Cat and I just finished listening to George Orwell's 1984 and it is uncanny how it echoes our current situation.  The hugh military expenditures for useless weapons, the assault on the middle class and the poor, the dumbing down of  education and the assault on higher education, the anti-intellectualism that is rampant and is being encouraged by the right.  And, of course, Big Brother IS watching us.  Scary

Cat and I just finished listening to George Orwell's 1984 and it is uncanny how it echoes our current situation.  The hugh military expenditures for useless weapons, the assault on the middle class and the poor, the dumbing down of  education and the assault on higher education, the anti-intellectualism that is rampant and is being encouraged by the right.  And, of course, Big Brother IS watching us.  Scary


I know, the times we live in is VERY much or at least very similiar to '1984'.

Let's not forget the Thought Police and Newspeak either.

And their slogan which fits well with the present left wing administration... FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.

Don't forget about keeping the proles stupified with cheap beer and porn!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/13/icon_thumleft.gif

Where do you think they got the idea?  Orwell's greatest failure was that he never thought the technology would become widely available, and that his warning would be used as a functional specification.  (It was tried every couple of decades, but the resulting states collapsed under the weight of their own bureaucracies, aiming at 1984, but ending up with something more resembling Brazil.)

But no more.  The technology now exists, and we're busy implenting the foundations of the three great dystopian novels of the 20th century: an omnipresent surveillance state from 1984, watching over a docile populace whose complacency has been bought by the access to the shiny toys of Brave New World, and it's ruled by a political/economic system indistinguishable from the one that prompted the strike in Atlas Shrugged.

Where do you think they got the idea?  Orwell's greatest failure was that he never thought the technology would become widely available, and that his warning would be used as a functional specification.  (It was tried every couple of decades, but the resulting states collapsed under the weight of their own bureaucracies, aiming at 1984, but ending up with something more resembling Brazil.)

But no more.  The technology now exists, and we're busy implenting the foundations of the three great dystopian novels of the 20th century: an omnipresent surveillance state from 1984, watching over a docile populace whose complacency has been bought by the access to the shiny toys of Brave New World, and it's ruled by a political/economic system indistinguishable from the one that prompted the strike in Atlas Shrugged.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMAGwMAXTpU

Don't need no space, to look down on you,
iPhone or Droid, trace everything you do.

And that was just this week. :)

So we'll sing it again when it comes around on the electric guitar.

il1etwBDCIs

The original lyrics are better than any parody I could write.  It is perpetual, it keeps the country clean.  Elected, protected, detective, electric eye.

Let's not forget the Thought Police and Newspeak either.

And their slogan which fits well with the present left wing administration... FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.


Most of the "newspeak" seems to be emerging from the right, like "providers" instead of doctors & nurses, and "consumers" instead of patients.  And most of the 1984 - like policies are being advanced by Republican

Don't forget about keeping the proles stupified with cheap beer and porn!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/13/icon_thumleft.gif


Well, ALL regimes have their good points.  ;)  ;D

Where do you think they got the idea?  Orwell's greatest failure was that he never thought the technology would become widely available, and that his warning would be used as a functional specification.  (It was tried every couple of decades, but the resulting states collapsed under the weight of their own bureaucracies, aiming at 1984, but ending up with something more resembling Brazil.)

But no more.  The technology now exists, and we're busy implenting the foundations of the three great dystopian novels of the 20th century: an omnipresent surveillance state from 1984, watching over a docile populace whose complacency has been bought by the access to the shiny toys of Brave New World, and it's ruled by a political/economic system indistinguishable from the one that prompted the strike in Atlas Shrugged.


Orwell's greatest failure was thinking a Stalinist government would have to FORCE coerce the people into government propaganda and surveillance.  He didn't see they'd happily buy it on the free market for the home, the office, the briefcase, and the back pocket!

Rand failed to realize the real John Galt would be THIS:

http://stonecoldgemini.com/media/1/20100306-DonaldTrump001.jpg

Orwell's greatest failure was thinking a Stalinist government would have to FORCE coerce the people into government propaganda and surveillance.  He didn't see they'd happily buy it on the free market for the home, the office, the briefcase, and the back pocket!


Hey, if I had the choice between living in 1984 and Brave New World, then by Ford, I'd choose to live Huxley's BNW any day.  Problem is, it looks like we're getting the worst of both worlds: the puritanism and surveillance of 1984 without so much as a gram of soma or the other recreational alternatives provided in Brave New World.


Rand failed to realize the real John Galt would be THIS:


20 years ago, I'd have been OK with President Trump on purely capitalistic grounds.  Today, not so much.  Trump's problem is that playing both the Birther and the Religion cards over the past week, he's established that he's merely another puppet for The Party.  Just like Hopenchange, anybody actually expecting either ain't gonna get neither.

To drag Randroid ideology into it, if it was really about the money, and getting the government out of the way, (a) Trump would want nothing to do with government, and (b) if he were (in the Randroid sense) worthy of the office of national CEO, he wouldn't have had to declare bankruptcy every few years.  Seriously, just how much of a bucket of fail do you have to be to lose money building a casino?

But aving said that, if I had the opportunity, I'd vote for Trump in a primary.  Obama will win in 2012 no matter who the dysfunctional rump of the Republican party chooses to run against him, and a Trump campaign would be hilarious - funnier by far than a Palin campaign.  Palin was funny, but the joke will have been four years old by then.  Trump for the lulz.  The lulz for the win.

Hey, if I had the choice between living in 1984 and Brave New World, then by Ford, I'd choose to live Huxley's BNW any day.  Problem is, it looks like we're getting the worst of both worlds: the puritanism and surveillance of 1984 without so much as a gram of soma or the other recreational alternatives provided in Brave New World.

"If Mr. McMurphy doesn't want to take his medication orally, I'm sure we can arrange to have it delivered some other way, but I don't think he'd enjoy it."

--Nurse Ratched
:D

20 years ago, I'd have been OK with President Trump on purely capitalistic grounds.  Today, not so much.  Trump's problem is that playing both the Birther and the Religion cards over the past week, he's established that he's merely another puppet for The Party.  Just like Hopenchange, anybody actually expecting either ain't gonna get neither.

To drag Randroid ideology into it, if it was really about the money, and getting the government out of the way, (a) Trump would want nothing to do with government, and (b) if he were (in the Randroid sense) worthy of the office of national CEO, he wouldn't have had to declare bankruptcy every few years.  Seriously, just how much of a bucket of fail do you have to be to lose money building a casino?

But aving said that, if I had the opportunity, I'd vote for Trump in a primary.  Obama will win in 2012 no matter who the dysfunctional rump of the Republican party chooses to run against him, and a Trump campaign would be hilarious - funnier by far than a Palin campaign.  Palin was funny, but the joke will have been four years old by then.  Trump for the lulz.  The lulz for the win.


I was being facetious.  Ayn Rand and I would agree on very little, one of a few things being Trump was a spoiled rich kid who didn't really create anything so much as shift parcels of real estate and bundles of money around.  As for architecture, he's no Howard Roark.  Rand and I would probably both describe Trump's tastes in design as pornographic.  Nobody in the media seems to be talking about how many times Trump declared bankruptcy...but since he's so good at it, maybe he's the one to help the U.S.A. say "We're broke!"

Somebody Rand did admire was a teenage psychopath named William Edward Hickman!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Edward_Hickman
:o

Most of the "newspeak" seems to be emerging from the right, like "providers" instead of doctors & nurses, and "consumers" instead of patients.  And most of the 1984 - like policies are being advanced by Republican


Completely agreed.  How unfortunate it is that the one who can do the most to stop this happening is the one most bombarded by conspiracy theory accusations.