Lying is not Patriotic

A valiant speech by Ron Paul: Lying is not Patriotic

It was refreshing to hear Ron Paul in Congress speaking out on the Wikileaks/Julian Assange situation on Youtube!

Who will be next? One really has to ask this question.

This heinous Espionage Act has had only dire and detrimental consequences to the freedom of the people of our country in the past. Many suffered unjustly as noted in Naomi Wolf’s article here at Huffington Post.

Those who allow themselves to forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

Are we doomed to a “1984″ fate 26 years later than predicted? It looked like we were heading there, but if this is allowed, I fear for all of us in this once great country.

Freedom is something that takes diligence to maintain.

And don’t forget, some of the most horrible things in history were done with the best intentions.

When Copyright Goes Bad

When Copyright Goes Bad

Info from the YouTube video page:

A film by Ben Cato Clough and Luke Upchurch.

Suddenly, copyright rules no longer do what they are supposed to do. They have gone bad.

This is a film about how copyright has become one of the most important consumer issues of the digital age; why corporate lobbying risks criminalising the actions of hundreds of thousands of people; and what the future holds for the fight for fairer copyright laws.

When Copyright Goes Bad is an introduction to the renegotiation of copyright and is for anyone interested in how copyright is affecting consumers. It features some of the key players in the copyright debate, including:

Fred Von Lohmann – Electronic Frontier Foundation; Michael Geist – University of Ottawa Law School; Jim Killock – Open Rights Group; and Hank Shocklee – Co-founder of Public Enemy.

For more, visit http://www.A2Knetwork.org/film

60 Years after Orwell published Nineteen Eighty Four

Frail, cowardly Winston saved us by Robert Harris, Times Online

Clearly much of Nineteen Eighty-Four is a satire on Stalinism, from the physical description of Big Brother’s face (“black-haired, black-mous-tachio’d, full of power and mysterious calm”) to the split in the party led by the Trotsky figure, Emmanuel Goldstein. And if that were the limit of Orwell’s ambition – to describe England as a Stalinist state – the novel would be regarded today as a brilliant period piece about the horrors of communism, comparable perhaps to his friend Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon: an important work, still read but confined to a limited audience.

However, what sets Nineteen Eighty-Four apart – the difference in ambition which means that millions of people who have never read a word of Orwell nevertheless know what “Orwellian” means – is that it parodies the totalitarian impulse in general. The original ideology behind this impulse may be communist or fascist, or nationalist or corporate or institutional, but the methods by which it proceeds are in each case the same: the stamping out of the capacity for individual thought and freedom, not merely by physical force but by a complete denial of privacy and by the control of all information, even to the extent of policing the language in which thoughts are expressed.

(BOLD emphasis mine)

Yes, I think at least to date, Winston did in a way save us, but whether Winston’s testament will continue to do so for another generation remains to be seen. Although, I see wonderful stirrings among the younger generations in the areas of privacy, liberty, freedom and individuality. It gives me hope to see this as we mark the 60 year milestone since the book 1984 (Nineteen Eighty Four) by George Orwell was published. Orwell’s last and greatest work — that took the last of everything out of him to bring to fruition. Thank you George Orwell.

Footnote: To Robert Harris: Maybe George Orwell didn’t get it wrong. Maybe, by publishing this book, and so many people taking the possibilities to heart is what in part helped to prevent this type of horrific society in 1984 from actually coming to pass? Just a thought…

1984. Max Headroom. Brave New World. Time Machine. I Robot.

Why these books? I personally believe there is an element of truth in all science fiction. Maybe not as written, but the concepts upon which they are written.

1984. For those who have not read this rather sick and twisted version of a future no one wants to be a part of. It is a cult classic, science fiction tale of extrapolation of the worst possible scenario that could happen. At least in my humble opinion. I enjoyed reading it as I have many other great piece of literature. It was masterfully written, enveloping, and although I don’t believe we will live to see this happen, I do see some inklings of things that niggle.

Regardless of how folks feel about the book itself, there are some amazing quotes from George Orwell’s 1984 that we all should be aware of.

The mantra of INGSOC presented by the “Ministry of Truth”:

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Two particularly interesting paragraphs at the beginning of the book speak about the signs everywhere with the black-mustachio’d face gazing right into your eyes from everywhere, with the words, “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” as a caption. He also indicated the police patroled in helicopters peering in homes, but they didn’t matter, it was only the “Thought Police” that mattered.

Winston, the main character, was trying to remain, what he considered to be sane in the midst of insanity around him where truth was lies, and lies were truth, and truth was only what they were told it was.

He began to write his thoughts down in a hidden book, hidden, at least he thought it was hidden, from the “Thought Police.”

There were televisions in each home, but these televisions were two way -receivers and transmitters of both audio and video – and you never knew when they would be ‘tuned’ into your particular television. Something that would be unnerving to anyone.

His first words in his journal was the date April 4th, 1984 and after some thoughts, he began to madly write thoughts down. Then after some ‘normal’ everyday things happened, including strange mind control rallies where everyone was ‘encouraged’ to take part. Winston sat in his little ‘apartment’ and after realizing that “only the “Thought Police” would read what he wrote before they wiped it out of existence and out of memory. He wondered how you could appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even an anonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive.” He began writing again,

To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone–to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone:
From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink–greetings!

After some rather morbid contemplation, he wrote again:

Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime was death.

He knew first hand how someone could be wiped out; his job was part of the process of rewriting history to reflect the current needs of ‘the Party.’

It is really a very sad story of a man, driven quite mad by the insane life forced upon him and the insane thinking forced upon him by the ‘Party.’

There was no freedom, no true living, no hope.

One final thought from the book, toward the end of the book in one interview with O’Brien, who apparently is trying to convince Winston of the ‘Party’ truth’…

O’Brien was looking down at him speculatively. More than ever he had the air of a teacher taking pains with a wayward but promising child.

‘There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past,’ he said. ‘Repeat it, if you please.’

‘”Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,”‘ repeated Winston obediently.

‘”Who controls the present controls the past,”‘ said O’Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. ‘Is it your opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?’

Again the feeling of helplessness descended upon Winston. His eyes flitted towards the dial. He not only did not know whether ‘yes’ or ‘no’ was the answer that would save him from pain; he did not even know which answer he believed to be the true one.

O’Brien smiled faintly. ‘You are no metaphysician, Winston,’ he said. ‘Until this moment you had never considered what is meant by existence. I will put it more precisely. Does the past exist concretely, in space? Is there somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is still happening?’

‘No.’

‘Then where does the past exist, if at all?’

‘In records. It is written down.’

‘In records. And—-?’

‘In the mind. In human memories.’

‘In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?’

In our current world of ‘political correctness’, and the wishing to do away with a past that might bother some folks, where wonderful technologies are being created, and used by, or made use of by, massive companies who in turn make use of agencies to control them, and by association, those who make use of them – Well, that could make something ‘like’ these scifi scenarios, like 1984 and others, or the equally unacceptable future in the Max Headroom scifi television series, actually come to pass some day in the future…

This book along with so many other great scifi books really do have some (hopefully) twisted elements of truth in them, but they are still very interesting. Science Fiction is the mind out to play, searching for a combination of possible future science and social responses…and maybe to in some small way, foresee or forewarn.

I genuinely hope we never live to see anything like this come to pass. But it’s great fiction, and thought provoking, none the less.

NOTE: Originally posted: March 2005 (recreated from my original mangled blogspot.com blog)