FinnMacCool
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2005
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- South Shore of Long Island.
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Old Eric Arthur Blair was right,just out by about 50 yrs.I haven't read the book,only watched the film with Richard Burton.FinnMacCool said:Has anyone read this book? I was blown away by it. It's such a powerful book from start to finish. It seemed very pessimistic but I understand that this book is almost a warning to us and it is so masterfully and beautifully done and it left me with twice as many questions then answers. such a wonderful book but also a bit frighteneing and a bit sad. So many emotions. So very beautiful. Has anyone else read this wonderful book?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
Heres a link in case you never heard of it:
Oh yeah it also inspired me to get this new signature
Oh I've read the book... And of course, being from Massachusetts, my wonderfully biased teacher made sure to get into how the Patriot Act is Big Brother in our lives. We were indoctrinated with liberal rants by writing papers about this and discussing it in class. Everyone begins looking out for Big Brother at their every move. It was pathetic. America has little to worry about... assuming we retain our soveriegnty and aren't conquered by some other country... we will never have an extensive Big Brother watching us. The Revolutionary spirit, I think, still exists today in our country. I don't think Americans would stand for a Big Brother government... I'm quite confident we would take up arms and revolt. If anyone wants to install a Big Brother... its the liberals who oppose the 2nd Amendment. With the 2nd at every American's disposal, 1984 will never be a reality.
KevinWan said:Oh I've read the book... And of course, being from Massachusetts, my wonderfully biased teacher made sure to get into how the Patriot Act is Big Brother in our lives. We were indoctrinated with liberal rants by writing papers about this and discussing it in class. Everyone begins looking out for Big Brother at their every move. It was pathetic. America has little to worry about... assuming we retain our soveriegnty and aren't conquered by some other country... we will never have an extensive Big Brother watching us. The Revolutionary spirit, I think, still exists today in our country. I don't think Americans would stand for a Big Brother government... I'm quite confident we would take up arms and revolt. If anyone wants to install a Big Brother... its the liberals who oppose the 2nd Amendment. With the 2nd at every American's disposal, 1984 will never be a reality.
He accepted everything. The past was alterable. The past had never been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford were guilty of crimes they were charged with. He had never seen the photograph that disproved their guilt. It had never existed; he had invented it. He remembered remembering contrary things, but those were false memories, products of self-deception. How easy it was! Only surrender, and everything else followed.
FinnMacCool said:Has anyone read this book? I was blown away by it. It's such a powerful book from start to finish. It seemed very pessimistic but I understand that this book is almost a warning to us and it is so masterfully and beautifully done and it left me with twice as many questions then answers. such a wonderful book but also a bit frighteneing and a bit sad. So many emotions. So very beautiful. Has anyone else read this wonderful book?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
Heres a link in case you never heard of it:
Oh yeah it also inspired me to get this new signature
FinnMacCool said:Exactly. Obviously it was too the extreme but, to an extent, he was right. In some way you can draw comparisions to the war with iraq but I'm not going to do that here. But I just found it interesting how nobody cared when they all of the sudden switched from being at war with Eurasia to being at war with EastAsia and for Eurasia being an ally. Apparently, it made no difference to them. Because they are at war with East Asia now. They always are at war with East Asia.
And the slogan was " War is Peace Slavery is Freedom Ignorance is Stength"
but later on I think there was another one that Winstin made it was "War is Peace two plus two make five and God is Power."
Here is one of my favorite parts of the book that I found very interesting and powerful. It doesn't really have spoilers but you might want to read it from start to finish anyways. Here it is:
I also liked the irony of how he called the place where people who were found to have commited a "thoughtcrime" and were tortured and shot the "Ministry of Love".
FinnMacCool said:Exactly. Obviously it was too the extreme but, to an extent, he was right. In some way you can draw comparisions to the war with iraq but I'm not going to do that here. But I just found it interesting how nobody cared when they all of the sudden switched from being at war with Eurasia to being at war with EastAsia and for Eurasia being an ally. Apparently, it made no difference to them. Because they are at war with East Asia now. They always are at war with East Asia.
And the slogan was " War is Peace Slavery is Freedom Ignorance is Stength"
but later on I think there was another one that Winstin made it was "War is Peace two plus two make five and God is Power."
Here is one of my favorite parts of the book that I found very interesting and powerful. It doesn't really have spoilers but you might want to read it from start to finish anyways. Here it is:
I also liked the irony of how he called the place where people who were found to have commited a "thoughtcrime" and were tortured and shot the "Ministry of Love".
FinnMacCool said:One has to wonder though if we still had a "revolutionary spirit" then why can the government control us so? I've never forgotten the reason why my aunt voted for bush. It was because she felt "safe" and how safe are we with him really? Anymore safe then with another president? And meanwhile he feeds us propaganda everyday and controls us through fear by raising the terror alert just as a reminder that we still might get bombed. And with all these nutjob chrisitans and conservatives with their hate mongering. Already there is some widespread prejudice against muslims in general. All I have to do is listen to people talk about "terrorists" and "towel wearers" and you know that they don't care if we nuke the whole middle east tomorrow. Though its true Bush hasn't gotten to the "big brother" level and certainly hasn't gotten to the Nazi Germany level either because he hasn't started killing civillians yet, with all this in mind it is still possible that big brother could exist.
People have really gotten so close. Nazi Germany, Communist China. . .I don't think that you could possibly call any kind of mass manipulation of emotions impossible when you have all these examples and undeniable proof of the way you can control a person through fear.
Of the course the government has a level of control over its people... that is one of the many purposes of government in the first place. However, we live in a democratic, free country. We can be swayed by propaganda, but we have the opportunities to talk out and oppose such propaganda. Propaganda, in many respects, is actually part of the democratic process. If your aunt feels safe, she can vote for Bush. It is true that Ronald Reagan probably made many people feel safe also... he got re-elected. Those were fearful times, in the midst of the Cold War. Now is also a fearful time, but not by the governments making, in many respects. (Although I would agree there is a degree made by the government.) 9/11 was a foreign attack, the government didn't contemplate the attack. The government probably had intelligence that could have diverted the attack, but obviously that failed. However, I HIGLY doubt anyone in the Federal Government intended to just let 9/11 slide by and use it to grab power.
9/11 was a foreign attack, the government didn't contemplate the attack. The government probably had intelligence that could have diverted the attack, but obviously that failed. However, I HIGLY doubt anyone in the Federal Government intended to just let 9/11 slide by and use it to grab power.
And as to the terror alert... I've only heard it be raised a few times, maybe 6 or 7 total. I don't know the exact figures, but it seems like no one really pays attention anyway. Towel Wearers and Arab slurs is simply racism. 1984 demonstrated division more by a class society rather than by race.
FinnMacCool said:That is certainly a possibility. Oceania can definatly be compared to those totalitarian states. However, I do not think that was his aim. My belief is that he was warning all of mankind and he wasn't just attacking a single state. For one, O'brien SPOILERSPOLIERPSPOILER when he was torturing Winstin mentioned them as an example of how close they got but not close enough to achieving their absolute goal which was to practically control all citizens through propaganda and lies.
In addition, Eurasia is Eastern Europe conquered by Russia and Eastasia is japan mongila, china etc. Oceania is the United States and Canada along with Great Britain. The story takes place in London though. Besides that, Orwell, though he criticized communism and rightly so, considered himself a "democratic Socialist".
FinnMacCool said:You make some great points however I think it is quite obvious that Bush actually *tried* to make people afraid so that he could get elected again. It wasn't neccesarily the fact he was making them safe but the fact that he was presenting an image of himself that was not true and he used it to his advantage, which is the same thing that Oceania did to control the dumb masses.
FinnMacCool said:Maybe not to the extent to the dictatorship but I definatly think that he used 9/11 for his political gain and also as a way to push through the PATRIOT act and as a good excuse to go to war.
FinMacCool said:As for communist China, yeah I do think they were at that level. Chairman Mao thought that the masses were idiots but they weren't. He presented himself as a liberal who was going to change things for him but instead he just abused his power and practically abolished freedom of speech. Communist China is a very fascinating subject to me. I find it hard to believe so many people overlook it.
FinnMacCool said:I've never read "Animal Farm" but I disagree that 1984 was a communist government. In my opinion, it is a fascist state that has complete control over its people, more similar to nazi germany then communism.
But, in my opinion, it is also a message to us trying to tell us that we shouldn't just step aside and let people destroy democracy. That is why I oppose the PATRIOT act and why This post is of bad quality. of the direction our country is heading in.
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