Let's Tea Party like its 1984 (Part One)
The President wants to know if you are fishy....
Perhaps you are a 'rabid right wing extremist' funded by K-Street lobbyists? Perhaps one of the participants in a tea party or a member of an angry mob scene at a local town hall meeting daring to ask a question of your local Congressman or State Senator or Administration official? Have you been bussed into a tea party or town hall meeting lately by large corporate entities such as a major health insurance company?
Anyone who has read George Orwell's 1984 is no doubt having shivers about the latest missive from the White House.jpg)
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“There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”
In Orwell’s day they didn’t have email, twitter, facebook or other such methods of communication. But we are familiar with the Nazi’s tactics of indoctrinating children through a quasi military organization known as the Hitler Youth. Should children overhear discussions that maybe be subversive to the politics of Hilter and the Nazi movement they were encouraged to inform on their parents. This happened to Winston Smith’s neighbors in “1984” and the children were rewarded. In fact, the parents were so indoctrinated they thanked their children for turning them in. Two and two equals five.
"Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it... All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 2
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 2
"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself--anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face...; was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime..."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5
It was not just children in Nazi Germany but neighbor spying on neighbor for various reasons –Patriotism? Loyalty? Fear? Local community organizers (yes, you read that right) were instructed to watch their neighbors for subversive activity and speech and reported to the bureaucrats which led to harsh penalties meted out to those dissenters who were not following the Nazi agenda.
President Obama likes to travel, or so it would seem. He also remarks he is a student of history, the law and the constitution.
So Mr Obama must know that the socialist governments of the Soviet Union, fascist Italy and North Korea as well as Cuba and Yugoslavia not to mention the Peoples Republic of China employed exactly the same citizen informer techniques. It is well documented that citizens in these and other countries including East Germany and Romania were reduced to silence and whispered discussions amongst those they trusted. But who do you trust? Not even your own children?
Of course this could not happen here in America – land of the brave and home of the free not to mention the Second Amendment……..this week, however, we awoke to a White House website announcement that echoes an eerily similar request for citizens to inform on their fellow citizens whether they be parents, workmates, neighbors, spouses, even your children’s teachers; message: please do your civic duty and report to us if you have seen anything fishy.
What this means is that the government of the United States of America is openly, blatantly, arrogantly asking fellow citizens to snitch on each other; to report rumors, the contents of casual conversations, emails and backyard chats over the fence on a Saturday afternoon. The Obama Administration openly decry that they are unable to “keep track” of the communications between ‘it’s’ citizens and are gallantly asking for assistance from informers. Not to mention all forwarded emails contain the electronic address of the sender.
Is this the Hope and Change We Can Believe In? Is this the America you were born in or tried your hardest to become a citizen of? Does a constitutionally elected government tasked with the rights of its citizens ask – no, demand – they inform on friends, family, neighbors and who knows who else?
Comments
I saw a posting a few months ago that suggested soon we will all be either Subjects of the State or Enemies of the State. And here we are. Turning in names of people for things they say in "casual conversation" if they do not agree with the State. I guess Obama only allows certain people to congregate, organize and protest.
It's a shame that we now have to can't voice our 1st Ammendment rights without Big Brother watching our every move.
When my friend told me about this I thought that it was a hoax. How un-American can you get? Our president and congress are amazingly out of touch with what the citizenry want. I have never seen such blatant disrespect for the people's will (or the Constitution, for that matter).
Yeah, corporate power loving Republicans promoting ridiculous demagogy among potential uninformed individuals on purpose with false information in mass email chains about a very important bill in congress is clearly something that "nobody needs to be worried about".
The main topic in both 1984 and animal farm: the idealism and effectiveness of paranoia.
Promoted most effectively by mis-information that the White House Clearly said we need to watch out for.
Six months ago brown shirts (Acorn, SEIU) were unleashed on employees of AIG, cruelly reminiscent of 1938. Now DOJ tells the Black Panthers to go plan more anti-voting programs.
Hitler was a national socialist, Mussolini a socialist; both their positions derived from progressivism (collectivism). Tens of millions died establishing which absolutely brutal governing form would control: the Soviets won. The Russian people long ago gave the czars, then the Party, control of their lives, if they would be fed; nothing else was asked, and the conditions have remained, and worsened. Now we have over 40 czars/apparatchiks of our own.
Per Orwell, "...the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty." (Part 2, Chapter 9, pg. 215).
There are many proposals for health care, important among them a provision to move you to a government plan if yours changes.
Thus, the true end of liberalism: slavery.
Triska says: <probably tongue in cheek> I guess Obama only allows certain people to congregate, organize and protest.
This is so true! Did you read their most recent memo to members of congress? They told them to go to the Unions to get people to the town hall meetings that would be favorable to the bill. The very thing they accused Republicans of doing! And as far as the White house being the only ones who can rebut these "misinformation chains, why can't they do it the old fashioned way? Talking points. Or do they need people to inform on what the opposition is saying so they know how to spin it? There can be no other reason!
We should have gone with Romney!
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