"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face---forever."
-- O'Brien speaking to Winston in Orwell's 1984
"If you want a picture of the future, read 1984 by George Orwell"
--Aaron McCarty quoting himself in a blog
The future as predicted by George Orwell in 1984 has been coming true for some time now. Orwell saw the process at work in his time. 1984 was published in 1949. Clearly he thought things would happen faster than they have, but nonetheless they are happening. It seems to me that the process of changing the English language has been noticeably increasing lately. This process is perpetuated by government. In 1984 there is a scene where the protagonist Winston is told that the chocolate rations were going to be decreased slightly. He records that fact, as that was his job, and then later on during that same day Big Brother announces that the chocolate rations were going to be increased. Winston begins to realize that something is amiss. The point is not whether the rations are going to increase or decrease. The point is that whatever Big Brother says is to be believed without question.
Our world is run by the multinational corporations. Big Agriculture, Big Pharma, Big Chemical, Big Oil, Big Weapon....Big Brother. The people comprising these corporations make decisions everyday about how to make money. They don't make decisions based on right and wrong. The only morality is profit and any obstacles to this profit are written out of reality. Just take a look at the world wide financial system to see this mechanism in action. Reality is what they say it is, and they are the controlling interest of this world. The corporations. In 1984 Orwell called them "The Party." During Winston's re-wiring at the end of the novel he implores O'Brien, or the face of Big Brother:
"But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reaceh forever." "What are the stars?" said O'brien indifferently. "They are bits of fire a few kilometers away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the center of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it."Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did not say anything. O'brien continued as though answering a spoken objection: "For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometers away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?
They want you to believe that your vote counts for something. Sure, maybe the electronic voting machines actually count your vote. You just have to have faith in that. Even if they count your vote, what of it? It's just a matter of a different puppet that will be placed in power by the controlling interest. The puppets are well vetted to ensure that they will do as they are told. What do you think lobbyist are all about? People go from employment at Monsanto to employment by the government for the FDA, or high up in the department of agriculture, or for the EPA and then back to Monsanto. They craft the government from the inside to work for the interest of making more money for the corporations. While this is going on they are raping and pillaging the earth of all it's resources for profit. They return only waste to the earth. They distract you from all of this by mindless trappings such as Football. Did you see the Superbowl? Was it not an insult to you? Was it not transparent that it was only about money. The Superbowl is a few plays punctuated by a few commercials...rinse and repeat for four hours with a circus break in the middle. Don't think, just drink more corn bear with your fried corn and chemical dip full of petroleum sugar and MSG.
Can't get it up, we have a pill for that. Can't deal with our bull shit, we have a pill for that. Can't sleep we have a pill for that. Thinking too much, we have a pill for that. Your body isn't working properly because you subsist on the poison that we pawn off on you for profit, we have a pill for that. Our genetically modified poison gave you diabetes? Here's a syringe, we have something you can inject for that. There is a pill for everything. There are pills to help your body deal with the pills. There are pills to help your mind deal with all of this. What, you have a soul, care about spirit, have a mind, are concerned with integrity, competency and truth...we have a pill for all of that. Shut up, drink your corn, and do what your told.
Big Oil provides the energy, Big Chemical provides the chemical manipulation, Big Ag turns the oil into poisonous newfangled food, and Big Pharma provides a "cure" for all of this nonsense, and Big Weapon provides the security to keep the whole toxic mess going. All you do is provide the obedience to Big Brother. Big Brother is all of the above and his face is Uncle Sam's. He want's your face and his face to be the same thing. He has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
"How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?In order to be a functional member of society, and not be lobotomized either chemically or physically, you have to be insane. You can't be concerned with integrity, or competence, or definitions to words, or things making sense, or doing what's morally right. You have to be heartless, soulless, and mindless. Without any of those things all that is left is hatred. That's what O'brien was talking about. In order to be insane you have to forget about truth. Truth becomes falsehood. Freedom is slavery. You can't even count on things being the opposite of what they are supposed to be because they are what Big Brother say's they are and that is it. Like O'brien said: "The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them." The stars are clearly distant and they are always distant from earth. Just because big Brother says that they are near does not make it so. But the point is that his will does make it so, and you will comply. It doesn't matter about right and wrong. Correct and false are what Big Brother say they are. Let me give a recent anecdote to illustrate what I'm talking about.
Winston thought. "By making him suffer," he said.
"Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love and justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy--everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and not friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no employment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always--do not forget this, Winston--always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--forever.
Did you know that a signature must be legible? According to The American Heritage College Dictionary Fourth Addition, which is a dictionary I was required to have for Literature 101 and 102 while in college, signature means the following:
1. One's name as written by oneself. 2. The act of signing one's name. 3. A distinctive mark, characteristic, or sound indicating identity.Nowhere in the definition of the word signature does it say anything about a legible mark. The point is a signature is that it's your signature. It's how you write your name. The specificity of your signature is what makes it different from somebody else signing your name. This is why you usually have to print your name and then sign. You print your name so that there is a legible account of your name on the document. Then you sign your name so that it can be shown that you indeed signed the document. As in you placed your mark next to your printed name to verify that it's you who signed. The more specific and unique your signature, the better. The point of a signature is that it is yours and you use it to verify your identity.
According to the jack wagin' bureaucrat's over at the Medicare department of Big Brother signing your name in an illegible fashion is not acceptable. They want your signature to be legible. There is a problem here. The problem is that they say they want your signature, but they clearly don't. At least not in accordance with the definition of the world "signature." My signature complies with the definition of the word in ever sense, but you cannot read it and get anything resembling my name out of it.
Over the years my signature has undergone a metamorphosis into a very quick, split second, mark. It has done that because I have signed my name thousands of times. Every time it got shorter until it arrived at the signature that has been distinctly mine for the last seven years or so. Now, in order to maintain my employment as an EMT working for the county I work in, I must change my signature to be in accordance with Big Brother's Newthink version of the dictionary, or Medicare will not pay the bill for the patient attached to the Patient Care Report that my illegible signature is attached to.
To further cultivate the bureaucratic bull shit black hole, below the box in which I sign my unacceptable signature is a printed version of my name. It's in the same print you are reading these words in. This is the electronic version of signing and printing your name. However, if they cannot read what your signature says than it is not acceptable and no payment will be doled out.
Do you see the problem here? Effectively Big Brother is changing the meaning behind signing your name. Who is in the position to stop this nonsense? This is how the bull shit black hole was created and is perpetuated. After all, as O'Brien said to Winston in 1984:
The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?
Take a bow
Pack on powder
Wash 'em out with buzzing lights
Pay an audience to care
Impress me personality
Still and transfixed
The electric sheep,
Are dreaming of your face
Enjoy you from the chemical
Comfort of America
Come one
Come all
Into 1984
Yeah, three, two, one
Lights, camera, transaction
Quick, your time is almost up
Make all forget that they're the moth
Edging in, towards the flame
Burn into obscurity
Still and transfixed
the electric sheep
are dreaming up your fate
And judge you from
the card castle
comfort of America
Come one
Come all
Into 1984
Yeah, three, two, one
Lights, camera...
Come one
Come all
To 1984
Yeah, three, two, one
Lights, camera, transaction
The foundation is canyoning
Fault lines should be worn with pride
I hate to say it
You're so much more
You're so much more
Endearing with the sound turned off
If the wrong person were to read this...I could probably lose my job. Sometimes I strongly question whether or not I'm able to function in mainstream society. I refuse to be lobotomized. I believe in Karma. Hopefully Karma will lead me, and my family, through this difficult time. One baby step at a time, given enough time, is a very long distance. One compromise of your integrity at a time eventually leaves you soulless. Eventually, when Big Brother holds up four fingers and asks you how many fingers you see, if you don't draw an uncompromising line in the sand, you will say five. It's just a matter of enough baby steps. Somewhere the bullshit must stop. When asked for my signature, I will sign my name according to the specificity of my mark.
Until I'm told I'll either comply or lose my job. At that point, I'll say that Big Brother is holding up 5 fingers. Hopefully at some point I'll actually believe it's true and this torture will stop.
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