This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
2014: A Brave New Dystopian "1984" World
While many have pointed out that the Middle-East/Far-East are drifting to a more "Orwellian" world and the West is a more "Huxleyan" environ, the merger of the two dystopias is seemingly growing each day. As The Guardian previously noted, Huxley's dystopia is a totalitarian society, ruled by a supposedly benevolent dictatorship whose subjects have been programmed to enjoy their subjugation through conditioning and the use of a narcotic drug - the rulers of Brave New World have solved the problem of making people love their servitude. On the Orwellian front, we are doing rather well – as the revelations of Edward Snowden have recently underlined. We have constructed an architecture of state surveillance that would make Orwell gasp.
The most striking parallel of course is that both men foresaw the future as totalitarian rather than democratic and free.
Both Big Brother’s world and the Brave New World are ruled by authoritarian elites of a basically socialist/communist nature, whose only real purpose is the maintenance of their own power and privileges.
We discussed this a year ago but it seems an opportune time - with the world's brainwashing and control accelerating - to revisit the two
Decades ago they saw it all coming...
As The Guardian so appropriately summed up,
Huxley's dystopia is a totalitarian society, ruled by a supposedly benevolent dictatorship whose subjects have been programmed to enjoy their subjugation through conditioning and the use of a narcotic drug – soma – that is less damaging and more pleasurable than any narcotic known to us. The rulers of Brave New World have solved the problem of making people love their servitude.
Which brings us back to the two Etonian bookends of our future. On the Orwellian front, we are doing rather well – as the revelations of Edward Snowden have recently underlined. We have constructed an architecture of state surveillance that would make Orwell gasp. And indeed for a long time, for those of us who worry about such things, it was the internet's capability to facilitate such comprehensive surveillance that attracted most attention.
In the process, however, we forgot about Huxley's intuition. We failed to notice that our runaway infatuation with the sleek toys produced by the likes of Apple and Samsung – allied to our apparently insatiable appetite for Facebook, Google and other companies that provide us with "free" services in exchange for the intimate details of our daily lives – might well turn out to be as powerful a narcotic as soma was for the inhabitants of Brave New World. So even as we remember CS Lewis, let us spare a thought for the writer who perceived the future in which we would come to love our digital servitude.
And Chris Hedges' infamous comparison of the two frightening visions of the future...
The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second.
We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement. While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished. Now that credit is drying up, good jobs for the working class are gone forever and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, we find ourselves transported from “Brave New World” to “1984.” The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war and corporate malfeasance, is sliding toward bankruptcy. It is time for Big Brother to take over from Huxley’s feelies, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled.
...
The corporate state does not find its expression in a demagogue or charismatic leader. It is defined by the anonymity and facelessness of the corporation. Corporations, who hire attractive spokespeople like Barack Obama, control the uses of science, technology, education and mass communication. They control the messages in movies and television. And, as in “Brave New World,” they use these tools of communication to bolster tyranny. Our systems of mass communication, as Wolin writes, “block out, eliminate whatever might introduce qualification, ambiguity, or dialogue, anything that might weaken or complicate the holistic force of their creation, to its total impression.”
The result is a monochromatic system of information. Celebrity courtiers, masquerading as journalists, experts and specialists, identify our problems and patiently explain the parameters. All those who argue outside the imposed parameters are dismissed as irrelevant cranks, extremists or members of a radical left. Prescient social critics, from Ralph Nader to Noam Chomsky, are banished. Acceptable opinions have a range of A to B. The culture, under the tutelage of these corporate courtiers, becomes, as Huxley noted, a world of cheerful conformity, as well as an endless and finally fatal optimism. We busy ourselves buying products that promise to change our lives, make us more beautiful, confident or successful as we are steadily stripped of rights, money and influence. All messages we receive through these systems of communication, whether on the nightly news or talk shows like “Oprah,” promise a brighter, happier tomorrow. And this, as Wolin points out, is “the same ideology that invites corporate executives to exaggerate profits and conceal losses, but always with a sunny face.” We have been entranced, as Wolin writes, by “continuous technological advances” that “encourage elaborate fantasies of individual prowess, eternal youthfulness, beauty through surgery, actions measured in nanoseconds: a dream-laden culture of ever-expanding control and possibility, whose denizens are prone to fantasies because the vast majority have imagination but little scientific knowledge.”
Our manufacturing base has been dismantled. Speculators and swindlers have looted the U.S. Treasury and stolen billions from small shareholders who had set aside money for retirement or college. Civil liberties, including habeas corpus and protection from warrantless wiretapping, have been taken away. Basic services, including public education and health care, have been handed over to the corporations to exploit for profit. The few who raise voices of dissent, who refuse to engage in the corporate happy talk, are derided by the corporate establishment as freaks.
...
The façade is crumbling. And as more and more people realize that they have been used and robbed, we will move swiftly from Huxley’s “Brave New World” to Orwell’s “1984.” The public, at some point, will have to face some very unpleasant truths. The good-paying jobs are not coming back. The largest deficits in human history mean that we are trapped in a debt peonage system that will be used by the corporate state to eradicate the last vestiges of social protection for citizens, including Social Security. The state has devolved from a capitalist democracy to neo-feudalism. And when these truths become apparent, anger will replace the corporate-imposed cheerful conformity. The bleakness of our post-industrial pockets, where some 40 million Americans live in a state of poverty and tens of millions in a category called “near poverty,” coupled with the lack of credit to save families from foreclosures, bank repossessions and bankruptcy from medical bills, means that inverted totalitarianism will no longer work.
...
The noose is tightening. The era of amusement is being replaced by the era of repression. Tens of millions of citizens have had their e-mails and phone records turned over to the government. We are the most monitored and spied-on citizenry in human history. Many of us have our daily routine caught on dozens of security cameras. Our proclivities and habits are recorded on the Internet. Our profiles are electronically generated. Our bodies are patted down at airports and filmed by scanners. And public service announcements, car inspection stickers, and public transportation posters constantly urge us to report suspicious activity. The enemy is everywhere.
...
“Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?” Orwell wrote. “It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself.”
Watching Aldous Huxley describe the world we have now a stunning 60 years ago is horrific...
h/t Kirk
Though, in our view, Emmet Scott summed up the present in relation to Huxley and Orwell's prophecies best:
The most striking parallel of course is that both men foresaw the future as totalitarian rather than democratic and free. Neither presumably believed their vision of the future to be inevitable, though it is equally clear that each saw aspects of mid-twentieth century life which clearly pointed in the totalitarian direction. Thus 1984 and Brave New World may be seen as warnings against what might be if the trends identified by the two authors persisted. What these trends were and why the authors saw them leading towards totalitarianism is an important question and one that will be addressed presently.
The totalitarian states described by Orwell and Huxley differed in most details, though there were also many correspondences. Both Big Brother’s world and the Brave New World are ruled by authoritarian elites of a basically socialist/communist nature, whose only real purpose is the maintenance of their own power and privileges.
- 36298 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -



the reason huxley and orwell knew 60-70 years ago what was coming is not because they were good clairvoyants but because they were connected to the groups planning the take over. anyone who is not a conspiracy theorist is a stupid fuck.
"both men foresaw the future as totalitarian rather the democratic and free."
We have democratic and totalitarian.
In spite of all the talk, freedom is just a concept in the modern world.
Are they any better than the H G Wells version? Hmmmmm
It is a combination of the two worlds my friends, that they both knew it, was to be somewhat in on it...simple really.
As to the conclusion, that has yet to be written, has it not? Anyone can guess, and say this or that is the truth, and absolutley believe it, yet it is a lie.
Soothsayers, politicians and bankers, one thing is true, if their lips are moving, they are lying!
Put that in your pipe and smoke it people, we have all been duped, Edward Bernaise (Sp?), was a geniius, it is still alive and well too!
Molon Labe!
By consistently fearing Orwell's vision, the West has unwittingly fallen into Huxley's dystopia:
http://www.truthcontrol.com/files/truthcontrol/images/aldous_huxley_vs_george_orwell.jpg
SO MUCH.... so much better than the article's picture.
Bro, e-mail me: fudpacker@hotmail.com
-Chumblez.
Geddaddahere! That's not yer real shemail. ;-)
North Korea (Orwell) and South Korea(Huxley)
Definitely -- though the Neil Postman-based picture is clearly pre-Snowden, arguing for Huxley's future.
I love the line in the original article's picture,though, about "Time.com, the reputable news site..." Time is for children.
We've become both. The latter is merely Bread and Circuses, distracting us the fact that we have become the former. We stand in line to buy, and walk around with the latest revision to the perfect surveillance device, in our pockets. There is no more clear example to demonstrate the lack of any dichotomy whatsoever.
the EU treaty, the lisbon treaty, refers to people as SUBJECTS. not citizens. not a typo.
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2014/03/hijacked-ibm-engineer-succe...
.......hat under this historical process, “law is replaced by administrative decree, federalism is replaced by executive autocracy, and a limited government replaced by an unlimited state.”[4] It acts in the name of abstract goals, such as equality or positive rights, and uses its claim of moral superiority, power of taxation and wealth redistribution to keep itself in power.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Managerial_statecents
Your link is broken, this works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Managerial_state
The sheople scored and got the best of both worlds.
my bracket is doing pretty well
I had both wisconsin (NYSE:WISC) and michigan (NYSE:MICH) moving forward to the next round
am currently leading my pool
admittedly though, I didn't project oculus (NYSE:OVTZ) advancing
Freedom has only ever been a concept. It cannot be given. It cannot be measured. You have to take the concept and live by it. Nobody is going to do it for you.
Correct, true freedom isn't buying 100 pairs of shoes or owning a bunch of houses, it's controlling your own mind, thinking for yourself and being independent
I would bet 75% of the ZH posters still watch TV and pay for the corporate TV crap like idiots. I bet the percentage on other web sites like Huff Po and Free Republic is even higher. Stupid f**king sheep.
Huxley was right.
watch TV
don't watch TV
Let's test that.
Whats TV. Anything like tuberculosis?
No cable or broadcast TV in my home for the last 11 years and counting...
I don't watch tv but I love snarfing things like breaking bad...
THANK YOU FOR CONSUMING THE CORPORATE PABULUM WOULD YOU LIKE ANOTHER HELPING
I AM CHUMBAWAMBA
+1
I was one of the votes. I went to small party at a relatives house a few nights ago. The subject came up and someone mentioned that I do not watch TV and the TV's were disconnected years ago. People could not fathom why. TV is like drugs for drug addicts. The elites are not scared because they know they can control us with TV and they spew their lies on the net too.
+1 on the thread
I took one step further: dont't listen to radio and quit reading corporate newspapers/websites about a year ago. Nowadays, everytime I try reading a newspaper (usually during breaks at work) I'm literally LMAO at the utter crap that's been printed on the poor dead tree.
No real informations, just an endless blabber about trivialities, colorful commercial ads and eventually some propaganda 2-liners about world happenings, which I've usually read and digested at least 3 or 4 days ago.
Newspaper: last week's news written the day before yesterday and printed yesterday.
Newspapers are a joke. It is like the movie The Matrix where once you stop listening to radio crap and stop newspapers that you laugh and almost weep because of the crap and mind control. The only decent papers in English were UK Daily Telegraph, they are crap now. So that just leave Investors Business Daily but the non financial stuff is thin and they are not that great but the rest are a joke.
You forgot to mention that most of the articles are from the Associated Press, Reuters or UPI. None of the major chain papers have any bureaus or reporters in the hotspots around the world. Even the major dailies do not have the resources they once had. Seems that the executives at the papers need more money to maintain their life styles than they used to. Stinking J************!!!!!!!!
Samuel Clemens said " if you don't read the paper your uninformed, if you read the paper your misinformed" I couldn't agree more
He probably wrote "you're"; but it's a great line, anyway.
He who runs the information, runs the show...
Joseph Goebbels
It's more about not watching the broadcast channels/networks which TPTB control and use for disinformation.
You can now have a Television that's connected to the internet. This is the information age, what we do with it is up to us, I see an opportunity for awakening and revival.
"Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards." - Aldous Huxley
Damn, I love that quote 'cause it's so true.
I don't know. I've always held that information/technology is a double edged sword. Information is a very powerful tool which can cause fundamental change. That's why controlling information has always been the goal of sociopaths.
I agree with you on the importance of information; it's neither good nor bad per se, but it's powerful.
Technology, on the contrary, is the sword of Damocles hanging above humanity's collective head. I don't argue that it should be observed through the glasses of duality (yin-yang, like everything else), but in general technology has made us generally lazy/non-agile and got us to lose touch with our natural surroundings. Something we are reminded of every time we experience power/water cuts. Not to speak about technology's dumbing-down potential, something TPTB are definitely taking advantage of.
TPTB don't need to censor anything, all they need to do is drown-out the important information by broadcasting vast piles of innanities and,... oh, look,... something shiny...
Death to Facebook.
You Budy, are talk'n to get a Homeland Security talkn to with your anti public value conditioning resistance? Do you have any idea of what would happen with out mass desrraction? Do you? People, lots of people would get hurt. People night get ideas, crazy individual ideas. Just think if people, Amerken people bailed on being consumers like feedlot cattle quit eating. Chaos. World. Economic. Collapse. War. Hundreds of millions dead. Is that what you want, Larry? See what happens Larry?
Be good, get with the team, be a loyal Ameriken. But a TV. Come back to your family, your state. Be free, watch TV.
/S
Haven't had it on since I rented a film from redbox. And the time before that same reason.
Months between rentals.
Haven't owned a TV since '66. Rarely listen to the car radio and if I do, it goes off at the first commercial!
Cannot stand commercial radio; hell they even TELL you they are going to force feed you ****.
And switch stations - but wait! They ALL are also on a commercial. How the fuck is that even possible?
So I called XM 2 weeks ago and negotiated the cheapest package I couldn't for their music package. Dave with the oddest accent hooked me up at about 8.00 per month for a year.
Must say I am enjoying it.
TV in house
No TV in house
Let's test that for real
--Have cable and/or over the air box
--Don't have either
Let's see a real poll.
We won't see it by soliciting votes here.
I like programming silicon - not the other way around. ;-)
I hate paying for TV but there is a certain person in the house who just doesn't believe. I get the eye roll if I try to convince her. Life is hard like that sometimes.
If mama aint happy, nobody happy.
Edit
you don't watch continuum with rachel nichols and lexa doig?
Agreed, but only partially; there's really no evidence that Orwell was an insider, merely a footsoldier who saw the horrors of the Anglo-American Establishment firsthand and witnessed his dream of Socialism as a means of defeating globalization crumble around him. Huxley, now that's a different story. Not only was he lifelong friends with technocrat and eugenicist Bertrand Russel, but Albert Stubblebine (of Men who Stare at [Scape]Goats fame) claimed in a recent interview with Jan Irvin that Huxley was PERSONALLY the head of MKULTRA during its earliest days. Huxley even sent Orwell letters as he was on his death bed, taunting him about his interpretation of a totalitarian future; Huxley knew that Orwell's vision would only be applied to a few dissenters, while the proverbial "masses" would stupify themselves into a Hindu-esque caste system via drugs and technocracy, and he knew ahead of time because he was actively working to usher in that future himself.
And that's just the more circumstantial evidence; if we tie in the CIA funding of Huxley's infamous Esalen Institute in California, the picture becomes quite clear. Huxley was most certainly an insider, and his "warnings" weren't prophecy, merely predictive programming, just like so many other works in "popular" culture (Minority Report, Enemy of the State, etc.)
Tony, if you see this, I'm sure you'd get a kick out of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1r1bgaQ2Jg
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the TRUTH is a revolutionary act."
-George Orwell
www.journalisticrevolution.com
Check this out. The Victoria Nudelmans, State Dept., Lady Ashton, the Brooking Institute and other Orwellian liars have now made the right wing and nazis who the oligarchs, Zio-USSA used to do the coup in the Ukraine - are being made out as allies of Russia!
The Right Sector, Nazis, Bandera-ites are no longer needed so they are turning on them. They are now made out as Russian helpers and allies! Talk about lying mind control propaganda.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/
Oh and I love how they figured out everything about the Malaysian Airlines flight as soon as they wanted that story killed.
+1
Yes. Another reason why I avoid TV and Hollywood aka Operation Mockingbird. The movies and TV shows glorify the alphabet agencies with clever technology and gadgets. Cops as the military. Super secret spying satellites. Brave paramilitary black ops types getting bad guys.
Tom Clancy's crap was this as well or propaganda for MIC. Clancy said he picked up all the inside stuff hanging out in bars in Maryland where defense and Navy types hung out. Yeah sure.
Damn straight, Freddie. When Spielberg created Minority Report, he got together a team to create what they called "The 2054 Bible." It was comprised of globalist corporations (IBM, former Micro$oft employees, etc.) with direct ties to the Brookings Institute and CFR, and their task was to present the world they supposedly saw coming. Call me crazy, but I don't think they were "imagining" the facial recognition and biometric advertisements we see today; I think they were prepping us to release the technology a mere 10 years later.
I dunno if you're familiar with the work of Tom Secker, but he did a wonderful video presentation in France last year quantifyably proving that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner are active CIA assets, and he does so with some incredibly convincing documentation. I like to show it to any of my friends or family who say I'm "nuts" for imagining that Hollywood and the government are in cahoots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJZ7qgsxn9U
Thanks for the links, in my families experience, when one quits watching TV there is suddenly a lot of time and mental energy to read book and watch new kinds of doco's on the net.
The conversations at home also become more interesting and suddenly everyone is learning how to search for good info and share the links or books with eachother.
ZHrs are a great source for links of items I wouldn't have thought of or known to look for.
+1
I bet you dollars to donuts that Affleck will be a Senator. Bank on it. Either from Mass or CA.
It is all about softening up the public as they roll out new technology or cops in full battle gear or other crap. I guess our minds are conditioned to think - wow this is cool I saw this in XYZ movies. "Drones are awesome because they were in some video game or mindless movie I saw."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
Rahm's brother is the biggest agent in Hollywood. His other brother created ObamaCare.
The endless pages on Laurel Canyon, MIC, the children of elites and the intelligence agents. Founding families or families who have been in the USA since the founding like the Fonda's, David Crosby's family and many others. The govt intel facility/film studio at the top of Laurel Canyon. You will find endless web pages on it.
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread861138/pg1
It is beyond weird. Famous musicians in California with ex-intel club and band managers. Actors and actresses. Drugs, perversion, Illuminati crap and the list goes on. How many of them mysteriously died. Dozens of people. The mortality of anyone who came in contact with Laurel Canyon was off the charts. Statistically impossible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MINARET
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_SHAMROCK
Dozens of people. The mortality of anyone who came in contact with Laurel Canyon was off the charts. Statistically impossible.
My ... God!! So you're saying Randy Quaid might actually be sane?
yeah the material on laurel canyon is crazy. dave mcgowan blew the lid off of that. even if only half of what mcgowan says is true, it's still fascinating. like, the '60s totally didn't happen the way people want to think they did...
Argo
Black Hawk Down
Enema of the State
Flight 93
Lincoln
Manchurian Candidate
Zero Dark Thirty
That these won Prizes and Presidencies sez it all
That darn Motorcycle Industry Council again.
Someone terminated his contract early?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnqvMgyhgYI 2:22
http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/17/5518980/tom-clancy-ghost-recon-online-p...
Depends on the conspiracy theory. Banksters manipulating the capital markets and the economy? Yes.
But stuff like the earth is flat and the Apollo moon landings were faked? No, count me out.
Are you a flat earther, Tony?
Flat Birther here
Winner
Add Jules Verne and HG Wells to the mix
Conspiracy theory but a work in progress
Whether by design or collusion, those that are pulling the "strings" are connected to us via those strings. Our goal should be to cut those strings, and severer out connection to them. They are dependent on us, not we on them.
The trap, obedience, acquiescence to coercion, is in the mind. Rejection of obedience and coercion free oneself to serve himself and, indirectly, the rest of mankind by way of voluntary trade.
To obey is to allow oneself to be used for the benefit of others. To only live off what they don't steal or take from you. Your life becomes defined by them and their needs and wants for their benefit and enjoyment, not yours.
Reject obedience, embrace freedom--Freedom is the lack of obedience.
Is your brain so fogged? CAN you think?
Pity your 39 other supporters. What an idioticc thing to say, Absolutely idiotic.
I was replying to the idiot who said Orwell and Huxley had to be members of the elite class. Just cause they had some insight.
Yes. Every time I read that sort of drivel, full of fantastic but utterly unsubstantiated assertions, I always want to ask, "And you know this how?"
That's really old news. Quite what the late Neil Postman wrote. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.
As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.
In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."
Neil Postman-Amusing Ourselves to Death
"kill the poets."
it's contradictory to "kill the amusers" because they provide the outlet for your "criminal underclass." there is no love in this world either.
"Dove hunting is against the law in New York."
(not in the South though. Not that killing a dove is easy actually. You should try it sometime.)
I think Karl Marx had it right..."still the best" as they say...based upon "internal contradictions."
Simply put when the money doesn't make any sense then everyone turns to the State for the answer and State looks right back at them and says "okay, not you guys deal with it."
Very confusing.
Sometimes not so much though.
Well writ
(1984 = Eric Blair)
Either way, we are fcuked.
There are more of us than there are of them. This is why they want us to feel isolated. The boiling frog technique is working.
I am really going to miss ZH when TPTB take the next step, and all the sites like this one disappear.
Of course, soon after that it won't matter, when visitors to this site get a little visit of their own.
Optimist
OK, that's the Orwellian scenario. Now let's take Huxley's side for a moment.
It's equally likely that sites like this won't disappear. They'll simply be buried in tons and tons of diverting but pointless rubbish: wild-eyed conspiracy theories, flame wars over racist or anti-Semitic posts, BTC...
Opposition to 0Care ran from 100 to 1000 times support.
It passed because few knew it from MSM.
Now most people are canceling MSM and online fact-checking.
Yo BBart, Drudge and ZH.
74% know 0Care is 0D Waterloo:
http://bit.ly/1joPVGR
yeah, pretty much.
"We have met the enemy, and he is us."
-Pogo
The enemy is our innate behavior involving how to survive in a zero some game.
It is counter-productive in a positive sum game.
Yes, for the most part, the enemy is us. The fact is, a corrupt and godless people vote for and elect corrupt and godless leaders. (assuming a vote actually has any affect) Just look at those that are making laws in the uS congress…. Do you EVER find yourself in agreement with what they are doing in that 10 mile square? I don’t. Liberals and neo-cons do.
But, there are those, like myself, that have withdrawn from the "system" that expects you to be in lockstep. Like the Apple 1984 commercial, I've tried to smash that screen. Only when I do, I get mobbed by the sheeple and am hated, maligned and shunned. I touch their idol and get killed for doing so.
So I stopped trying to convert the masses and continue my life practice of living in liberty any way I can. I'v been out of the "system” since 1979. I will continue to live free or die trying.
Secede or Die. Because the end result of compliance and complacency is evident.
As long as we allow the same people to remain in control through each war/financial downturn then how can we expect our living conditions to change? Of course, it doesn't help that most of the people have no idea who the Rothschilds are or that tbey are the ones that engineer the above mentioned crises.
Harry Browne: How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World
sold 2 M copies.
Then he ran for President twice and lost.
No Libertarian has won National Office.
This year might be different.
Only if the vote plurality is more than 10%.
Word is the machines can swing elections up to 10%...
I would offer three things:
1) As for, "the enemy being us," one must realize what the mass counterfeiting and robbery of one's labor, product and savings by the banksters does to a people and their humanity. I would argue that once the system of counterfeiting became "centralized," the end was near. The banksters use the government, and the government uses the banksters.
2) Keep trying to educate, as some that you do will much sooner wakeup and realize what is happening.
3) "Secede or Die." But comeback with a vengeance.
If the oportunity to come back happens in my life, I will, I will. My thoughts are that things are going to get far worse and it will last a very long time. There simply are not enough people that care to resist tyrany.
Automatic -1 for "sheeple".
And I wish I could add another -1 for "godless". Adding religion to the mix is hardly likely to make things better.
"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."
-Rousseau
absolutely.
"We're done here!"
-The Wizard of Oz
Chris Hedges "It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second"
Spot on !
I see the third: enslavement with a snarl under Hitlery.
Castration will be free, though.
"What does it matter!?!?"
Chris Hedges is quite insightful and extremely intelligent. Add his real world experience of covering wars to the mix and you have someone who can easily outwit most of the conservative and mainstream liberal radio and TV windbags. Funny how rarely they let him on any media outlets, except the Alt media. Of course, he's likely too smart for the average 'Mercan to understand anyway.
hedges is a limited hangout... disinfo
Actually, I think we're missing step 1.5, the reduction of world population to 500 million.
Both came from extreme wealth
How about equal time for Animal Farm and The Island?
Soma tter whitcha?
There is very little under the sun. In Utopia, Thomas Moore described a totalitarian and socialist state as the most desirable outcome. That was written in 1516.
And those thoughts "went to his head". More accurately "went with his head".
After Plato concluded similarly in The Republic
It's comical that the Orwell/Huxley image references Time.com as a reputable news org. Time is as big a fucking waste as MSNBC, CNN, FNC, or ABC/CBS/NBC, not to mention the printed shit like NYT, LAT, NYP, WSJ, or the rest.
Rubbing salt in the wound. Fake news presented as unfake news that certifies other fake news sources as unfake.
1lb sugar + 1tsp shit == 1tsp sugar + 1lb shit
We have both. Low maintenence freedom lovers who limit playing candy swipe to save the earth from global warming while waiting for what the Bieber is doing next and the boot on the neck for the rest of us deemed noncorformist terrorists.
Well while we are going down memory lane for the literary types, how the hell does "when the tripods came" fit into the mix?
Tom Cruise interface.
I get no kicks beating a dead horse.
eight friends at the table in the pub last night, at one point i was the only one not staring into the screen of a smartphone,
i just went outside for a smoke,
Luddite.
No, it's called not being a complete fucking screen-obessed zombie when with company.
I sometimes tell people, "{dude, girl}, put that shit away," if it gets too distracting.
Yes. The oldsters like dumb old baby boomers grew up on TV and being brainwashed by TV and loving it like dumb sheep. The younger folks are conditioned and made into controlled sheep with wireless devices.
The kids today stare at their phones and iPads every second like sheep. But hey granny is a dumb sheep on Facebook too!
We are taught to conform and be part of the group from an early age.
Hunger just might be the catalyst required for us to rebel.
Encouraging division and in fighting might well then be their most effective way of controlling us.
Maybe, but then the 'Brave New World' facade will be finally dropped and everyone will truly meet Orwellian totalitarianism.
Perhaps we will end up like North Korea.
Oh they got that covered with Soylent Green. McDonalds and EBT are the way to fix that. MCD is Soylent Green.
The other night I ran into a grocery store. I had about 5 small items and was paying cash. I had a fat, youngish white woman with a low cut t-shirt but she was pretty gross. She had a full cart of stuff. She pulls out tons of coupons. I thought well don't judge and she is probably paying for it.
The checkout lady asks her what type of payment and she whispers EBT ***and*** WIC. Well the checkout has to almost audit all the coupons cause some are not taking. 5 minutes. Then the EBT and WIC cards are not taking - another 5 minutes. I jumped to another line. I had probably 15 minutes wasted by someone who was not paying for anything. The USSA is doomed.
Don't worry. Where there's a will, there's a way, and there are always new avenues to explore and exploit and make a killing and fortunes on markets of uncertainty with ....... http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2014/03/29/train_your_brain_by_playing_video_games_inside_it/#c_2148859
Two books which should be required reading for age 12, 18, 25, 32, 38, 43, etc. etc. etc. Regular readings are necessary for undoing the constant psyche warfare damage and unconscious conditioning.
Will point out once again that 'democratic' is not free. In fact that is as pure an oxymoron as there is, as democracy implies statism implies theft and coercion. And actually at least in a monarchy, the monarch 'owns' the government privately and thus has a vested interest in seeing it through and having things go well/investment for the future versus short term whims of the 51%.
Neither the Declaration of Independence, Constitution nor Bill of Rights mentioned democracy
Kiplingian: http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_easyabc1.htm
I've always maintained that it will be Brave New World for the ones who acquiesce and accept the new order quietly, and 1984 for the troublemakers and dissenters.
Both of these books were required reading for us in high school (private Catholic School, Peoria, Illinois mid-1970's). They both made deep impressions - I can never read either again - non-fiction horror is what they are imvho ...
I wonder what required reading is now ... do they even force the children to slug their way through entire novels {shudder} ?
Hell on earth on the way.
Strange days walking through the San Francisco Renaissance - for 10% of the population while the non-working street people grow obese with hunger and the other 50% cough and slumber with heads hung down in the stale air on BART predawn rides to work for $9.90 an hour to pay the rent for their knocked-up daughters and live-in son-in-laws 'cause Babydaddy can't find work and lost his last job delivering 420 on his bicycle. Meanwhile the cannabis is 500 times stronger than it was in my own lost youth ...
It's tough out here in the Bay, but if you can thrive in this rat race you're doing something right. Can't wait to leave for greener and mellower pastures out of state. The weed...well the weed kicks ass of course but a slower roll can hold you back around here.
Calif creeps me out. It is not the place to be when all the shit is falling apart. I have not been there for 12 years and when I was there I stayed in two of the nicest areas. Napa and Carmel/Monterey. However, even then I got a weird and bad vibe about CA. Too many people. I cannot imagine what it must like now.
The geography is beautiful and a lot like Italy. I would take Italy over CA any day of the week. People joke about Italy's govt's failing and requiring new elections all the time. This is preferable to scum like Boxer, Waxman, Pelosi and Feinstein being in govt forever. And what about the f**king Brown clan of Jerry and his dad being in charge of CA on and off for what - 60 years?
I wonder what required reading is now ...
Heather has two mommies
So many... words. If it can't be said in 140 characters it is not worth reading.
"Get back to work pushing papers and shoveling something to be paid peanuts while consuming pablum you distracted zombie debt serfs."
The future ain't what it used to be - Yogi
Pretty sure Huxley was a genius.
The whole interview video is worth the watch.
Mike Wallace trying to keep up, doing a pretty good job, while he smokes a couple cigarettes on air.
We've lost that freedom, haven't we?
Huxley makes prescient comments about leaders being put forth by handlers and packaged by marketers to appeal to feelings versus rational intelligent choice; and the dangers of technology being used to propagandize and subsume and subdue the individual and liberty via distraction.
Brave New World - 2014.
In the future the Oligarch's children rise up against them and kill them all.
Zardoz!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070948/
I f'n love that movie.
By the way, the douchey little infographic purporting to illustrate the difference between Orwell and Huxley is actually just a great example of Orwellian control of information. So for Orwell we see the transgressions committed by minor-league Middle Eastern dictatorships in clumsy, heavy-handed attempts to block access to media that allow theoretically uncontrolled sharing of unfiltered information, but NO MENTION of the NSA's PERVASIVE spying, the 'Patriot Act' (easiest example of Newspeak to point to) the vilification of Edward Snowden, the perpetual rewrites of history done on a constant basis in the west generally and especially aggressively in the US, the constant changing of the enemy, within the context of perpetual state of war (We've always been at war with Eastasia). I could go on and on. We aren't on the WAY to Orwellian society, we're almost fully arrived.
Chris Hedges
Bow down and give yhanks to yhe arrogant narcissistic lying ollegal alien sociopathic muslim fudge packer in chief, all ye infidels.
Reputable news site of Time magazine? You lost me there.
Noam Chomksy the FED supporter. When I read the title of Huxley vs Orwell, I had much anticipation and the conclusion I can share. The gloves will come off. But to name all these left wing socialists as counter weights to tyranny? They are gate keepers, intellectual supporters.
Basic services handed over to for profit corporations? Like the government is not interested in making money on you. My government makes more money on me than any corporation and I get shit back for it. I have to pay for my own fences. Corporation get handed a few monopolies by the state, but the gigantic monopoly itself, IS the state. The institute that devoured 260 million lives in the 20th century alone. Mostly under the red flag. To hold up these left icons and champions of freedom? What if I am against acounterfeiting monopoly called the fed, that robs everyone constantly? Does Noam Chomsky's goons come and arrest me?
Yeah, I was hugely disappointed at Chomsky, the 'anarchist''s support for the FED. I don't think it undoes the work he's done in exposing the duplicity in the media, the way they manage the agenda and the scope of debate, etc. I found his work in that area really enlightening, and for me it really took off a lot of the blinders that our society installs on everybody by default at the time they can start to read.
But I have to wonder how a guy who can point out the elephant in the room in so many areas can simultaneously embrace the blatantly corrupt power and wealth transfer that institution represents, and not have an issue with the way it was founded, the way it operates, and the way it uses the very media he's so articulately railed against for years to push its own agenda and propaganda. I'm also surprised at how quick he is to dismiss so many of the other contraversial topics of the last 10 years (911, etc....) - as if TPTB are corrupt enough to implicitly control the entire media structure to serve their needs, but its unthinkable that they might ever go beyond that.
I think the left-right distinction is also pointless, though, and largely leveraged by TPTB to keep dissenters distracted - shiny objects to chase so the real crimes can be perpetrated unnoticed. '2 minute hate' and 'hate week' coming soon...
I think he is best on foreign 'policy' and media indeed. Although you can get that at other places without the fed bs.
yeah 911 is also a disappointment. He looks at it from a probability perspective. The people who questioned it first, were mostly physicists. They saw wtc7 go down, molten metal, dust evaporated buildings and it did not add up. But he is fairly in the system, there is only so much room you have.
I wonder if their instincts got it all figured out and we got full 1984. It certainly looks that way. But if the supermarkts are empty it seems the people suddenly know who is to blame for all this and their army and police only obey orders so far. It will be exciting to see how far they manage to implement their police state.
Chomsky is a 9/11 denier!
it's fairly easy to tell. if they're pretending to be an 'outsider' and they're not either dead or destroyed, then they're 'disinfo' or 'limited hangout' instead.
and from 1973 ... "Letter from America" ..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz6hmGiOn2I
He says we will love our slavery.....legal weed, govt benefits.....
Beast Tech ACTIVATE!
Earth? no were in fucking monster world now. Now shut up before we turn you off.
The article has zero credibiliy as the underpinnings of our emerging totalitarian world are corporate and facist. It is the corporations that are concetrating power via their control of the State and its instutions.
The use of the terms communist/socialist is best a failure of understanding or deliberately misleading.
I agree re sloppy and/or reactionary use of the "communist/socialist" smear-- instead of accurately dubbing corporate control as what it really is: fascist.
Otherwise, the article, esp. Chris Hedges quotes are credible and accutate.
because the state is santa claus in your progressive delusion.
there is no a power good for its subordinates, and never has.
I turn the TV on at 12:30 every day unless Post Time is earlier. After the last race that I'm interested in is over it goes off. Does that make me a sheep?
Nope, that only makes you a weird man interested in sheeps.
1984 meets Brave New World. Good that others too see this happen. But observing it is one, recognizing it another and breaking this process will need a completely different approach than what has happened in the books, imho (1984 at least). Not a single hero, but a teached and informed base in society, with everyone knowing everything. Would be quite ironic if it starts with community organizers, I think.
Choom gang = Lord of the Flies