United States Of America Is Turning Into An Orwellian Dystopia

Pasadena Weekly
Posted: 2007-10-25 19:50:07

George Orwell was born in 1903 and died in 1950 after a long struggle with tuberculosis. Early in life he learned to be suspicious of authority and to hate empire while developing a compassion for the poor. In 1936 he joined the Spanish Civil War, like thousands of volunteers who joined the Lincoln Brigade to fight on the side of the republic against fascist Gen. Francisco Franco and his Falange Party. More than half of the volunteers died in battle. Orwell was injured and nearly died.

Orwell rejected all forms of totalitarianism and dogma. He remained a lifelong democratic socialist with a passion for justice who detested both Stalin and Hitler. He advised writers to avoid euphemisms, metaphors and similes. Avoid long words and long sentences, he would say; try to communicate, not to confuse. He distrusted political speech, which he felt was too often propaganda speech, the spinning of ideas to fit a special agenda such as winning an election or gaining the people's support for going to war.

Politicians often choose their language in an attempt to conceal reality. Their speeches are murky and often meaningless and absurd, but the obscurity is intentional.

Take, for example, "collateral damage" - code for "killing innocent civilians." The phrase was coined by the Pentagon during the Gulf War in 1991. But it applies to the two deadly atomic bombs - cutely named "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" - that the United States dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945, killing hundreds of thousands of men, women and children.

Or consider "Department of Defense," once called the "War Department" - a much more honest description. "Downsizing" means firing people. "Compassionate conservative" has always been an oxymoron.

Bush is busy "spreading democracy" while we are rapidly losing ours. Freedom is a vague concept that is being overused in political speech. We tend to accept it in the abstract, but not when it comes to specific examples.

Political propaganda speech has always been with us, especially during wars, but George W. Bush has carried these deceptions and absurdities to new heights. The increase in our troops in Iraq became a "surge"; it sounds more dramatic, more hopeful, more like a new strategy. Illegal immigrants became "undocumented immigrants," which sounds more legal. According to Bush, an increase in terrorism proves that they are desperate and we are winning. "You are either with us or you are with the terrorists," he warned - nothing in between. The "PATRIOT Act" is an un-American and unconstitutional document and a tyrant's dream.

We have arrested thousands of Iraqis in their own land, but they are not considered "prisoners," granted certain rights by the Geneva Convention. They are "detainees."

And what about the battle cry that we must "support our troops"? Is there any better way to support our troops than to get them out of harm's way in a war that cannot be won, and to bring them home alive and not maimed or in a coffin?

In July 2004, in a speech in Oak Ridge referring to the Iraq War, Bush explained, "And so I had a choice to make: Either take the word of a madman or defend America."

One of the latest Bush absurdities and contradictions is "We will only withdraw from a position of strength and success." "Cut and run" would be closer to the truth.

Toward the end of George Orwell's life he finally tasted success with the publication of his two most famous works, "Animal Farm" and "1984." Certain concepts became part of Orwell's legacy. "Doublethink" means to hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time. Consider as examples: "Work makes you free." Nuclear missiles dubbed "peace missiles." Political leaders insisting we could only save Vietnam by destroying it.

The Ministry of Truth, an invention of Orwell's in "1984," illustrates the well-known fact that "Truth is the first casualty of war." Propaganda abounds during war.

"Big Brother is watching you" has become a frightening reality in our lives as our privacy is under daily assault. Security cameras are everywhere, hidden cameras take our picture when we run a red light and our government wants to know what books we buy and what books we read. Sneak-and-peek warrants allow FBI spies to break into our homes without our knowledge. Spying on Americans is at an all-time high. It is all done in the name of "national security."

Orwell's nightmare was a television set that could not be turned down or off. It seems his vision was more prophecy than fiction, even more relevant today than it was during his own time.