anything of substance. Hey Hey, Ho Ho…
Unless an extremely vast, well-organized uprising happens which INCLUDES at least 18% of the police/Armed Force services — nothing will change. “They” control not only the mainstream media, but, Internet also. They can easily decide what goes “viral” or not, and stomp out a movement before it even gets off the ground. The censorship happens daily — most simply don’t see it. The tentacles of this beast run deep.
It’s NOT over yet. Just 18% is ALL it takes for the snowball of Truth to bulldoze down that mountain of JUSTICE. WE can ALL be part of the most influential period FOR mankind’s Rights — instead of the other way around — which will happen very soon unless WE stop it.
That, WE can be blamed for.