George - First, kick Mr. Bush out. And then get your act together. Force campaign finance reforms. Take the lobby money out of the election process. Allow corporations to match employee donations, but not to donate money directly. Put an independent in the White House. Do it before you and your friends end up at some Concentration Camp.
By Mat Whitecross
One of the less noted aspects of the Bush Administration's 'War on Terror' is the government's simultaneous War on Language, a calculated use of Orwellian double speak. Post 9-11, the invasion of other countries became a 'preemptive strike', the capture and torture of civilians 'extraordinary rendition'. A sign on the front of the US prison in Guantanamo Bay reads 'Honor Bound to Defend Freedom'. Small comfort to the 460 'unlawful combatants' who after four years still languish inside, without any access to basic human rights.
A particularly shocking example of this phenomenon is the Department of Defense's attitude toward suicide attempts by Guantanamo's detainees. Officially, 41 attempts have been admitted by the US government to date. Speak to any of the prisoners who have been released, and they will tell you the figure is laughably low. The reason for this discrepancy? No doubt aware of the adverse publicity the facility was receiving in the media, those running the prison decided to re-label suicide attempts as 'manipulative self-injurious behaviour' or 'SIBs', to euphemise still further. After reclassification, predictably the rate of attempted suicides plummeted overnight. Nevertheless, the British journalist David Rose has written that in the six months after the new terminology came into practice, there were forty reported SIBs, almost two a week.
For our film, The Road to Guantanamo, Michael Winterbottom and I interviewed the Tipton Three, young British men who had been detained by the US in Guantanamo for over two years. The eldest, Shafiq Rasul, paints a very different picture of suicide attempts in the prison. 'People tried to kill themselves all the time,' he told us. 'I thought about suicide when I was there. You can't talk to anyone back home, not even your family. You don't know if you'll ever be released, or if you'll be executed. Eventually you just lose hope.'
This weekend, three prisoners, two Saudis and a Yemeni, finally succeeded where so many before had failed, and took their own lives. Without access to family or lawyers, after over four years in US custody, they knotted bedsheets together and hung themselves from the grills above their cells.
Shafiq met the Saudis while being held by Northern Alliance fighters in Afghanistan. Later, he saw them again while detained in Guantanamo. He says, 'They were just like us: normal people. Who knows, if we were still there, maybe it could have been us. My only surprise is it hasn't happened before.'
Spokesmen for the US have since called the deaths 'a good PR move' by the prisoners, and 'an act of assymetrical warfare'. The War on Language continues.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2071642&page=2
An Interview With Orwell
By Hsing Lee
22 January 2003
Text - The dictionaries and definitions you are about to see are real. They have not been altered in any way. The issues addressed in this film are also real. The question is, what are you going to do about it?
INTERIOR LIBRARY
Me - (sits down with pen and paper at a table with some books. a Cambridge American English Dictionary, a Cambridge International English Dictionary, a mock copy of 1984, and a copy of Emma Goldman's Anarchism and Other Essays.)
Me - What a waste of time. English class. What's the point? I took this stupid class for twelve years. Now I gotta PAY for school, and they STILL make me take English? It's like I don't know enough English by now.
EXTERIOR LIBRARY
In first person POV, we swoop from outside through the doors, down the hallway, and into the library. We see Me sitting at the table, and then swoop at the copy of 1984, crashing into the cover.
INTERIOR LIBRARY
George - I beg to differ.
Me - What? (looks around)
George - Over here.
Me - (looks down at the mock 1984 cover) Whoa.
George - As I was saying, I beg to differ. I speak English. You speak American.
Me (is stunned)
George - George Orwell here, at your service
Me - But you're dead!
George - Obviously. But there's no need to be rude about it. I'm here, and that's what matters.
Me - You're George Orwell?
George - Didn't I just say that?
Me: This is too weird. I must be dreaming. I read some books you wrote when I was in high school, 1984 and Animal Farm.
George - I may have written them too well. They've stopped teaching them in a lot of places. That's why I'm here. You need to wake people up, because bad things are happening. Horrific things. Things that happened in my time, and must never happen again. You've already seen the beginnings of it, with Enron and Worldcom.
Me - What do you mean?
George - Do you remember what Newspeak is? From my book?
Me - I think so.
George - In my book 1984, Big Brother conceived of a truly insidious method of control. He was in the business of cutting vocabulary to the bone. Eliminating all the words they considered obsolete; nouns, verbs, adjectives, all kinds of words. They invented a lot of new words, and phrases as well.
Me - Kind of like Compassionate Conservatism?
George - EXACTLY like compassionate conservatism, although I would probably have shortened it to Vampirism. But that's beside the point. When you take words out of the vocabulary, when you change the meanings of words, and make some words synonymous with others when those words are supposed to have two different meanings, it gets very difficult for people to think about things like Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Take the word Revolution for example. How could there be a revolution if you take away the word itself? How is the thought of revolution to form in the minds of people who've never conceptualized such a thing?
Me - I think I see your point, but it's not like they can remove the word revolution from the dictionary...
George - They don't have to. For there to be revolution, there must be an ideology behind it. All you have to do is remove the ability to properly shape and define a subversive ideology from the language. No new ideology, no revolution.
Me - (puzzled) But you mentioned Enron and WorldCom. How do things like Enron and WorldCom happen, and how do they relate to Newspeak? Isn't it greed that makes things like Enron happen?
George - Yes, in part.
Me - Why only in part?
George - Because it's actually the American Way. You see, Big Brother and the media have done some very interesting things with the English language. When I came up with the concept of the Newspeak Dictionary, I never imagined they'd actually have the audacity to PUBLISH one until they purged all the other dictionaries. I suspect the reason behind it is, the government is so confident of its control; they no longer care if people point out that Americans no longer speaks English.
Me - We DO speak English!
George - Again, I beg to differ. Let's examine the fundamental principle behind the economy of the United States. Capitalism. In the English language, capitalism means one thing, but in American Newspeak, it means something else entirely. You see those dictionaries? Open them up to Capitalism.
Me - (opens the International dictionary to Capitalism)
George - In the Cambridge International Dictionary of English, Capitalism is defined as an economic, political and social system based on private ownership of property, business and industry, and directed towards making the greatest possible profits for successful organizations and people. Now look at the other one.
Me - (opens the American dictionary to Capitalism) In the Cambridge Dictionary of American English, the Newspeak version, Capitalism is defined as an economic system based on private ownership of property and business, with the goal of making the greatest possible profits for the owners.
Me - Wow.
George - Amazing isn't it? You see the problem. In the rest of the world, capitalism means private ownership where success is financially rewarded. Using America's Newspeak Dictionary, capitalism means private ownership where the OWNERS, and not the company or the employees are the ones entitled to capital, regardless of how badly the business does. Success doesn't even come into play. In America, the owners are entitled to the greatest possible profits, period.
Me - You weren't kidding about this Newspeak stuff.
George - No, I wasn't kidding. And it's not funny. Look at some more examples. Look up Nationalism.
Me - (opens the International dictionary to Nationalism)
George - Nationalism, as defined in English from the same International Cambridge Dictionary, is the desire for and the attempt to achieve political independence for your country or nation. Nationalism is also a great or too great love of your own country.
Me - (opens the American dictionary to Nationalism)
George - In the American Newspeak dictionary, Nationalism is the feelings of affection, loyalty, and pride that people have for their country. Nationalism is also the desire for political independence in a country that is controlled by or part of another country. Gone is the talk of 'too great a love' of one's country. The American description of Nationalism is similar to what we in my day knew as Patriotism.
Now take a look at Communism.
Me - (opens the International dictionary to Communism)
George - The English definition is the belief in a classless society in which the methods of production are owned and controlled by all its members and everyone works as much as they can and receives what they need. Now check the American version.
Me - (opens the American dictionary to Communism)
George - Americans define Communism as an economic system based on public ownership of property and control of the methods of production, and in which no person profits from the work of others. No mention of classless society, or each working as they can and receiving according to their needs. The English definition is based on Marx's description of Communism, as it should be. The American version is not.
Me - That seems like a fairly minor change. I don't see this as being as bad as the others.
George - That's because I'm not finished yet. Look at how both dictionaries define Socialism.
Me - (opens the International to Socialism)
George - Any economic or political system based on government ownership and control of important businesses and methods of production.
Me - (opens the American to Socialism...looks back and forth)
Me - They're the same! And they sound a lot like the American English definition of Communism...
George - Yes, they do, don't they? You see, for our world to function properly requires clear communication. When two people have two different meanings for the same word, we have a communication breakdown. Neither one is clear what the other is talking about. So now, to many Americans, Communism is synonymous with Socialism.
Me - But why would they do this?
George: There are three reasons. First, there's confusion. The more confused the masses are, the harder it is for them to form organized opposition to tyranny. The majority of people schooled in the United States quite literally can't read. They can read, but they're unable to comprehend what they're reading, because they don't have the same vocabulary as other people. It's all mixed up. It's also done for purposes of isolation. By making these changes, the Government isolates Americans from the rest of the world, because what the average American sees as Patriotism, others see as Nationalism. That's why in Newspeak, Nationalism is the feelings of affection, loyalty, and pride that people have for their country. By taking out the 'too great a love' from the definition, it's no longer understood that nationalism can be a bad thing.
Me - I never thought of it that way before.
George - They're trying to move the definition of Nationalism as close to the definition of Patriotism as possible. Eventually, the words will become synonymous. For many Americans, they're already synonymous. Many people are incapable of distinguishing between Patriotism and blind Nationalism.
Me - You're right. I've seen it happening since September 11.
George - Quite. What a tragic waste of life. I can only hope you'll learn from it. I'm here to see that it doesn't happen again. The third reason why Newspeak is done is for simplicity's sake. Propaganda, as Hitler taught us, must be kept simple. It must cater to the lowest common denominator. We know that America hates Communism. So by painting Democratic Socialists with the same brush as Communists in the Newspeak dictionary, we demonize the Socialists before they get a chance to speak for themselves.
Me - I see your point. But it doesn't exactly explain Enron, does it?
George - No, but there's something else that you should look up. Look in the Cambridge International English Dictionary under Profiteer.
Me - (opens the International dictionary to profiteer)
Me - OK just a sec...here it is...profiteer - noun, DISAPPROVING. A profiteer is a person who takes advantage unfairly of a situation in which other people are suffering to make a profit, often by selling at an unusually high price goods which are difficult to obtain. a war profiteer. George - Now look up Profiteer in the Cambridge American Dictionary.
Me - (searches American dictionary for Profiteer)
Me - OK. hmm...profit...profitable...profitability...profitably...profits. HEY! Wait a minute! There's NO LISTING in the American dictionary for Profiteer!
George - (Sighs) You realize you people should be paying me royalties for this.
Me - This is crazy.
George - No, it's fascist, not crazy.
Me - No wonder Enron and Worldcom did what they did. According to the American dictionary, they're actually entitled to act in like this aren't they?
George - Precisely. In their eyes they did nothing wrong, because what they did is in fact the very definition of Capitalism, according to the American Newspeak Dictionary.
Me - No WONDER everyone looks confused when Bush talks. His mouth opens, words come out, and everyone walks away thinking he said something different.
George - EXACTLY. Now you're getting the idea. Language can be used in different ways to influence everything from comprehension to the very fabric of history itself. Consider the word Anarchism.
Me - I know this one! You're talking about the Anarchist movement at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, where Emma Goldman and her colleagues were pushing for a free society.
George - Yes. Look it up.
Me - (opens the International dictionary to Anarchism)
George - Anarchism is defined in the English language as the political belief that there should be little or no formal or official organization to society but that people should work freely together. Leon Czolgosz, an Anarchist, assassinated President McKinley for drawing America into the Spanish American war on behalf of the Skull and Bones friendly United Fruit Company. In the end, United Fruit ended up owning almost all of Latin America and the Caribbean. First, they staged the attack on the Maine.
Me - I learned about that in school. The Maine was never attacked. But in the end, the Spanish American war helped win Cuba and the Philippines their freedom.
George - Bollocks. Imagine if Mexico was a superpower. Imagine they took part of Texas away from the United States, and made it into a military base. Would you consider America to be free?
Me - No, but -
George - Cuba DID win its freedom, but the US State Department turned around and took it back. They took Guantanamo Bay, where your Camp X-Ray is now, and kept it, even though they were asked to leave. Cuba has been under military occupation ever since, on top of the economic blockade. The Philippines was under military occupation until the 1990's, and it's been re-occupied since 2001. The Spanish American war was why an Anarchist assassinated McKinley. Anarchism is opposed to empire building. They propose personal freedom for ALL people. Try looking up Anarchism in the American Newspeak dictionary...
Me - (looks for Anarchism in the American dictionary)
Me - The word Anarchism isn't even there! The only definition is for Anarchy: a lack of organization and control in a society or group, esp. because either there is no government or it has no power. (agitated) After that, it skips to Anarchist, and there no definition for the word. There's just a statement that contradicts what the Anarchist movement represents. Personal freedom. It says, 'Belief in freedom doesn't make you an anarchist.' (looking up mad) They've completely reversed the meaning of Anarchism!
George - Good man. Now you see. It's like the Anarchist movement never even existed, when in reality, it's almost as old as Marxism. Emma Goldman was fighting Big Brother for women's rights, and minority rights, fifty years before the civil rights movement. She was jailed, then kicked out of America for proposing equal rights, fifty-six years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Newspeak is a clever way to marginalize today's anti-globalization movement isn't it? Present them as a new breed of nuts that want to cause global chaos, when in fact Anarchism has nothing to do with actual chaos -
Me - Man. you're starting to scare me.
George - We haven't even got to the bad part yet. When you work for four generations to create a population as dumbed-down as the American public, there must be an underlying reason for such action. What do you think that reason is?
Me - I don't know WHAT to think anymore.
George - FASCISM. It's been a slow, deliberate process since McKinley's time, designed to lead America into a fascist or National Socialist model of Empire. A Fourth Reich, if you will.
Me: NOW WAIT A MINUTE! Are you trying to tell me that America's been moving toward Nazism since 1900? THAT'S BULL. Hitler didn't even publish Mein Kampf until 1925! Even I know that.
George - Pardon my frankness, but your indignation sir, is exceeded only by your ignorance. Whoever said that the ideas in Mein Kampf originated with Hitler?
Me - But -
George - You weren't alive to see pictures of the concentration camps in the Philippines. You didn't see the torture, the hangings, the disemboweling and decapitation of the poor Philippinos by American GI's. You didn't see the million people who were killed in the early years of the US Occupation. No one teaches this part of the Spanish American War anymore. There are lots of people here with me who saw it. One of them wants to talk to you later. He has a brief message co-authored by him and an American General, Smedley Butler.
Me - I've heard of him. He was the most decorated soldier in the Marine Corps. Two-time Congressional Medal of Honor winner.
George - He wrote a book called War Is A Racket, hoping people would smarten up. Smedley's REALLY mad. He wanted to talk to you, but we took a vote and decided against it. He's too angry, and he'd just end up yelling at you. But he told me to tell you that he wants his base closed. He says Okinawa has suffered enough, and that you should all go home and stop raping little Japanese girls in his name. In any event, Sam's going to stop by when I'm done. But I digress. After McKinley was shot, Teddy Roosevelt became president. After Roosevelt came a Skull and Bonesmen named William Howard Taft. He was the overseer of the Philippines, and from there he went to the White House.
Me - We didn't learn much about Taft in school.
George - That's because in 1909, he wrote a policy paper called Dollar Diplomacy. Let me read you some of it.
George - (looks down to read from a book) "In its foreign affairs the United States should present to the world a united front. The intellectual, financial, and industrial interests of the country and the publicist, the wage earner, the farmer, and citizen of whatever occupation must cooperate in a spirit of high patriotism to promote that national solidarity which is indispensable to national efficiency and to the attainment of national ideals." Note that Patriotism is in there. Not only patriotism: HIGH patriotism, with a slew of repetition on the word National. High spirit, national efficiency, and national ideals. Is this not NATIONALISM? Look closer. A United Front. Solidarity of intellectuals, finance, industry, the media, wage earners, farmers, and citizens, where the State, and not the individual, is supreme. Is this not SOCIALISM? What do you get when you put Nationalism and Socialism together?
Me - (in total shock) OH...MY....GOD!
George - God, dear boy, has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. You should be looking the other way, looking South. To the Deep Jim Crow South.
Me - (still in shock) My brain hurts. I've been living in this world for twenty years. How is it that I don't know these things, but a dead guy does? And why hasn't anyone told me this before?
George - First of all, there are many people out there who know this already, and who are trying to tell people. Go talk to some of the men and women who lived through World War II. They'll tell you what fascism and Nazism are like, and how they have this way of sneaking up on you, when the people get caught up in the patriotic fervor of the Drums of War. The problem is, no one's listening to the men who fought the war. Go to Yellow Times dot org and read some articles by John Brand. He knows what he's talking about.
Me - I'll do that. (writes it down) Yellow Times dot Org.
George - It was Mussolini, the father of fascism himself, who said, "Fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of state and corporate power." Is that not precisely what you have today? Millions for Kenneth Lay, and nothing for 401K's? Billions in subsidies for big business, paid for with billions in cutbacks from social services for the nation's poor and underprivileged?
Me - Yeah.
George - Where big business and government are concerned, one can no longer tell where the head ends and the arse begins. The American people have been FOCCED.
Me - You can say THAT again.
George: It doesn't mean what you think. FOCCED. F. O. C. C. E. D. A handy acronym best used to describe the corporate powers that have hijacked the American Republic, and replaced it with a fascist plutocracy. The Finance, Oil, Chemical, Credit, Energy and Defense sectors of Wall Street have turned America into their own personal piggybank, where corporations and lobbyists control the government, write the laws, and screw the American people.
Me - Wow. You got THAT right. We've been FOCCED!
George - As to your other question, now that I'm dead, I know pretty much everything. But that's not important. I haven't much time left, and Sam's getting impatient. What's important is now that you know, what are you going to do about it?
Me - Huh? What do you mean what am I going to do? I can't do jack!
George - I'm not referring only to you. You're going to write this down, and tell as many people as you can, as fast as you can. Not only will you get an A in English, but if you tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on, pretty soon enough people will know.
Me - But what's that going to accomplish?
George - Think for a moment. Nazism won't work if people know what the Skull and Bones are trying to do. They can't function if too many people know their agenda. What amazes me is these people even use the Pirate Skull and Crossbones as their symbol. They're TELLING you that they're a bunch of murderous, profiteering pirates. And yet you've sent THREE of them to the White House. What is wrong with you people?
Me - Three of them? What do you mean?
George - William Howard Taft, George Herbert Walker Bush, and George Walker Bush are all members of the Yale Fraternal Order of the Skull and Bones. A fraternity that was founded and financed in 1832 by the Russell Trust. A Trust set up by Russell and Company, which was the world's largest opium dealer. Prescott Bush, the grandfather of today's Bush, was also a member, AND a Nazi collaborator besides. The beginning of the Bush family fortune came from the use of Auschwitz slave labor in Poland.
Me: HOW DO WE NOT KNOW THIS?
George: Go back to your dictionary. Look up Conspire in the International edition.
Me - (opens the International dictionary to Conspire)
Me - Conspire. To plan secretly with other people to do something bad, illegal, or against someone's wishes. Events or conditions might be said to conspire if they combine in such a way that they spoil your plans.
George - Now go to the American version.
Me - It only has the first half of the definition: to plan secretly with other people to do something bad, illegal, or against someone's wishes.
George - Now look up Conspiracy in the International edition.
Me - There's a bunch of usage examples, and then this: A conspiracy of silence is a general agreement to keep silent about a subject for the purpose of secrecy. It also says, Conspiracy theory refers to the belief that unpleasant things which happen, esp. to governments, are planned by people who want to cause difficulties and do not happen by chance.
George - Read me some of the examples.
Me - The three men are accused of conspiracy, working illegally against the government. She has been charged with conspiracy, planning with someone else to murder. Fifteen years working for the same firm and she still hadn't been promoted - there was a conspiracy against her -someone did not want her to be successful. I think there was a conspiracy to keep me out of the committee. When she stepped on the scales she weighed 4 kilograms heavier - it was a conspiracy (she thought the machine was intentionally showing the wrong weight)!
George - So we can agree that a conspiracy is a plot where a person, persons or things work against someone or something? We can agree that many things can be a conspiracy, in the most mundane circumstance?
Me - Yeah.
George - Legally in both England and America, a criminal conspiracy is when more than one person plans a criminal action, or a group engages in ongoing criminal actions. Now, look up Conspiracy in the American Newspeak version.
Me - There's no definition! And only one usage example, with no qualification at the end of the example to explain why there's a conspiracy. All it says is Eight men were charged with conspiracy to smuggle cocaine. It's like they've left it vague on purpose.
George - Precisely. Note also that Conspiratorial and Conspiratorially have been removed from the American version, as has the idea of a Conspiracy theory.
Me - DAMN. You're right! It's a conspiracy!
George - (smiling) Now you're getting it. You take away the idea of a conspiracy of silence. You make the concept of conspiracy vague. You remove the ability to describe conspiratorial action, and the idea of acting conspiratorially. This serves at least five purposes doesn't it? First, it serves to dumb-down people's understand of conspiracy, so they don't catch on to Big Brother's conspiratorial actions. Second, because of the vagueness of the word Conspiracy, it makes it hard for people to understand the simple fact that ANY plot by more than one person in contravention of law is by definition a conspiracy. Third, by removing the idea of a Conspiracy theory from the Newspeak dictionary, we take legitimacy away from those who guess correctly about, or try to expose a conspiracy in action. By doing this, they marginalize anyone who comes up with a conspiracy theory as a nut, because there's no such thing in the dictionary, so they can say these people don't speak the same language as the rest of us, and they're crazy.
Me - Wow. This is mind-boggling.
George - Fourth, once they've managed to marginalize anyone who's trying to point out what's going on, they can operate more openly, because the public will be the ones to shoot down conspiracy theorists.
Me - (nods profusely)
George - Finally, they rest assured that the public will never catch on, because so long as they maintain the conspiracy of silence, so long as no one talks, within a few generations, people won't even understand the concept of a conspiracy of silence, or the concept of a vast, right-wing conspiracy.
Me - Well this sucks. What are we supposed to do about it?
George - They have a weakness. Like Hitler, their strategy for wresting power away from Congress and the people is dependent upon the BIG LIE. Remember what I told you in 1984 about Big Brother's control mechanism. Propaganda. Blind obedience. War is peace. Ignorance is strength. Freedom is slavery.
Me - And two plus two equals five. Not anymore Mr. Orwell. Not for me.
George - Good man. Now you understand. If the balloon bursts on the Big Lie, the game is up. They can't exercise direct overt control, because there are two hundred and fifty million guns in the country. The founding fathers knew what they were doing with the Second Amendment.
George - (looks down as if reading) When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. That's what the Second Amendment is for.
Me - Hold on. Are you calling for armed insurrection?
George - Of course, not. Don't you know that under the Patriot Act, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution have been gone for a year as of October 26, 2002? There is no First Amendment anymore, or habeas corpus. There's no more right to attorney client privilege, or even the right to an attorney. You can be thrown in jail for terrorism for exercising your constitutional rights. Ask Sherman Austin, the Webmaster of Raise the Fist dot com about it. He's been jailed for having a website, and using that website to exercise his freedom of expression. You can't even give moral support to Constitutional rights anymore, let alone make a call for armed insurrection.
Me - But you just said we should throw off this government with two hundred and fifty million guns!
George - I said nothing of the sort. All I'm saying is what another assassinated president said. "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." It doesn't have to come to that. All you have to do is make sure this pathological liar who stole the election doesn't get back into White House. Neither he nor any member of his family must ever again enter the White House. No Skull and Bonesmen must ever again hold high office. After that, you can worry about changing the electoral process, so the people have democratic representation, instead of this ridiculous two party system. I think it was the wrestler turned Governor Jesse Ventura who said, "We get two choices in this country. That's only one more than in Russia."
Me - Yeah, this choice between more of the same and less of the same bugs me too. I think it bugs most people, but they don't know what to do about it.
George - You can, you know. Do something that is. There are twenty-five months between now and the next Presidential race. Do the math. If you only tell two people about this every four weeks, and they in turn pass it on to two people every four weeks, that's more than sixty-six million people who will know about it, come the next election. That's seventeen million more votes than won the last election, for talking to one person every two weeks. Think about that. It's not as hard as you believe. Are you familiar with Chinese philosophy? It was Lao-Tzu who said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." One step. And then another. And another. Until the walls come tumbling down. All you have to do is talk to people, every chance you get.
Me - I'll do that.
George - First, kick Mr. Bush out. And then get your act together. Force campaign finance reforms. Take the lobby money out of the election process. Allow corporations to match employee donations, but not to donate money directly. Put an independent in the White House. Do it before you and your friends end up at some Concentration Camp.
Me - I think I'm going to take some History classes. Political Science too. AND English.
George - What a wonderful idea. One last thing. There's someone else who wants to talk to you. Someone whose books, like mine, are being pulled from schools at an alarming rate. He only has one thing to say, so it won't take long. (George is being shoved off the face of the book by a hand)
George - His name is Sam. You know him by the name Mark Twain. Goodbye, young man. And DON'T forget to pass this on. The truth hurts, but silence kills. (Both George and Twain are now on the book cover, with Mark shoving at George's head.)
Me - Goodbye Mr. Orwell. And thanks. Thanks a LOT. I don't know how to explain it. I feel different. I feel awake. like I've awakened from a really long dream. You've taught me more in a few minutes than I've learned in years.
George - Good. That's what we came back for. Now, pass it on. I really have to go now. Sam, say hello to our readers. (Twain pushes George off the cover, and takes his place in the middle of the cover)
Mark Twain - Hello.
Me - Hi Mr. Twain. This is a lot of stuff to remember, but I'll try and keep it all straight. Mr. Orwell said you have something to say. What would that be?
Mark Twain - I have a message from Smedley Butler and myself for the American people. We hope you pay attention this time, because time is running out. (Close up on mock 1984 cover. Twain is looking directly into Camera.) We tried to tell you once before: It didn't do much good. We tried to warn you long ago, But your heads are made of wood. One more try is all you get, And then you're on your own. Listen hard, and stand up NOW, Before your chance is blown. Forget their lies, ignore the goons, Forget their stupid rules, We've said it once; we'll say it again, WAR IS A RACKET, YOU FOOLS! The last phrase shows up in big text on the cover, and then it fades back to Orwell's static picture.
Me - (is lying face down on the table, sleeping. He lifts his head, opens his eyes, and looks down at the table. He picks up the copy of 1984, and looks closely at it. He looks down at the table again.) (On the table is a note scrawled on his paper, written with a calligraphy pen.) There are more wonders in Heaven and Earth than you or I have ever dreamt of, Horatio... (As we zoom in on the note, the picture fades away, leaving only the text behind.) (As the text fades, the credits scroll.) Peace!
One of the less noted aspects of the Bush Administration's 'War on Terror' is the government's simultaneous War on Language, a calculated use of Orwellian double speak. Post 9-11, the invasion of other countries became a 'preemptive strike', the capture and torture of civilians 'extraordinary rendition'. A sign on the front of the US prison in Guantanamo Bay reads 'Honor Bound to Defend Freedom'. Small comfort to the 460 'unlawful combatants' who after four years still languish inside, without any access to basic human rights.
A particularly shocking example of this phenomenon is the Department of Defense's attitude toward suicide attempts by Guantanamo's detainees. Officially, 41 attempts have been admitted by the US government to date. Speak to any of the prisoners who have been released, and they will tell you the figure is laughably low. The reason for this discrepancy? No doubt aware of the adverse publicity the facility was receiving in the media, those running the prison decided to re-label suicide attempts as 'manipulative self-injurious behaviour' or 'SIBs', to euphemise still further. After reclassification, predictably the rate of attempted suicides plummeted overnight. Nevertheless, the British journalist David Rose has written that in the six months after the new terminology came into practice, there were forty reported SIBs, almost two a week.
For our film, The Road to Guantanamo, Michael Winterbottom and I interviewed the Tipton Three, young British men who had been detained by the US in Guantanamo for over two years. The eldest, Shafiq Rasul, paints a very different picture of suicide attempts in the prison. 'People tried to kill themselves all the time,' he told us. 'I thought about suicide when I was there. You can't talk to anyone back home, not even your family. You don't know if you'll ever be released, or if you'll be executed. Eventually you just lose hope.'
This weekend, three prisoners, two Saudis and a Yemeni, finally succeeded where so many before had failed, and took their own lives. Without access to family or lawyers, after over four years in US custody, they knotted bedsheets together and hung themselves from the grills above their cells.
Shafiq met the Saudis while being held by Northern Alliance fighters in Afghanistan. Later, he saw them again while detained in Guantanamo. He says, 'They were just like us: normal people. Who knows, if we were still there, maybe it could have been us. My only surprise is it hasn't happened before.'
Spokesmen for the US have since called the deaths 'a good PR move' by the prisoners, and 'an act of assymetrical warfare'. The War on Language continues.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2071642&page=2 An Interview With Orwell
By Hsing Lee
22 January 2003
Text - The dictionaries and definitions you are about to see are real. They have not been altered in any way. The issues addressed in this film are also real. The question is, what are you going to do about it?
INTERIOR LIBRARY
Me - (sits down with pen and paper at a table with some books. a Cambridge American English Dictionary, a Cambridge International English Dictionary, a mock copy of 1984, and a copy of Emma Goldman's Anarchism and Other Essays.)
Me - What a waste of time. English class. What's the point? I took this stupid class for twelve years. Now I gotta PAY for school, and they STILL make me take English? It's like I don't know enough English by now.
EXTERIOR LIBRARY
In first person POV, we swoop from outside through the doors, down the hallway, and into the library. We see Me sitting at the table, and then swoop at the copy of 1984, crashing into the cover.
INTERIOR LIBRARY
George - I beg to differ.
Me - What? (looks around)
George - Over here.
Me - (looks down at the mock 1984 cover) Whoa.
George - As I was saying, I beg to differ. I speak English. You speak American.
Me (is stunned)
George - George Orwell here, at your service
Me - But you're dead!
George - Obviously. But there's no need to be rude about it. I'm here, and that's what matters.
Me - You're George Orwell?
George - Didn't I just say that?
Me: This is too weird. I must be dreaming. I read some books you wrote when I was in high school, 1984 and Animal Farm.
George - I may have written them too well. They've stopped teaching them in a lot of places. That's why I'm here. You need to wake people up, because bad things are happening. Horrific things. Things that happened in my time, and must never happen again. You've already seen the beginnings of it, with Enron and Worldcom.
Me - What do you mean?
George - Do you remember what Newspeak is? From my book?
Me - I think so.
George - In my book 1984, Big Brother conceived of a truly insidious method of control. He was in the business of cutting vocabulary to the bone. Eliminating all the words they considered obsolete; nouns, verbs, adjectives, all kinds of words. They invented a lot of new words, and phrases as well.
Me - Kind of like Compassionate Conservatism?
George - EXACTLY like compassionate conservatism, although I would probably have shortened it to Vampirism. But that's beside the point. When you take words out of the vocabulary, when you change the meanings of words, and make some words synonymous with others when those words are supposed to have two different meanings, it gets very difficult for people to think about things like Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Take the word Revolution for example. How could there be a revolution if you take away the word itself? How is the thought of revolution to form in the minds of people who've never conceptualized such a thing?
Me - I think I see your point, but it's not like they can remove the word revolution from the dictionary...
George - They don't have to. For there to be revolution, there must be an ideology behind it. All you have to do is remove the ability to properly shape and define a subversive ideology from the language. No new ideology, no revolution.
Me - (puzzled) But you mentioned Enron and WorldCom. How do things like Enron and WorldCom happen, and how do they relate to Newspeak? Isn't it greed that makes things like Enron happen?
George - Yes, in part.
Me - Why only in part?
George - Because it's actually the American Way. You see, Big Brother and the media have done some very interesting things with the English language. When I came up with the concept of the Newspeak Dictionary, I never imagined they'd actually have the audacity to PUBLISH one until they purged all the other dictionaries. I suspect the reason behind it is, the government is so confident of its control; they no longer care if people point out that Americans no longer speaks English.
Me - We DO speak English!
George - Again, I beg to differ. Let's examine the fundamental principle behind the economy of the United States. Capitalism. In the English language, capitalism means one thing, but in American Newspeak, it means something else entirely. You see those dictionaries? Open them up to Capitalism.
Me - (opens the International dictionary to Capitalism)
George - In the Cambridge International Dictionary of English, Capitalism is defined as an economic, political and social system based on private ownership of property, business and industry, and directed towards making the greatest possible profits for successful organizations and people. Now look at the other one.
Me - (opens the American dictionary to Capitalism) In the Cambridge Dictionary of American English, the Newspeak version, Capitalism is defined as an economic system based on private ownership of property and business, with the goal of making the greatest possible profits for the owners.
Me - Wow.
George - Amazing isn't it? You see the problem. In the rest of the world, capitalism means private ownership where success is financially rewarded. Using America's Newspeak Dictionary, capitalism means private ownership where the OWNERS, and not the company or the employees are the ones entitled to capital, regardless of how badly the business does. Success doesn't even come into play. In America, the owners are entitled to the greatest possible profits, period.
Me - You weren't kidding about this Newspeak stuff.
George - No, I wasn't kidding. And it's not funny. Look at some more examples. Look up Nationalism.
Me - (opens the International dictionary to Nationalism)
George - Nationalism, as defined in English from the same International Cambridge Dictionary, is the desire for and the attempt to achieve political independence for your country or nation. Nationalism is also a great or too great love of your own country.
Me - (opens the American dictionary to Nationalism)
George - In the American Newspeak dictionary, Nationalism is the feelings of affection, loyalty, and pride that people have for their country. Nationalism is also the desire for political independence in a country that is controlled by or part of another country. Gone is the talk of 'too great a love' of one's country. The American description of Nationalism is similar to what we in my day knew as Patriotism.
Now take a look at Communism.
Me - (opens the International dictionary to Communism)
George - The English definition is the belief in a classless society in which the methods of production are owned and controlled by all its members and everyone works as much as they can and receives what they need. Now check the American version.
Me - (opens the American dictionary to Communism)
George - Americans define Communism as an economic system based on public ownership of property and control of the methods of production, and in which no person profits from the work of others. No mention of classless society, or each working as they can and receiving according to their needs. The English definition is based on Marx's description of Communism, as it should be. The American version is not.
Me - That seems like a fairly minor change. I don't see this as being as bad as the others.
George - That's because I'm not finished yet. Look at how both dictionaries define Socialism.
Me - (opens the International to Socialism)
George - Any economic or political system based on government ownership and control of important businesses and methods of production.
Me - (opens the American to Socialism...looks back and forth)
Me - They're the same! And they sound a lot like the American English definition of Communism...
George - Yes, they do, don't they? You see, for our world to function properly requires clear communication. When two people have two different meanings for the same word, we have a communication breakdown. Neither one is clear what the other is talking about. So now, to many Americans, Communism is synonymous with Socialism.
Me - But why would they do this?
George: There are three reasons. First, there's confusion. The more confused the masses are, the harder it is for them to form organized opposition to tyranny. The majority of people schooled in the United States quite literally can't read. They can read, but they're unable to comprehend what they're reading, because they don't have the same vocabulary as other people. It's all mixed up. It's also done for purposes of isolation. By making these changes, the Government isolates Americans from the rest of the world, because what the average American sees as Patriotism, others see as Nationalism. That's why in Newspeak, Nationalism is the feelings of affection, loyalty, and pride that people have for their country. By taking out the 'too great a love' from the definition, it's no longer understood that nationalism can be a bad thing.
Me - I never thought of it that way before.
George - They're trying to move the definition of Nationalism as close to the definition of Patriotism as possible. Eventually, the words will become synonymous. For many Americans, they're already synonymous. Many people are incapable of distinguishing between Patriotism and blind Nationalism.
Me - You're right. I've seen it happening since September 11.
George - Quite. What a tragic waste of life. I can only hope you'll learn from it. I'm here to see that it doesn't happen again. The third reason why Newspeak is done is for simplicity's sake. Propaganda, as Hitler taught us, must be kept simple. It must cater to the lowest common denominator. We know that America hates Communism. So by painting Democratic Socialists with the same brush as Communists in the Newspeak dictionary, we demonize the Socialists before they get a chance to speak for themselves.
Me - I see your point. But it doesn't exactly explain Enron, does it?
George - No, but there's something else that you should look up. Look in the Cambridge International English Dictionary under Profiteer.
Me - (opens the International dictionary to profiteer)
Me - OK just a sec...here it is...profiteer - noun, DISAPPROVING. A profiteer is a person who takes advantage unfairly of a situation in which other people are suffering to make a profit, often by selling at an unusually high price goods which are difficult to obtain. a war profiteer. George - Now look up Profiteer in the Cambridge American Dictionary.
Me - (searches American dictionary for Profiteer)
Me - OK. hmm...profit...profitable...profitability...profitably...profits. HEY! Wait a minute! There's NO LISTING in the American dictionary for Profiteer!
George - (Sighs) You realize you people should be paying me royalties for this.
Me - This is crazy.
George - No, it's fascist, not crazy.
Me - No wonder Enron and Worldcom did what they did. According to the American dictionary, they're actually entitled to act in like this aren't they?
George - Precisely. In their eyes they did nothing wrong, because what they did is in fact the very definition of Capitalism, according to the American Newspeak Dictionary.
Me - No WONDER everyone looks confused when Bush talks. His mouth opens, words come out, and everyone walks away thinking he said something different.
George - EXACTLY. Now you're getting the idea. Language can be used in different ways to influence everything from comprehension to the very fabric of history itself. Consider the word Anarchism.
Me - I know this one! You're talking about the Anarchist movement at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, where Emma Goldman and her colleagues were pushing for a free society.
George - Yes. Look it up.
Me - (opens the International dictionary to Anarchism)
George - Anarchism is defined in the English language as the political belief that there should be little or no formal or official organization to society but that people should work freely together. Leon Czolgosz, an Anarchist, assassinated President McKinley for drawing America into the Spanish American war on behalf of the Skull and Bones friendly United Fruit Company. In the end, United Fruit ended up owning almost all of Latin America and the Caribbean. First, they staged the attack on the Maine.
Me - I learned about that in school. The Maine was never attacked. But in the end, the Spanish American war helped win Cuba and the Philippines their freedom.
George - Bollocks. Imagine if Mexico was a superpower. Imagine they took part of Texas away from the United States, and made it into a military base. Would you consider America to be free?
Me - No, but -
George - Cuba DID win its freedom, but the US State Department turned around and took it back. They took Guantanamo Bay, where your Camp X-Ray is now, and kept it, even though they were asked to leave. Cuba has been under military occupation ever since, on top of the economic blockade. The Philippines was under military occupation until the 1990's, and it's been re-occupied since 2001. The Spanish American war was why an Anarchist assassinated McKinley. Anarchism is opposed to empire building. They propose personal freedom for ALL people. Try looking up Anarchism in the American Newspeak dictionary...
Me - (looks for Anarchism in the American dictionary)
Me - The word Anarchism isn't even there! The only definition is for Anarchy: a lack of organization and control in a society or group, esp. because either there is no government or it has no power. (agitated) After that, it skips to Anarchist, and there no definition for the word. There's just a statement that contradicts what the Anarchist movement represents. Personal freedom. It says, 'Belief in freedom doesn't make you an anarchist.' (looking up mad) They've completely reversed the meaning of Anarchism!
George - Good man. Now you see. It's like the Anarchist movement never even existed, when in reality, it's almost as old as Marxism. Emma Goldman was fighting Big Brother for women's rights, and minority rights, fifty years before the civil rights movement. She was jailed, then kicked out of America for proposing equal rights, fifty-six years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Newspeak is a clever way to marginalize today's anti-globalization movement isn't it? Present them as a new breed of nuts that want to cause global chaos, when in fact Anarchism has nothing to do with actual chaos -
Me - Man. you're starting to scare me.
George - We haven't even got to the bad part yet. When you work for four generations to create a population as dumbed-down as the American public, there must be an underlying reason for such action. What do you think that reason is?
Me - I don't know WHAT to think anymore.
George - FASCISM. It's been a slow, deliberate process since McKinley's time, designed to lead America into a fascist or National Socialist model of Empire. A Fourth Reich, if you will.
Me: NOW WAIT A MINUTE! Are you trying to tell me that America's been moving toward Nazism since 1900? THAT'S BULL. Hitler didn't even publish Mein Kampf until 1925! Even I know that.
George - Pardon my frankness, but your indignation sir, is exceeded only by your ignorance. Whoever said that the ideas in Mein Kampf originated with Hitler?
Me - But -
George - You weren't alive to see pictures of the concentration camps in the Philippines. You didn't see the torture, the hangings, the disemboweling and decapitation of the poor Philippinos by American GI's. You didn't see the million people who were killed in the early years of the US Occupation. No one teaches this part of the Spanish American War anymore. There are lots of people here with me who saw it. One of them wants to talk to you later. He has a brief message co-authored by him and an American General, Smedley Butler.
Me - I've heard of him. He was the most decorated soldier in the Marine Corps. Two-time Congressional Medal of Honor winner.
George - He wrote a book called War Is A Racket, hoping people would smarten up. Smedley's REALLY mad. He wanted to talk to you, but we took a vote and decided against it. He's too angry, and he'd just end up yelling at you. But he told me to tell you that he wants his base closed. He says Okinawa has suffered enough, and that you should all go home and stop raping little Japanese girls in his name. In any event, Sam's going to stop by when I'm done. But I digress. After McKinley was shot, Teddy Roosevelt became president. After Roosevelt came a Skull and Bonesmen named William Howard Taft. He was the overseer of the Philippines, and from there he went to the White House.
Me - We didn't learn much about Taft in school.
George - That's because in 1909, he wrote a policy paper called Dollar Diplomacy. Let me read you some of it.
George - (looks down to read from a book) "In its foreign affairs the United States should present to the world a united front. The intellectual, financial, and industrial interests of the country and the publicist, the wage earner, the farmer, and citizen of whatever occupation must cooperate in a spirit of high patriotism to promote that national solidarity which is indispensable to national efficiency and to the attainment of national ideals." Note that Patriotism is in there. Not only patriotism: HIGH patriotism, with a slew of repetition on the word National. High spirit, national efficiency, and national ideals. Is this not NATIONALISM? Look closer. A United Front. Solidarity of intellectuals, finance, industry, the media, wage earners, farmers, and citizens, where the State, and not the individual, is supreme. Is this not SOCIALISM? What do you get when you put Nationalism and Socialism together?
Me - (in total shock) OH...MY....GOD!
George - God, dear boy, has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. You should be looking the other way, looking South. To the Deep Jim Crow South.
Me - (still in shock) My brain hurts. I've been living in this world for twenty years. How is it that I don't know these things, but a dead guy does? And why hasn't anyone told me this before?
George - First of all, there are many people out there who know this already, and who are trying to tell people. Go talk to some of the men and women who lived through World War II. They'll tell you what fascism and Nazism are like, and how they have this way of sneaking up on you, when the people get caught up in the patriotic fervor of the Drums of War. The problem is, no one's listening to the men who fought the war. Go to Yellow Times dot org and read some articles by John Brand. He knows what he's talking about.
Me - I'll do that. (writes it down) Yellow Times dot Org.
George - It was Mussolini, the father of fascism himself, who said, "Fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of state and corporate power." Is that not precisely what you have today? Millions for Kenneth Lay, and nothing for 401K's? Billions in subsidies for big business, paid for with billions in cutbacks from social services for the nation's poor and underprivileged?
Me - Yeah.
George - Where big business and government are concerned, one can no longer tell where the head ends and the arse begins. The American people have been FOCCED.
Me - You can say THAT again.
George: It doesn't mean what you think. FOCCED. F. O. C. C. E. D. A handy acronym best used to describe the corporate powers that have hijacked the American Republic, and replaced it with a fascist plutocracy. The Finance, Oil, Chemical, Credit, Energy and Defense sectors of Wall Street have turned America into their own personal piggybank, where corporations and lobbyists control the government, write the laws, and screw the American people.
Me - Wow. You got THAT right. We've been FOCCED!
George - As to your other question, now that I'm dead, I know pretty much everything. But that's not important. I haven't much time left, and Sam's getting impatient. What's important is now that you know, what are you going to do about it?
Me - Huh? What do you mean what am I going to do? I can't do jack!
George - I'm not referring only to you. You're going to write this down, and tell as many people as you can, as fast as you can. Not only will you get an A in English, but if you tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on, pretty soon enough people will know.
Me - But what's that going to accomplish?
George - Think for a moment. Nazism won't work if people know what the Skull and Bones are trying to do. They can't function if too many people know their agenda. What amazes me is these people even use the Pirate Skull and Crossbones as their symbol. They're TELLING you that they're a bunch of murderous, profiteering pirates. And yet you've sent THREE of them to the White House. What is wrong with you people?
Me - Three of them? What do you mean?
George - William Howard Taft, George Herbert Walker Bush, and George Walker Bush are all members of the Yale Fraternal Order of the Skull and Bones. A fraternity that was founded and financed in 1832 by the Russell Trust. A Trust set up by Russell and Company, which was the world's largest opium dealer. Prescott Bush, the grandfather of today's Bush, was also a member, AND a Nazi collaborator besides. The beginning of the Bush family fortune came from the use of Auschwitz slave labor in Poland.
Me: HOW DO WE NOT KNOW THIS?
George: Go back to your dictionary. Look up Conspire in the International edition.
Me - (opens the International dictionary to Conspire)
Me - Conspire. To plan secretly with other people to do something bad, illegal, or against someone's wishes. Events or conditions might be said to conspire if they combine in such a way that they spoil your plans.
George - Now go to the American version.
Me - It only has the first half of the definition: to plan secretly with other people to do something bad, illegal, or against someone's wishes.
George - Now look up Conspiracy in the International edition.
Me - There's a bunch of usage examples, and then this: A conspiracy of silence is a general agreement to keep silent about a subject for the purpose of secrecy. It also says, Conspiracy theory refers to the belief that unpleasant things which happen, esp. to governments, are planned by people who want to cause difficulties and do not happen by chance.
George - Read me some of the examples.
Me - The three men are accused of conspiracy, working illegally against the government. She has been charged with conspiracy, planning with someone else to murder. Fifteen years working for the same firm and she still hadn't been promoted - there was a conspiracy against her -someone did not want her to be successful. I think there was a conspiracy to keep me out of the committee. When she stepped on the scales she weighed 4 kilograms heavier - it was a conspiracy (she thought the machine was intentionally showing the wrong weight)!
George - So we can agree that a conspiracy is a plot where a person, persons or things work against someone or something? We can agree that many things can be a conspiracy, in the most mundane circumstance?
Me - Yeah.
George - Legally in both England and America, a criminal conspiracy is when more than one person plans a criminal action, or a group engages in ongoing criminal actions. Now, look up Conspiracy in the American Newspeak version.
Me - There's no definition! And only one usage example, with no qualification at the end of the example to explain why there's a conspiracy. All it says is Eight men were charged with conspiracy to smuggle cocaine. It's like they've left it vague on purpose.
George - Precisely. Note also that Conspiratorial and Conspiratorially have been removed from the American version, as has the idea of a Conspiracy theory.
Me - DAMN. You're right! It's a conspiracy!
George - (smiling) Now you're getting it. You take away the idea of a conspiracy of silence. You make the concept of conspiracy vague. You remove the ability to describe conspiratorial action, and the idea of acting conspiratorially. This serves at least five purposes doesn't it? First, it serves to dumb-down people's understand of conspiracy, so they don't catch on to Big Brother's conspiratorial actions. Second, because of the vagueness of the word Conspiracy, it makes it hard for people to understand the simple fact that ANY plot by more than one person in contravention of law is by definition a conspiracy. Third, by removing the idea of a Conspiracy theory from the Newspeak dictionary, we take legitimacy away from those who guess correctly about, or try to expose a conspiracy in action. By doing this, they marginalize anyone who comes up with a conspiracy theory as a nut, because there's no such thing in the dictionary, so they can say these people don't speak the same language as the rest of us, and they're crazy.
Me - Wow. This is mind-boggling.
George - Fourth, once they've managed to marginalize anyone who's trying to point out what's going on, they can operate more openly, because the public will be the ones to shoot down conspiracy theorists.
Me - (nods profusely)
George - Finally, they rest assured that the public will never catch on, because so long as they maintain the conspiracy of silence, so long as no one talks, within a few generations, people won't even understand the concept of a conspiracy of silence, or the concept of a vast, right-wing conspiracy.
Me - Well this sucks. What are we supposed to do about it?
George - They have a weakness. Like Hitler, their strategy for wresting power away from Congress and the people is dependent upon the BIG LIE. Remember what I told you in 1984 about Big Brother's control mechanism. Propaganda. Blind obedience. War is peace. Ignorance is strength. Freedom is slavery.
Me - And two plus two equals five. Not anymore Mr. Orwell. Not for me.
George - Good man. Now you understand. If the balloon bursts on the Big Lie, the game is up. They can't exercise direct overt control, because there are two hundred and fifty million guns in the country. The founding fathers knew what they were doing with the Second Amendment.
George - (looks down as if reading) When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. That's what the Second Amendment is for.
Me - Hold on. Are you calling for armed insurrection?
George - Of course, not. Don't you know that under the Patriot Act, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution have been gone for a year as of October 26, 2002? There is no First Amendment anymore, or habeas corpus. There's no more right to attorney client privilege, or even the right to an attorney. You can be thrown in jail for terrorism for exercising your constitutional rights. Ask Sherman Austin, the Webmaster of Raise the Fist dot com about it. He's been jailed for having a website, and using that website to exercise his freedom of expression. You can't even give moral support to Constitutional rights anymore, let alone make a call for armed insurrection.
Me - But you just said we should throw off this government with two hundred and fifty million guns!
George - I said nothing of the sort. All I'm saying is what another assassinated president said. "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." It doesn't have to come to that. All you have to do is make sure this pathological liar who stole the election doesn't get back into White House. Neither he nor any member of his family must ever again enter the White House. No Skull and Bonesmen must ever again hold high office. After that, you can worry about changing the electoral process, so the people have democratic representation, instead of this ridiculous two party system. I think it was the wrestler turned Governor Jesse Ventura who said, "We get two choices in this country. That's only one more than in Russia."
Me - Yeah, this choice between more of the same and less of the same bugs me too. I think it bugs most people, but they don't know what to do about it.
George - You can, you know. Do something that is. There are twenty-five months between now and the next Presidential race. Do the math. If you only tell two people about this every four weeks, and they in turn pass it on to two people every four weeks, that's more than sixty-six million people who will know about it, come the next election. That's seventeen million more votes than won the last election, for talking to one person every two weeks. Think about that. It's not as hard as you believe. Are you familiar with Chinese philosophy? It was Lao-Tzu who said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." One step. And then another. And another. Until the walls come tumbling down. All you have to do is talk to people, every chance you get.
Me - I'll do that.
George - First, kick Mr. Bush out. And then get your act together. Force campaign finance reforms. Take the lobby money out of the election process. Allow corporations to match employee donations, but not to donate money directly. Put an independent in the White House. Do it before you and your friends end up at some Concentration Camp.
Me - I think I'm going to take some History classes. Political Science too. AND English.
George - What a wonderful idea. One last thing. There's someone else who wants to talk to you. Someone whose books, like mine, are being pulled from schools at an alarming rate. He only has one thing to say, so it won't take long. (George is being shoved off the face of the book by a hand)
George - His name is Sam. You know him by the name Mark Twain. Goodbye, young man. And DON'T forget to pass this on. The truth hurts, but silence kills. (Both George and Twain are now on the book cover, with Mark shoving at George's head.)
Me - Goodbye Mr. Orwell. And thanks. Thanks a LOT. I don't know how to explain it. I feel different. I feel awake. like I've awakened from a really long dream. You've taught me more in a few minutes than I've learned in years.
George - Good. That's what we came back for. Now, pass it on. I really have to go now. Sam, say hello to our readers. (Twain pushes George off the cover, and takes his place in the middle of the cover)
Mark Twain - Hello.
Me - Hi Mr. Twain. This is a lot of stuff to remember, but I'll try and keep it all straight. Mr. Orwell said you have something to say. What would that be?
Mark Twain - I have a message from Smedley Butler and myself for the American people. We hope you pay attention this time, because time is running out. (Close up on mock 1984 cover. Twain is looking directly into Camera.) We tried to tell you once before: It didn't do much good. We tried to warn you long ago, But your heads are made of wood. One more try is all you get, And then you're on your own. Listen hard, and stand up NOW, Before your chance is blown. Forget their lies, ignore the goons, Forget their stupid rules, We've said it once; we'll say it again, WAR IS A RACKET, YOU FOOLS! The last phrase shows up in big text on the cover, and then it fades back to Orwell's static picture.
Me - (is lying face down on the table, sleeping. He lifts his head, opens his eyes, and looks down at the table. He picks up the copy of 1984, and looks closely at it. He looks down at the table again.) (On the table is a note scrawled on his paper, written with a calligraphy pen.) There are more wonders in Heaven and Earth than you or I have ever dreamt of, Horatio... (As we zoom in on the note, the picture fades away, leaving only the text behind.) (As the text fades, the credits scroll.) Peace!
