Oh my God, 1984 was right. Tonight, I'm reflecting on the party's slogan

[the redcoat]

For those of you who have read 1984, you'll remember the slogan of the party:

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

I remember reading it and thinking how Americans would be able to recognize and stop these things before they happened, but with what's happening in airports and with America's response to the Wikileaks situation, the "trifecta" is complete, so to speak. My heart sank as I realized this.


WAR IS PEACE
For almost a decade, we've been in a war (or 2) that experts all concede may last for many more decades, never really ending completely. Perpetual war. The reason? We've been told the war is necessary to preserve the American way of life. WAR IS PEACE.

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
What is the price we've been told we must pay to keep our freedom? We must let people see through our clothing or let them pat us down. If we refuse, we face the law. We must do what we're told to keep our freedom. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Wikileaks has released classified documents, revealing the words, positions, and actions of the U.S. and other nations. Our government is condemning this as a danger to diplomacy and soldiers. Their position is therefore clear: Much of the power of the U.S. lies in government secrecy from it's own citizens. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

[Hannah Bell]

1. +100. And those aren't the only parallels.

[unc70]

11. We have the Memory Hole and rewriting the news is standard

Also, the version of news (even online) varies depending on who is reading it, even on the same sites. Much the same as it is for Google searching, targeted ads, and on and on.

All realities are virtual.

[valerief]

29. I still don't know the truth about the chocolate rations. nt

[Jackpine Radical]

63. Chocolate rations have been increased to 20 grams this month.

And the Catfood Commission will shortly be announcing the new raises in Social Security.

Edited for stupid typo.

[liberation]

54. Don't forget concepts like "doublethink" which is now an ingrained part of our national character...

... also known as "wanting to have it both ways." After all we're the country with a president who earned a Nobel Price for Peace while he is still waging two wars (one of which legality is extremelly iffy at best).

Furthermore "newspeak" is now an integral part of our national discourse. Remember, we do not use "torture" we simply employ "enhanced interrogation techniques."


But I don't think it is just Orwell who was right on the money, it is more complex than that. I can see clear traces of what Aldous Huxley was describing in A Brave New World.


Oh, well... we are living in interesting times indeed.

[inna]

102. I get what you're saying, but "funny" (not ha-ha funny), I see more parallels with

Orwell than Huxley. Perpetual war/rampant militarism, institutionalized lies/propaganda, police state/harsh control by the state, booming prison industry, etc. etc. Citizens in Brave New World at last were blissfully happy/oblivious on Soma, and enjoying their "socialist" state; I'm pretty certain they had Universal Health Care, too. :sarcasm: 1984 is more like hard-core Fascism and a whole lot darker than BNW.

[boppers]

91. Do you recall what the Taliban response to 9/11 was?

The memory hole, well, we now have more defenses against that.

From: http://web.archive.org/web/20010911210812/www2.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/09/11/afghan.taliban/index.html

---
September 11, 2001 Posted: 2:04 PM EDT (1804 GMT)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Afghanistan's Taliban ambassador to Pakistan has condemned the string of astonishing terrorist attacks on the United States.

"We want to tell the American children that Afghanistan feels your pain. We hope the courts find justice," ambassador Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef said in a statement in Pakistan after America was hit by a series of attacks that have been called the worst since Pearl Harbor.
---

[Swamp Rat]

2. k&r

[WCGreen]

3. Ignorance is strength is pretty much the credo of the GOP....

They thrive on ignorance...

K & R

[Plucketeer]

20. Sadly, it worked well for Darth and Co.....

And we just had "the people" vote for ignorance once again. We truly deserve that which we've brought upon ourselves. Even tho I voted against ignorance, I'm complicit in that I didn't work ardently enough to keep it from gaining a new foothold.





GOP JOBS PLAN DEPICTED BELOW

[laughingliberal]

4. Orwell was an optimist. We've far exceeded his predictions. nt

[defendandprotect]

33. Agree ... was going to add this one "We had to burn the village to save it!".....

We all need our BS meters turned up waaaaaaaay higher!!

[saigon68]

5. K & R

[StarsInHerHair]

6. recc'd up-agree about war, why is the US going after

basically a ragtag small group of guerrillas who pose no threat to the US unless they are close enough to shoot at the US? They're not even an official army, plus they don't come from one country. it makes no military sense to spend so much money so far away, using it here & near our borders is the sane approach, but I don't mean building the new 'berlin wall' either. it's the war that has bankrupted America.

[Art_from_Ark]

7. The right-wingers used to brag about how Ronald Reagan

nearly singlehandedly brought down the Soviet Union by forcing the USSR to waste so much money on its military, especially its ill-fated campaign in Afghanistan...

[StarsInHerHair]

89. this fact needs to be reintroduced everywhere

preferably with youtube videos.

[blackspade]

25. We should have continued to treat them as criminals.

We have only given them undeserved legitimacy.

[Hydra]

31. Follow the money

We're only interested in wars in places that have resources. We have no appetite for war in North Korea, but they actually have nukes and are willing to use them.

Instead, we're willing to occupy Iraq, Afghanistan and anyplace else that has oil or minerals and fight the local populace and call them "Al-Queda in ____."

[StarsInHerHair]

90. too bad we don't have a functioning news media

they would have been able to publicly question the GOP's war-lust. And now Nobel peace winner Pres. Obama

[truedelphi]

70. And as far as fighting terrorists to preserve

"the American Way of Life" - what is so damn American about our way of life right now? From what is happening to us, via the Bank Super powers Owning our government,w e might as well have been defeated by Communist China.

Unemployment rates that are astronomical, people living on food stamps, entitlement programs are about to be ended, local county budgets are forcing further layoffs of all the service personnel.

But hey! I guess if you are young enough you can sign up to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan...

[MannyGoldstein]

8. Proof positive that we've achieved new greatness

George Orwell was a great author and thinker, we should be proud that we have a literate and erudite President and Democratic Congress who seek to emulate his utopian vision. This could never be achieved under the comic-book-reading Bush and Republican majorities in both houses of Congress.

We're not always at war with Eastasia yet, but we are always at war with Westasia. Actually, North Korea is part of Eastasia, so that should count, no?

Hail Oceania!

[CanonRay]

9. Ignorance is Strength = Fair and Balanced

[Octafish]

10. ''If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever.''

Prescience: from the first line to the last, 1984 is become true.

Thank you for an excellent post and thread, redcoat.

[FiveGoodMen]

30. And this site has spent years slavishly protecting the reputation of the boot's current occupant!

:grr:

[awoke_in_2003]

38. one of the most chilling lines...

in the book. The other being the last sentence- "he loved Big Brother".

[me b zola]

12. K&R

[felix_numinous]

13. Ha-but the internet

has interfered with their 'memory hole' --unless everyone's hard drives were wiped clean somehow. Then we would have to depend on hard copies or shielded back ups. I love science fiction, and think we can learn a lot from it :)

[unc70]

61. The internet actually makes the Memory Hole worse

It is exactly the false confidence that the internet gives us which is the most dangerous.

I have written multiple times about the dangers of relying on articles on the net, even ones we bookmark. They will change right out from under you. Not the same as when they are ink on paper. See my journal and its archives for several discussions.

A related problem is that people overly rely on Google, et al for news/history. If you can't find it on Google, it "did not happen", at least for most people.

[Constance Craving]

64. exactly . . .

This is the very reason that I don't want a kindle, why I print out articles, emails, etc, and why I document, document, document (on paper) . . . simply relying on a network with little security to be the same or give the same info day after day cannot be done.

[boppers]

92. You need to know about archive.org.

Also, knowing about mediawiki article history helps, for watching wikipedia changes (along with bookmarking a specific version).

Oh, and saving pages to disk helps, too... or print them out.

[felix_numinous]

103. You got it.

Blips on a screen, whether numbers in an account, news reports or email, are really tenuous forms of information!! It boggles my mind to imagine all the 'virtual wealth' traveling through the intertubes.

You are right though, the memory hole need not be obvious, it can happen in little bits, more subtle than the massive wipeout most often imagined. In fact that scenario makes a lot more sense. Yikes.

I will check out your journal unc70, thanks.

[era veteran]

14. WMD,WMD,WMD,WMD......

Gays, Guns, God, Abortion, and single issue du jour

[peace frog]

19. 9/11, 9/11, Terra, Terra, Terra

Repeat as needed

[leftstreet]

15. K&R

[Diclotican]

16. redcoat

redcoat

The similaries between 1984, and the current US today is scarigly close in many cases... Before GWB got innto office (I would never say he was elected, he was given the office) I would never belive that US was anynear close to what was 1984, it was in most encounter a directly critic of the USSR under Josef Stalin. After all the book had a face of Stalin on its cover (the orginal had a face similar to the old man looking down at you).

Today, Im not sure it was about Stalin, it could also bee about every country who would use metodes that was similar to what Orwell was describing in 1984.. Like a television system who could look at you, or radioes you could never completely close off (as it is been doing in NK today) and a lot of other type of survilance systems..

And a eternal war... War who cost money, money woul must came from some - the common peopole, as the powers to be, can't be bottered with paying most of the eternal war bills off course

The US of today, and the world of 1984 is in some wai scaringly similar..

Diclotican

[awoke_in_2003]

39. Remember the line...

in the wizard of oz- "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"? In 2000 the curtain dropped- they don't even bother to hide it very hard any more.

[Diclotican]

49. awoke_in_2003

awoke_in_2003

You are absolutely right. But most of us is to afraid, or do not want to se the man behind the curtin. Even tho he is out and in full show... GWB was maybe the first time they do not bother to hide the real power anymore. But I am afraid it would not be the last...

We have a "devil" in our midst, and we are to afraid to point to the "devil" and tell it as it is, we like to belive the "devil" are not there, becouse it is more comfortable, and easy that way...

Diclotican

[Politicub]

17. I don't want to diminish the content of the cables, but I'm going to be honest here

My opinion is that many of us already believed what many of the cables confirmed.

I'm trying to understand why I personally do not have a stronger reaction. It doesn't surprise me that our government is secretive. But it truly bothers me that my reaction is more along the lines of indifference. I'm reading every piece of coverage I find about the contents, but can't seem to muster as much outrage as my fellow progressives.

But I do get wound up about social security, DADT and the agenda of the incoming republican house majority. So I do get passionate about issues.

I'm not looking to start a flame fest. I guess I'm posting this as part of my own soul searching about my sense of apathy -- this post is more of a confession. I'm not sure I'm articulating what I am feeling, but I believe that my reaction is a little off kilter because of the collective wailing and gnashing of teeth that I'm seeing over the cables.

[ArcticFox]

24. I agree and wonder why there is such a big official deal about it

The extent of the cries of Assange being a terrorist, or of this private who handed over the cables being a traitor who should be executed seems blown way out of proportion.

Nothing has changed since the first Wikileaks release in this series (I'm thinking of the AH-64 gun camera footage). There has been less discussion about the actual actions depicted in the leaked material than there has been about whether the material should have been leaked or whether those who did the leaking should be arrested or killed off.

A logical question then, is whether the whole thing was somehow orchestrated by a US intelligence agency as a kind of psychological warfare operation. Why was a private stationed on a military base in Iraq (or Afganistan?) privy to hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables? Why did alerts not go off when that private downloaded hundreds of thousands of documents?

Effectively, each of these leaks has done little more than numb Americans to the atrocities that are committed every day in our names and, through the discussion about whether the leakers should be prosecuted or executed, distracted most people from the real problems facing our nation. The fact that the material was leaked, and allegedly criminally so, also gives the appearance of legitimacy: who can doubt that the leaked information reveals the worst aspects of our nation's operations?

PsyOps take many forms. If the US government professes an alliance with a true enemy, that enemy's friends might distance themselves, thus weakening them all. Is it beyond imagination that the government might maintain an enemy relationship with Wikileaks in order to diseminate information under the appearance that it wanted the information kept secret?

[boppers]

93. About the alarms, and the security hole....

So, as with any secure facility, *all* media going in, and coming out, is visually inspected. Some media is forbidden (thumb drives in most places, along with portable hard disks, and other obviously writable media), other media is not.

So.

1. Manning walked into a secure facility with a "Lady Gaga" CD. It passed incoming inspection as a generic personal media disk, some tunes to listen to while working.
2. Manning lip-synced to Lady Gaga songs on his CD player while he was working.
3. Manning walked out with the same "Lady Gaga" disc.

See the holes?
1. Taking media in.
2. Having access to a burner.
3. Taking media out.
4. (Which is hilarious to me) DADT means that asking about an artist with a huge gay following... would make soldiers hesitant to ask about the disc itself.

The problem isn't that a Pfc has access to confidential/noforn (etc.) documents, it's that they could walk out with it. Lower level folks need access to lower level documents all the time, they aren't supposed to be able to copy them, though.

[Daemonaquila]

51. The cables themselves aren't shocking.

I don't think you are off-base or unusual in feeling apathetic to the cables' content. You're correct that many of us read between the official lines, so the cable content is little more than confirmation and gossip that reveals more about the personalities of the writers than about what the State Department is up to.

The thing we should be worked up about is the reaction to WikiLeaks. The sky is falling! National security is threatened! We'll be seeing one 9/11 attack per week! They made it impossible for the U.S. to conduct diplomacy! All people who reveal the truth about the U.S. Government are terrorists! The end is nigh!

Of course, the media is eating that up and sensationalizing it to the point that Hillary Clinton had to make a statement that the State Department will be able to conduct diplomacy JUST FINE, cables or no cables.

We have come to a critical juncture in the information wars. There have long been attacks on FOIA (see AT&T v. FCC, which will be going before SCOTUS this year, for the most recent tactics). There have long been attacks on whistleblowers. The cable affair will now be used, like 9/11, to shut out all transparency, and name anyone who discusses the Emperor's New Clothes a traitor or terrorist. That's a fight worth being passionate about.

The issues you're wound up about are good issues. But look at why you're excited about them - they will make a difference in people's lives. Unfortunately, so will the new government data practices that I believe are coming soon...

[Politicub]

68. There are so many things hitting at once right now

Thank you for your post. It provided some well-needed perspective and it helped me understand.

And as of this afternoon, throw net neutrality in the mix. The fix was in to reign in the freedom of the Internet since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and now here we are.

It seems like it's all flying to pieces, and there's only a small group of people who care. It strengthens my resolve, but it doesn't make it any less depressing.

[truedelphi]

71. + 1`. n/t

[liberation]

56. Indeed, but you also need to understand the importance that now there is a written record

The cables themselves may not be that "interesting" individually, but the big picture they paint is what is important. Because as I said, now there is a clear written record which demonstrates how little in terms of direction and substance the exterior policies between the previous and this administration differ.

Which is why there is no surprise why the perennial "cheerleaders" of the current administration in this site went into unison rabid attack mode against Mr. Assange.

[handmade34]

18. quite a number of years ago

I suggested to a few young people that they should read 1984... then I realized that the book would not be extraordinary because it has become our reality...

...TVs spewing propaganda and mindless entertainment in every public place

[awoke_in_2003]

81. it was shocking when I read it...

first around 1982. A little less shocking when I read it again around 1999. Not a shock at all when I read it again just 2 years ago. Things I never thought would happen in this country have. "It Can't Happen Here" is a book that should be read by all.

[deutsey]

21. Orwell meant the book as a cautionary tale, but it's now being used as

an instruction manual.

A relevant passage:

(O'Brien) paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: "How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?"

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 in 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 no 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 the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty toward 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 enjoyment 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."

He paused as though he expected Winston to speak. Winston had tried to shrink back into the surface of the bed again. He could not say anything. His heart seemed to be frozen. O'Brien went on:

"And remember that it is forever. The face will always be there to be stamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. Everything that you have undergone since you have been in our hands-all that will continue, and worse. The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. It will be a world of terror as much as a world of triumph. The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant; the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism.

"Goldstein and his heresies will live forever. Every day, at every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon- and yet they will always survive. This drama that I have played out with you during seven years will be played out over and over again, generation after generation, always in subtler forms. Always we shall have the heretic here at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken-up, contemptible-and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own accord.

"That is the world that we are preparing, Winston. A world of victory after victory, triumph after triumph after triumph: an endless pressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power. You are beginning, I can see, to realize what that world will be like. But in the end you will do more than understand it. You will accept it, welcome it, become part of it."

[defendandprotect]

34. Patrarchy and violence ....

are mirror images of one another --



And the only way the right wing can rise is thru political violence --

stolen elections -- and lies.

Has always been true --



Patriarchy -- and its underpinning =

Organized Patriarchal Religion -- and it's economic system =

Capitalism =

The Unholy Trinity

[awoke_in_2003]

82. Winston's "discussions"...

with O'Brien are terrifying, yet masterly written, pieces of work. The blatant obviousness of what is going on, and the complete powerlessness to resist it.

[woo me with science]

22. We live in very frightening times.

Good post.

[katty]

23. o we are there, all right

[blackspade]

26. K&R!

[BrklynLiberal]

27. We are there....and have been for a while now. George Orwell was actually an alien

who could see into the future..or perhaps, traveled back from the future..to write that book.

[zehnkatzen]

40. You don't have to be alien to know human nature …

Well, I s'pose he could have been an alien … but then, he lived during the dark days of the early-mid 20th Century, and could see what Stalin was a-doin' over there in the Soviet Union.

He knew he was looking at human nature. I'll bet that story pretty much wrote itself.

[old mark]

28. Look closely at the "Homeland Security" and the "Patriot Act" and

see how many "rights" you have remaining. Oh, yeah, and look out for the surveillance cameras everywhere, too...

Do you think they have information on everyone who has ever posted here - or even visited here, or on similar sites?
I have no doubt at all...

mark

[defendandprotect]

35. Agree ... but neither Obama nor Dem Congress seems to be very concened ... !!!

[old mark]

101. Mr. Obama seems to love that stuff - he has NEVER made any statement

on loss of constitutional rights that I am aware of, and his administration is using these laws against the left as well as the right...and illegal immigrants, too, in record numbers.

mark

[reggie the dog]

59. so they know i live in another country

they may bust me when i come visit family in the states but once thoughtcrime exists i will no longer be coming back to the states on vacation.... with these new tsa checks i think next summer is going to be the last time i come to the usa for a long time, but i already told grandma and grandpa that i would bring my daughter to see them.....so i am stuck coming back at least one more time

[defendandprotect]

32. k&r

[slackmaster]

36. 1984 was a rational extension of what things were already like in the UK in 1948

It's only gotten worse since it was published.

[Locrian]

37. I need a drink...

Maybe I'll go down to the cafe for some Victory Gin....

[awoke_in_2003]

83. but don't try to buy a pint of bitter...

it is only sold in the half liter and liter size :)

[MissDeeds]

41. K&R

:argh:

[Name removed]

42. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[awoke_in_2003]

84. welcome to DU...

how far along are you? The last 1/3 is bone chilling.

[asdjrocky]

43. It's far closer to A Brave New World.

1984 was drudgery and repression. We, on the other hand, have many shiny and sparkling objects to distract us.

[KG]

44. we have shiny and sparkling objects now, but the drudgery and repression is right around the corner

[asdjrocky]

45. You have to realize, it costs them next to nothing to deliver us stuff via TV.

As long as the distractions are there, Americans will turn to them in vast numbers.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

50. Read "Brave New World" online

Link

[reggie the dog]

60. where are the mdma, sorry, soma fuled orgies going on at?

i must have not been on the invite list.... oh well, their loss....

[boppers]

94. It's called "Molly" now...

At least on the west coast.

It's a chemical mix of E and speed... because by themselves, the two drugs weren't insane enough, they had to make a compound with the properties of both.

[reggie the dog]

97. in chicago molly or mali

is what you call pure, uncut mdma.... hmmm.....at least that is what it was 8 years ago. it is hard to get uncut mdma or mda but you can from time to time... pure mda or mdma is a wonderfully warm and empathetic experience.... why one would need speed to feel warm and happy is beyond me. must be to dance the night away. mdma was always a stay at home drug for me though.

[boppers]

98. It's like asking why folks would mix THC and PCP.

People are funny.

[reggie the dog]

99. thc and pcp !!!

the shit i have seen people do when they tried that mixture, hell pcp alone....i developed a reflex to leave any place where pcp was being consumed after seeing people do it 2 or 3 times.....

[boppers]

100. people are funny. eom

[awoke_in_2003]

85. Thanks...

it is one that will soon be in the library, but this will do for now.

[liberation]

58. Honestly, I think it is almost a combo of both...

... with the caveat that they were both works of fiction (dystopias). So reality obviously has some differences, but sometimes it seems that some people must have read both books as instructions manuals. Ugh,,,,

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

46. Read "1984" online

Link

[mdmc]

47. thanks for the link

peace and low stress..

[Uncle Joe]

48. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, the redcoat.

[katty]

52. ReTHUGlicans & their minions are HOLDING UP all of us

with their endless, anti-humanity, bullcrap HISSYFITS-f*** them and their corporate puppetmasters.

[harun]

53. The primary reason gov't's are so secret is to protect themselves from their citizenry,

not to protect the citizenry.

[the redcoat]

55. Wow, a very interesting thought. +1000 nt

[awoke_in_2003]

86. That is why Jefferson...

had this little passage in the Declaration of Independence:

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

[indimuse]

57. KNR! n/t

[wial]

62. that would make a great bumper sticker

even though a lot of people would read it and believe it.

[YOY]

65. Where are those who would double-plus bad this slur on the double-plus good status quo?

n/t

[newtothegame]

66. None of this is true because the President is a Democrat. So it's all ok. nt

[Kaleko]

67. A fine post. And yet we have the internet to keep information flowing between us

that can defy and undermine and ultimately crush the authoritarian system that depends on widespread ignorance for its survival.

And to those who are fearful of an internet clamp-down in the US: do some research. These days, there is simply no way to shut the internet down completely in all the different nations worldwide. It's too late for that.

[Politicub]

69. Ever hear of net neutrality?

It just came to a head this week. Quelle surprise that Comcast made its move when the bipartisan move is afoot to lock down information.

[Kaleko]

72. Yes, they're trying to chip away at net neutrality, of course.

That doesn't refute the point I made above.

[boppers]

95. Content neutrality is not bandwidth neutrality.

The Comcast/Level 3 argument is not about content, it's about bandwidth.

[colsohlibgal]

73. Oh Yes!

Orwell just had all this happening a little too early although....the ball really started rolling this way big time with Reagan.

We got this far because for too long witless middle class people haven't been bright enough to know they are being played every day of their life so they keep on voting for the people playing them...and all of us, we get the joy of going along for the ride to the corporate state.

[bertman]

74. Scary accurate, redcoat. Scary accurate. Rec. nt

[Goldstein1984]

75. I'm afraid that it's off to Room 101 with you now

[Mosaic]

76. Orwell Quote

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act”

[OnyxCollie]

77. Facecrime

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4125337.html

Aug. 18, 2006, 7:50AM

Airports here will search faces, too
Workers to start scanning travelers' facial expressions; critics fear it will lead to profiling

By ZEKE MINAYA and MICHAEL HEDGES
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

A controversial method of screening airport passengers by observing their behavior and facial expressions will be coming to Houston, local authorities said Thursday. Based on a federal program, local security personnel at George Bush Intercontinental and Hobby airports will be trained to look for a telltale sign in, for example, a traveler's scowl or when a passenger fidgets with luggage.

"A facial tic, the quickening of the pulse in the jugular vein, a change of complexion," are some of the kind of discrete indicators airport staff will be looking for, according to Mark Mancuso, the Houston Airport System's deputy director for public safety and technology.

But critics of the behavorial-based method of screening said it can all too easily become another form of profiling and could result in unconstitutional searches and detention of passengers.
"It will lead to more problems and not any more security," said Randall Kallinen, president of the Houston Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The screening method, pioneered in Israeli airports, is based on a federal program that may already be in place in Houston. The Transportation Security Administration, part of the Department of Homeland Security and the agency responsible for the screeners at airport security checkpoints, began experimenting with behavioral detection teams in December in about 12 airports. Andrea McCauley, a TSA spokeswoman based in Dallas, declined to say whether either of the major airports in Houston was part of the program, called Screening Passengers by Observation Technique, or SPOT.

[awoke_in_2003]

87. holy shit...

I forgot about "facecrime"- but it was one of the points brought up in the book.

[NuclearDem]

78. We have...

always been at war with Afghanistan. We have always been at war with Iraq.

[yowzayowzayowza]

79. Hooey. n/t

[somone]

80. GROPING IS PROTECTION

[awoke_in_2003]

88. that is what...

I keep telling my wife :)

[Greyhound]

96. Orwell, Huxley, and others saw the evolution of this long ago.

We're seeing the culmination, the end game, but it has been moving this way for a long, long time. We had a couple of Roosevelts hold it back, even reverse it briefly, but most never understood what they were fighting and quickly forgot why it was so bad.

Now we get to learn the lesson all over again.

[Glassunion]

104. What the hell are you talking about? Our government is keeping us safe...

I enjoy these wars... They help me be proud of our military and want to buy more and more yellow ribbons. More importantly they keep ME safe.

How bad is it to get dropped off at the airport, have a video taken of me by the Triumph Cameras located throughout the airport. Take my shoes and belt off, to pass them and all of my baggage through a Freedom Machine. Stand in line to get my Patriot Scan and if I'm lucky get my Victory Tickle if I require an "enhanced" Liberty Screening.

Secrets are secret for a reason. If the government was doing something wrong the oversight committees would know about it and tell us.

:sarcasm: