(
Cross-posted at My Left Wing)
"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed--if all records told the same tale--then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"
It's been a few years since last I read George Orwell's 1984. It's one of my favorite books for its insights, human and political; not to mention the heartbreaking story of the lead character; Winston Smith. I really feel his pain. How sad is it to yearn for meaningful opposition against Autocracy, only to find the rebel alliance is a Big Brother holding company.
A few of the concepts in Orwellian society are so universally accepted today they are taken for granted. Political New-Speak or doublethink is one of them: War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery. Clear Cutting Old Growth Timber is a Healthy Forest (Initiative) and Pollution Production is the Clean Air (Act.) Another Orwellian reality is the Big Brother of privacy invasion; monolithic monitoring of people's lives, thoughts and implementation of the Big Lie.
You're pissed off President Bush has thrown the Constitution into the toilet so he can spy on you without telling anyone? Piffle. George Bush didn't invent totalitarianism; he just happens to agree with it. He is a patrician pretending to be cowboy, so why the hell wouldn't he defend dictatorship? What did George Bush say when Feingold called him a president, not a king? "Talk to the hand."
But there are a couple other concepts of Orwellian society, occupied by the Winston Smith in all of us worthy of more critical consideration, caution and concern -
The first is: perpetual war against an ever-changing enemy. The people of Orwellian society are fed a constant diet of conflict and threat. Orwellian society operates on a fear-based economy. In case you haven't noticed, human civilization is kept in a constant state of war or perpetually faces an ongoing threat of war, in between wars. The Cold War was diabolical genius. Duh! A war culture does not make for a free society, but a hierarchical one. The military model does not engender the questioning of authority, but the following of orders.
But for this war society to flourish; to successfully enslave the people into servitude of Authority; citizens must have a sense of National Pride. A nation is a narrative of family. If the nation is threatened, the family is endangered. Winston Smith was a citizen of Oceania which was in constant battle with either Eurasia or Eastasia, depending upon a formula only Big Brother and the other dictators knew. Back in the day it was perpetual war between England, France and Spain. Before that it was the conquering empires of Greece, Rome and the Church. The Bible is a litany of tribal nations, each defined by a tribal "god" at constant conflict with one another.
"The citizen of Oceania is not allowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies, but he is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon morality and common sense. Actually, the three philosophies are barely distinguishable.
Now me, as an average tribesman of little birthright, I'm more inclined to chase skirts than court war. As Idol Worship personified, Michael Jackson Himself said, `I'm a lover not a fighter.' Most people I know would rather practice wine, women and song than blood, sweat and tears. (You know I just realized `sex, drugs and rock n' roll' was more politically correct than `wine, women and song'. Oh, never mind.)
The point is, man is led into war, usually kicking and screaming rather than running after it like some spicy poontang. War is an illusion. It is the image of the beast. Wars are created out of whole cloth and sold like silk at a bazaar of the gullible, usually called the faithful. The narrative of national pride is raised like the cross of Constantine and the boys of a generation bend over and have their courage stuck to the screwing place. The enemy is another race, god or way of life. The enemy is another language, eye color or exposed ankle. The enemy depends upon you; you're national and family pride.
As Americans, conveniently, our enemies tend to be `haters of freedom.' The enemy hates our way of life. Whether its Commies, Nazis or Terrorists; they all want to destroy our freedom; our way of life. Never mind our Freedom is subservient to Law and there are millions of laws on the books curbing our freedom. Never mind that millions of Americans would gladly trade their way of life for a modicum of shelter, food and safety. You've got to look at the big picture.
Americans are taught if they are not careful their freedom can be taken away. Freedom is something we fought for and fight to keep. But what Freedoms are we fighting for in the world against the freedom hating, evildoing, uh, extremist, haters of...freedom.
War is nothing but a management tool. Manipulation of the narrative controls the people's perception of their collective storyline. Jimmy Carter was mired in malaise and Ronald Reagan was the eternal optimist. Post 60s, Vietnam, Watergate and Nixon the people were tired of the constant cultural upheaval and conflict. America's self-esteem was in the dumps. We didn't have the stomach for war, scandal or controversy. America went polyester and disco. America went Whip Inflation Now and Happy Days. Ford was always falling down and Carter was chased by bunny rabbit. America was clumsy and scared.
And then, the same planners who run the show now, sold America the first compassionate conservative: Ronald Reagan. They wrapped him in the flag and had him reignite the Cold War with an orgy of missile building. Reagan was draped in red, white and blue and crusaded against the red menace and the bureaucratic red tape that held corporations in check as responsible citizens. Reagan cut taxes, increased spending, deregulated business and unleashed the military industrial complex. He trashed the economy and committed atrocity. His big smile masked the big lie of Freedom, while "national interest," "national security" and a New Day in America plundered the freedom loving aspirations (and resources) of Central and South America.
The evil, communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua, who freed the people from decades of America's banana republic, tin-horn dictatorship were the 1980s version of Cuban communists. Danny Ortega was the yuppie Fidel Castro. Soviet missiles were headed to Managua and from there to the Homeland.
And today? The transparency and zealotry with which George Bush pursues the Orwellian doctrine makes Big Brother look like Pee Wee Herman.
War is the enemy; the enemy is the excuse.
War proves the axiom `there is a sucker born every minute,' because war means the people have been fooled again.
Another Orwellian concept front and center in 1984 is the use of torture. Whenever a rebel or subversive surfaced in Oceania, the misguided miscreant was given, what do they call it in China; reeducation. How elegant is that? Frankly, considering what I remember from school, I could stand a little reeducation myself. In 1984 this meant Big Brother discovering the miscreant's greatest fear in the world and using it to torture him or her into mindless submission to the State.
"a mixture of psychologist and inquisitor, studying with extraordinary minuteness the meaning of facial expressions, gestures and tones of voice, and testing the truth-producing effects of drugs, shock therapy, hypnosis, and physical torture."
As I recall, what Winston Smith feared most was a rat. I suppose for me, it would be a fear of intimacy; so I guess I'd be forced to have lots of sex with politically correct vegan feminists on a meditation retreat in Vermont. So, choose your fear wisely.
Anyway, this explains the patriotic zeal expressed by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others over their defense of torture. I mean, American torture is not like what they do over in Saudi Arabia everyday for the crime of stealing a pomegranate. Come on folks give a little; to some people intimidation, humiliation, bondage, pain and sexual degradation are fetishes. I'm getting hot just thinking about it. Hmm, maybe I have a future as a contractor for Blackwater USA.
Well this section isn't going like I thought it would. How can I make fun of torture for criminy cripes? Torture is only funny until it happens to you. I mean, we've got secret prisons, secret renditions, suspects held without legal recourse or international oversight. The name George Bush has become synonymous with the gulag, the concentration camp and the killing fields. The crimes committed in the name of freedom are egregious and shameful. The lives ruined; spirits shattered and souls damned are biblical in proportion and evil in fact.
In the course of my lifetime America has gone from the frontier hero in a white hat to Freddy Kruger with razor claws. When I was a kid, I remember America stood for freedom and Russia stood for slavery. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness meant something. And now I know that throughout the world billions of people look upon the USA as I looked upon the USSR.
It's important to note in 1984 Orwell did not have a model of good government. All three competing empires were totalitarian. Orwell did not hold out America as a shining light of hope. Orwell knew how the world really works. It has always been the rule of the elite aristocratic few over the beast-of-burden masses.
And maybe that's why to Bush and Company torture is no big deal. Their entitlement to rule, their birthright of money and power persuades them they are different than their alleged brothers and sisters. Some even believe their blood is somehow superior to their fellow man. It's the Barbara Bush syndrome. There are two kinds of people. Those who have and those who don't deserve to have. Slaves and masters are different.
Enemies are different. They are nips, chinks, krauts, gooks, ragheads and liberals. In a world of us and them, they are not us. If we are human, they are something else; savage, animal, heathen, barbarian, evil or gay. It may be torture, but it doesn't mean it's wrong.
And, frankly, the idea of Rumsfeld on a rack does my heart good. The image of a naked Cheney, standing on a three-legged stool, blindfolded, waiting for a bucket of shit to be thrown on him, warms the cockles of my holiday heart. The figure of George Bush cleaning an entire latrine with his tongue lets me believe in a higher power.
The point of this piece is to suggest we have a long way to go to escape the clutches of the Georges Orwell and Bush. Our problems are not tactical, but strategic. It is not the war in Iraq that is the problem, but war itself. It is not the use of torture that is the problem, but that some see no problem with torture. It is not our enemy who threatens us but the ritualistic dehumanization of those whom we are ordered to fight against that is the tragedy.
Our problems are much bigger than Bush and Cheney. Our challenges are Orwellian in nature and scope. In a very real sense the USA has become the USSA. As a people, we know we have not changed. But the perception of us from around the world has changed. We are seen as the bully and the bogeyman. We have become the major threat to peace and the obstacle to justice in the world. We obstruct progress and refuse to cooperate with the aspirations of the world of nations. America imprisons without impunity and tortures with self-righteous indignation. America has become the evil empire.
I guess there's nothing to do but be aware, and in the spirit of Orwell realize that this too shall pass. One day hopefully, we'll be the good guys again, like we know we are. America is the good guy. I believe it with my heart and soul.
But in the meantime?
"It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same--everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another's existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same--people who had never learned to think but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world."