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<tt>42. Have you had the measles or chicken pox?<br>
<br>
If so, how many? ___________<br>
</tt><br>
<br>
*<br>
<br>
I see a great deal of unrest in the future.<br>
<br>
If the masses dont have jobs it could get nasty.<br>
<br>
The other thing that holds them back is the idea that there really is
no hope<br>
and nothing will change, the current Situation is Normal, and in fact is<br>
a FUBAR beyond any relief or repair.<br>
<br>
On 9/11/2011 9:20 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4E6C0CFB.4090309@illinois.edu" type="cite">
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...In [George] Orwell's 1984, [Emmanuel] Goldstein is the shadowy,
possibly-fictitious-but-possibly-real former Party official whose
betrayals of the State, ongoing treason, and array of other
incomprehensibly evil acts make him, in the lore of State propaganda,
the Prime Villain, the Root of all Evil, whom Good Citizens blame for
all societal evils and on whom they exclusively focus their rage. His
image is regularly paraded before the citizenry during a Two Minute
Hate Session, accompanied by an authoritative narration of his evil,
and mass, inebriating rage results (see the video version here). The
ultimate benefit of this ritual is it enables the citizenry to ignore
their own plight and the violence and oppression of their own
government (political parties use a similar process -- endless focus on
marginal, hated figures in the other party -- to keep fear levels high
and party loyalty strong). Thus can the debate over whether Julian
Assange should be executed or merely imprisoned for life resume among
all good people.<br>
<br>
Speaking of Emmanuel Goldstein, he was the putative "author" of the
Party manual published at length in 1984 that describes the Party's
means of control and manipulation, entitled "The Theory and Practice of
Oligarchical Collectivism." In the chapter entitled "War Is Peace,"
one finds what is easily the best essay for the 10-year-anniversary
religious observance of 9/11 upon which we are about to embark:<br>
<i><br>
In one combination or another, these three super-states are permanently
at war, and have been so for the past twenty-five years. War, however,
is no longer the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was in the
early decades of the twentieth century. . . .<br>
<br>
This is not to say that either the conduct of war, or the prevailing
attitude towards it, has become less bloodthirsty or more chivalrous.
On the contrary, war hysteria is continuous and universal in all
countries, and such acts as raping, looting, the slaughter of children,
the reduction of whole populations to slavery, and reprisals against
prisoners which extend even to boiling and burying alive, <b>are
looked upon as normal, and, when they are committed by one's own side
and not by the enemy, meritorious.<br>
</b><br>
But in a physical sense war involves <b>very small numbers of people</b>,
mostly highly-trained specialists, and causes comparatively few
casualties. The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague
frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round
the Floating Fortresses which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes. .
. .<br>
<br>
To understand the nature of the present war -- for in spite of the
regrouping which occurs every few years, <b>it is always the same war
-- one must realize in the first place that it is impossible for it to
be decisive</b>. . . . The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance
with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously
recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner
Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the
general standard of living.<br>
<b><br>
What is concerned here is not the morale of masses, whose attitude is
unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale
of the Party itself. </b>Even the humblest Party member is expected to
be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits,
but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant
fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and
orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have
the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether
the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is
possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly.
All that is needed is that a state of war should exist.<br>
<br>
The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its
members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is
now almost universal, but <b>the higher up the ranks one goes, the
more marked it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party that war
hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest.</b> In his capacity as
an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party
to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may
often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not
happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared
ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of
doublethink. Meanwhile <b>no Inner Party member wavers for an instant
in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to
end victoriously,</b> with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire
world. . . .<br>
<br>
War prisoners apart, the average citizen of Oceania never sets eyes on
a citizen of either Eurasia or Eastasia, and he is forbidden the
knowledge of foreign languages.<b> If he were allowed contact with
foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself
and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed
world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, and
self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate. . .</b><br>
<br>
The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars,
is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant
animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of
hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It
eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it <b>helps to preserve
the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War,
it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. . . .<br>
</b><br>
In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might
recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness
of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered
the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one
another at all. <u><b>The war is waged by each ruling group against
its own subjects</b></u>, and the object of the war is not to make or
prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society
intact.<br>
</i><br>
There are certainly people with genuine power who understand exactly
how this process works and are conscious of the propaganda it entails,
and there are many ordinary citizens, paying only casual attention to
political matters, who blindly ingest it. But it is the high-ranking
Inner Party members -- the D.C. cadre of think tank "scholars,"
government and academic functionaries, and journalists and pundits who
fancy themselves sophisticated political junkies and insiders -- who
are the True Believers. They cling to institutions of political power
and officialdom, plant their careers, self-esteem, self-importance and
social circles in its belly, and are thus the most incentivized to
believe in its Rightness and Goodness and the least able to critically
assess it. Intoxicated with supreme loyalty to the organs of political
power and societal institutions which support it, they become its most
ardent, faithful evangelizers. The more they gather together in their
insular royal court realm, the more they reinforce each other's trite
convictions.<br>
<br>
These pseudo-sophisticated, pseudo-intellectual nationalists may "know
that this or that item of war news is untruthful" or may even know that
the entire "war is being waged for purposes quite other than the
declared ones." But no matter: they are Washington's most loyal
denizens and thus "never waver for an instant in their mystical belief
that the war is real" or in the propaganda that sustains it. At the
heart of this propaganda -- and of their worldview -- is the
unquestioning conviction about the unmitigated evil of the State's
designated Enemies, and of their own Good. Observe how WikiLekas is
now discussed, and especially observe the waves of self-praising
moralizing over this next several days, to see this dynamic in all its
glory.<br>
<br>
[From <i><a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html"><http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html></a>.</i>]<br>
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