12 years old and still relevant. Maybe more so today that in 2000 when it was written...
A lot of water has gone under the bridge since that was written.
Right now, the Federal Government is funding hardened security facilities all over the Country. They are preparing to deploy observation drones over America. These drones are capable of more than mere observation. New York City is instituting a camera observation system to survey civilians. They have a stop and frisk program which allows the police to search any citizen going about their legitimate daily business.
Additionally we hear of more and more high tech weaponry being invented out of all proportion to kind of threats Islamic terrorists pose - for use against WHOM?
They won't have to pry those guns from your cold dead fingers.
They will have the ability to deploy clouds of gases which make you so nauseous you will be incapable of functioning, or high pitch sounds that will cause such pain you won't be able to respond, or adhesive materials which will totally disable you. “Safe” handguns controlled by a computer chip? These too can be disabled from a distance with the proper equipment.
The increasing militarization of our law enforcement establishment is going on unabated. Police being trained in paramilitary courses at civilian run police academies all over the country. A mindset of “them” Varese's “us” does in fact create a class of “New Centurions”.
When you reflect upon the fact that NO ONE in the current administration is targeting Muslims as terrorists - NOR HAD ITS PREDECESSOR ADMINISTRATION, but has no problem identifying conservative political groups as objects of attention, is MORE than enough cause for alarm.
This is what George Bush's mindless War on Terror has come to in the hands of an extra-constitutional Marxist. And even if Obama IS defeated, will ANY of his successors have the Courage to DISMANTLE the Military/law enforcement complex we have allowed to grow in our midst? Will not ANOTHER Obama come along in the near future? Even if we DO win THIS TIME, it will be a close thing.
At the fall of the Roman Republic, history witnessed a change in the military thinking of the average Roman soldier. Instead of looking to the State for leadership, he increasingly turned to military strongmen. At the same time these military strongmen began recruiting non-citizens into the legions, people to whom the entire civilian structure of Roman government was an alien concept to which they owed no allegiance.
We are witnessing much the same thing today. The Obama Administration, with his Dream Act, is throwing open the ranks of the American military to more and more foreigners whose loyalty will be to him alone and not the American Constitution.
Never before has America and the progressive evolution of western culture and civilization been in such dire peril.
REAL Freedom, from an historical viewpoint, is such a FRAGILE and EPHEMERAL thing.
And, if 1984 becomes a reality here in America, we will have no one to blame but ourselves for our lethargy and apathy and failure to foresee those consequences of our indolence.