Posted on 09/28/2001 1:36:14 PM PDT by The KG9 Kid
Jacob Levich (jlevich@earthlink.net) is a writer, editor, and activist living in Queens, New York.
"Bush's Orwellian Address"
(Received via email)
Seventeen years later than expected, 1984 has arrived. In his address to Congress Thursday, George Bush effectively declared permanent war -- war without temporal or geographic limits; war without clear goals; war against a vaguely defined and constantly shifting enemy. Today it's Al-Qaida; tomorrow it may be Afghanistan; next year, it could be Iraq or Cuba or Chechnya.
No one who was forced to read 1984 in high school could fail to hear a faint bell tinkling. In George Orwell's dreary classic, the totalitarian state of Oceania is perpetually at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia. Although the enemy changes periodically, the war is permanent; its true purpose is to control dissent and sustain dictatorship by nurturing popular fear and hatred.
The permanent war undergirds every aspect of Big Brother's authoritarian program, excusing censorship, propaganda, secret police, and privation. In other words, it's terribly convenient.
And conveniently terrible. Bush's alarming speech pointed to a shadowy enemy that lurks in more than 60 countries, including the US. He announced a policy of using maximum force against any individuals or nations he designates as our enemies, without color of international law, due process, or democratic debate.
He explicitly warned that much of the war will be conducted in secret. He rejected negotiation as a tool of diplomacy. He announced starkly that any country that doesn't knuckle under to US demands will be regarded as an enemy. He heralded the creation of a powerful new cabinet-level police agency called the "Office of Homeland Security." Orwell couldn't have named it better.
By turns folksy ("Ya know what?") and chillingly bellicose ("Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists"), Bush stepped comfortably into the role of Big Brother, who needs to be loved as well as feared. Meanwhile, his administration acted swiftly to realize the governing principles of Oceania:
WAR IS PEACE. A reckless war that will likely bring about a deadly cycle of retaliation is being sold to us as the means to guarantee our safety. Meanwhile, we've been instructed to accept the permanent war as a fact of daily life. As the inevitable slaughter of innocents unfolds overseas, we are to "live our lives and hug our children."
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. "Freedom itself is under attack," Bush said, and he's right. Americans are about to lose many of their most cherished liberties in a frenzy of paranoid legislation. The government proposes to tap our phones, read our email and seize our credit card records without court order. It seeks authority to detain and deport immigrants without cause or trial. It proposes to use foreign agents to spy on American citizens. To save freedom, the warmongers intend to destroy it.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. America's "new war" against terrorism will be fought with unprecedented secrecy, including heavy press restrictions not seen for years, the Pentagon has advised. Meanwhile, the sorry history of American imperialism -- collaboration with terrorists, bloody proxy wars against civilians, forcible replacement of democratic governments with corrupt dictatorships -- is strictly off-limits to mainstream media. Lest it weaken our resolve, we are not to be allowed to understand the reasons underlying the horrifying crimes of September 11.
The defining speech of Bush's presidency points toward an Orwellian future of endless war, expedient lies, and ubiquitous social control. But unlike 1984's doomed protagonist, we've still got plenty of space to maneuver and plenty of ways to resist.
It's time to speak and to act. It falls on us now to take to the streets, bearing a clear message for the warmongers: We don't love Big Brother.
Also, this world WILL end, one day. That's a fact of science, which makes you wonder why atheists ever get into arguments, or care about anyone else, for that matter.
Ah...but hindsight is 20/20...
They understood that, ultimately, each of us is -- or should be -- RESPONSIBLE for our own safety.
Our founding documents GUARANTEE us "...LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..." and charges government to defend the nation at the COLLECTIVE or corporate level. The US military is engaged in that perfectly legitimate function as you read this.
Notice the order there? Without LIFE , the rest is meaningless. The 7,000 dead men, women and babies (my God – the babies!) are finished with the other two.
If GOVERNMENT somehow prevents us from performing the task of self-preservation, it's time to instruct government to GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY.
Perhaps if US law-enforcement types had been out keeping a closer eye on clearly identified possible terrorist madmen – instead of jailing close to 800,000 peaceful weed smokers last year – Terrible Tuesday could have been prevented. I don’t smoke but it’s just a thought.
Either it's OUR government or it's someone else's government.
If it IS someone else's government (and my bet is that it now belongs to the aparachiks or bureaucrats), we'd better get about the business of finding out to whom it DOES belong – and getting it back.
Insanity is defined as “Doing the same thing over and over while expecting a DIFFERENT RESULT.”
And, to paraphrase the ancient Greeks, “Whom God would destroy, he first makes insane.”
Isn’t it time to STOP THE BUREAUCRATIC INSANITY?
I realize that expressions such as this put me at some risk under Voltaire’s warning that “IT’S DANGEROUS TO BE RIGHT WHEN THE STATE IS WRONG.” My SEETHING ANGER at the INSANITY that allowed the slaughter of 7,000 of us like helpless cattle has overwhelmed my better judgment.
And I continue to wonder how many of the anti-gun passengers of the 266 aboard those doomed aircraft PRAYED that someone OTHER than their killers had a BIGGER, BADDER WEAPON.
Tragically, no one did!
War without temporal or geographic limits? Considering that we have always been at war with terrorists wherever they might be, it's about time that we publicly declared our intention to wage it without quarter.
War without clear goals? Pure ignorance. We have a clear goals. Find terrorists, eliminate them, including any government which aids them. I think that is pretty clear. While methods may not be clear to us, they do not need to be laid out for all (including terrorists) to see, nor should they.
vaguely defined and constantly shifting enemy? All modern wars are against a constantly shifting enemy or they are short wars indeed. Tactics change or you die. As far as vaguely defined, I assume this author wants us to post pictures of all known and suspected terrorists. We don't want them running into their hidey-holes just yet.
Our real threat is not Osama bin Laden and his minions; it is our own government, which will use the cover of war to construct the framework for a tyrannical police state.
Until this country alters its interventionist and arrogant foreign policy, we will continue to be the target of terrorist attacks. This administration's "perpetual war for perpetual peace" will merely bring more waves of terrorism to our shores.
Should we punish Osama bin Laden and his fellow perpetrators of the recent terrorist attacks? Of course. Should we embark on a global jihad against terrorism in all the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. Of course not. Such a course will merely unite the Muslim world in a holy war against the United States. That's exactly what Osama bin Laden is counting on.
The best way to prevent terrorism is to refrain from poking our nose into the domestic affairs of other countries, expecially centuries-old religious wars. What happens in Iraq, North Korea, Israel, Bosnia, Turkey, Serbia, Colombia and a hundred other places is none of our business. It's time to bring our troops home (after finding and punishing the terrorists responsible for the recent massacre), sever our ties to NATO, and kick the United Nations out of this country.
We cannot remake the world in our own image. We can only lead by example.
Yes, wait until then. Great idea! And don't let the fact that by then it would be too late to prevent give you pause.
While I don't completely agree w/ this author, he does bring up good points. And I do agree that NOW , even more, is the time to keep your eyes open and stay alert. Terrorists are not the only enemies to our freedoms. Please, don't forget that.
Tony Blair yesterday turned his battle against the terrorists who ravaged New York into a far wider struggle for a new world order that would uphold human dignity and social justice "from the slums of Gaza to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan".
In what was almost certainly the most powerful speech of his career, the prime minister used his speech to the Labour conference to synthesise an uncompromising hostility to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network - and the Taliban if they do not give him up - with a vaunting promise to remake the world as a better place.
The sweep and moral fervour of the 54-minute address caught friend and foe off guard. There were no party political jibes and barely a triumphalist mention of Labour's historic June 7 election victory. The Conservatives damned the performance with faint praise.
Evidently sensitive to charges that he was sounding too confrontational, Mr Blair acknowledged that many people are fearful of what lies ahead - and sought to reassure voters whose unwavering support is vital to a long campaign.
"Our way of life is a great deal stronger and will last a greal deal longer than the actions of fanatics, small in number and now facing a unified world against them. People should have confidence. This is a battle with only one outcome: our victory, not theirs," he insisted.
Admitting his own helplessness in the face of so much bereavement on September 11, Mr Blair had earlier said of the dead: "They don't want revenge, they want something better in memory of their loved ones. I believe their memorial can and should be that out of the shadow of this evil should emerge lasting good."
The speech, which was, unusually, drafted by Mr Blair himself, also reflected his private moral preoccupations to an unusual degree. But before a largely secular audience it was repeatedly punctuated with bursts of applause in the packed but sombre Brighton conference centre, where the foreshortened 2001 conference ends today.
As the prime minister sat down he was praised for his vision and tone by friends and critics alike within Labour's ranks, though delegates may come down to earth with a jolt when they size up to the challenges he posed in the name of "the power of community" - local and global - to do good.
"He didn't deal with the whats and hows, but he certainly explained the why," said one former cabinet member. Some leftwingers and trade unionists, irked by the address's religiosity, called it "messianic" and lacking commitment to the means of righting the world's wrongs.
They were a minority. "Brilliant," said a senior colleague after hearing his party leader - famous for his regard for business tycoons - declare: "The starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant, they are our cause too."
Throughout the day's debates senior ministers, including Jack Straw, Geoff Hoon and Clare Short, had stressed the importance of adhering to international law in the search for justice - a point echoed by the veteran Tony Benn in an emotional warning against the "sorrows of war".
An end to famine, poverty and corruption in Africa, as well as genocidal conflicts such as Rwanda's, were only part of an agenda that foresaw the world tackling such intractable problems as global warming and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - an "equal partnership" side by side in their own lands.
Though the back half of Mr Blair's text addressed the domestic agenda - the need to put improved public services before tax cuts - he repeatedly went out of his way to reconcile Islam with the west, above all with America.
For all its flaws the US, where a black child of poverty such as Colin Powell could rise to be secretary of state ("I wonder frankly whether such a thing could have happened here") was still a model to the world, he argued.
Nor had America lashed out, as some had predicted: "no missiles on the first night just for effect". When military strikes came they would be "proportionate, targeted - we will do all we humanly can to avoid civilian casualties".
While the west must address its shameful ignorance of Islam, he later suggested, "it is time also for parts of Islam to confront prejudice against America" - not only Islam, but "parts of western societies too". That was loudly applauded in a conference where such sentiments have long existed.
But Mr Blair's conciliatory and idealistic tone was not extended to the enemy of the moment, whose version of Islam was "no more obedient to the proper teachings of the Koran" than the crusaders of the Middle Ages had exemplified the gospel message, he said.
"Be in no doubt Bin Laden and his people organised this atrocity," Mr Blair insisted. He offered no evidence, although he did suggest that terrorism finances itself through Afghan heroin sold on the streets of Britain.
His contempt for the Taliban and their denial of human rights, especially for women, was stinging. But he did not say, as Labour briefers had indicated overnight, that it was already too late to avoid military retribution.
"I say to the Taliban: surrender the terrorist or surrender power. It's your choice."
Mr Blair's pledge to defeat the "act of evil" that destroyed the World Trade Centre - "if they could have murdered not 7,000 but 70,000 does anyone doubt they would have done so and rejoiced?" - was only the trailer to a declaration that globalisation made cooperation between nations and cultures imperative.
"This is a moment to seize," he said. "The kaleidoscope has been shaken, the pieces are in flux, soon they will settle again. Before they do let us reorder this world around us and use modern science to provide prosperity for all.
"Science can't make that choice for us, only the moral power of a world acting as a community can."
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