Posted on 01/27/2019 10:15:54 PM PST by vannrox
Nineteen Eighty-FourOn a scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner Party, a small lean man with disproportionately long arms and a large bald skull over which a few lank locks straggled, was haranguing the crowd. A little Rumpelstiltskin figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the neck of the microphone with one hand while the other, enormous at the end of a bony arm, clawed the air menacingly above his head. His voice, made metallic by the amplifiers, boomed forth an endless catalogue of atrocities, massacres, deportations, lootings, rapings, torture of prisoners, bombing of civilians, lying propaganda, unjust aggressions, broken treaties. It was almost impossible to listen to him without being first convinced and then maddened. At every few moments the fury of the crowd boiled over and the voice of the speaker was drowned by a wild beast-like roaring that rose uncontrollably from thousands of throats. The most savage yells of all came from the schoolchildren. The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker's hand. He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage ! The agents of Goldstein had been at work ! There was a riotous interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys. But within two or three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed.
by George Orwell
(from chapter 17)
The thing that impressed Winston in looking back was that the speaker had switched from one line to the other actually in midsentence, not only without a pause, but without even breaking the syntax... Oceania was at war with Eastasia : Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. A large part of the political literature of five years was now completely obsolete.
If you came out of high school and college in the 1970s...there was a 10-percent chance that you read ‘1984’ at some point and were aware of the story. Today? I would suggest that less than .5-percent have read the book. You can find journalists with the top networks who will admit that they’ve never read the book.
The other one was "Animal Farm."
bttt
The author’s Twitter account has been suspended for violating the rules.
Recently read it again myself and watched the John Hurt movie. I found the movie failed a bit, concentrating too much on the interrogation as if that was a greater horror than the disordered society rather than just its inevitable end. The book however never fails to feel like something that could quite easily occur given enough gullible people and a perceived need to give over control
I hated both books.
I can appreciate how they were written and the message they contain, but that someone would LIKE that speaks a lot about that individual.
It’s more than a little disturbing how fast these changes are happening and being pushed.
One wonders IF the pendulum will one day swing back the other way. I have no doubt if Hitlery had been elected all of this would have gone into warp speed with little we could do other than be in that civil war we were all looking at before President Trump was elected.
I think the only way that venomous snake was going to stop is if its head had been removed. All the heads of all the snakes (rats).
I read “1984” twice, “Brave New World” several times.
“1984” is much more terrifying.
Ya. It “speaks” that they recognize true intellect.
No none of this is happening. Don’t believe your lying eyes.
It’s just a tinfoil nut-job conspiracy.
Yup. He hurt their feelings!
It is on the banned list in many schools... Was just talking to a friend about this about a year ago and she said she asked her kids teachers what grade they would be reading it in... They said the district (they live in Glendale, Arizona) won’t allow them to assign it to be read and the book is not even in their libraries.
Here is a FREE pdf version of 1984 if anybody is interested...
https://www.planetebook.com/free-ebooks/1984.pdf
Item #7. Conformity re the Pink Pussy Hat Wearers.
They are stupid but if you want to have fun, get one or make a big one and put an “Animal House” saying on it, like they did to Flounder’s Continental. It said in big letters, “EAT ME”!
You’ll get a lot of laughs from our side, but I hope you can run like hell from the Left.
However, if you stage it properly, letting local and friendly TV and videogroups know what you are going to do, as you run from the mob of Pink Pussy Hats, you can say loudly to the world (via TV or video), “I didn’t know Vaginas could run so fast!!”
Let the laughter begin!!
There was a cartoon film made of “Animal Farm”. It is time for people to find it and start playing it for family, friends, parents groups, esp. PTAs, at religious institutions/schools, and at community centers.
Do it for free but make sure that you have widespread publicity, be prepared for the need for more showings, and have some serious security (ex-GI’s, parents, local police and take no shit from the disruptive Left. Have them charged).
Saul Alinsky would like my proposal because he was a big proponent of the use of “ridicule” to expose his capitalist enemies. I’m a big fan of Alinsky’s techniques that work, so let’s use them against the Alinskyites like Hillary, Obamites and Progressives.
bookmark
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Heh.
You’ve got Tim Wise down to a tee!
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