Friends, following a close look at blogs in America, Britain and Australia today (combined with my perusal of world news over the last few months) I feel that the question raised in the title can now be legitimately asked.
Right-wing, ever more despotic Governments, using the 'We're Fighting Terrorism' pretext, have, during the last few years, been actively engaged in reducing the rights of citizens. They have been stopping people's right to protest, to march, to assemble, etc. They have been locking people up without charge and sending some of them off to foreign destinations to be tortured. Some unfortunates have been kept in cages for years without trial, etc.
Governments, illegally, have been actively listening into people's phone conversation, vetting their emails, examining their bank records, who knows what else? They have been impeding travel at airports, targeting certain ethnic minorities and stopping people from carrying some personal items onto planes, etc. Existing laws and the judiciary are frequently being ignored and there has been a flood of new restrictive laws, most of them rushed through Parliament with little or no debate.
The slide towards despotic, right-wing government in some Western Nations has been assisted and supported by both Big Business and Religious Fundamentalists. Such alliances work against the interests of 'the people' and against peace. Such alliances often favor war which can bring super profits to armament manufacturers and new resources like oil to energy producers; and shape events to favor the fulfilling of anachronistic biblical and koranical prophecies.
At the current rate, how long will it be before the internet is closed to those voicing dissent and laws passed to ensure that all bloggers are registered (but only if they agree to promote the government line)? Will the Letters page of the print media be closed down soon and talk back radio vetted by government officials and critical voices deleted before they go to air? Will we all have to take psychological tests shortly to verify our suitability to be citizens of our respective countries?
I would urge all of you to reread 1984 and compare the bleak picture that Orwell painted with the reality of the world you now live in and the one that might exist in five or ten years given the current rate of change. Read also the Handmaid's Tale by Atwood. She paints a similar picture with more a religiously-oriented despotism.
Big Brother has escaped from the cupboard and grows ever bigger. He can't wait to enfold you in his brawny, suffocating embrace. The tipping point may have already been reached. The picture above may soon be the grim reality for all of us.
Perhaps 1984 has already begun!
(P.S. Remember those chilling words from Orwell:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH)
11 comments:
AND we were forewarned..... sad isn't it?
The only thing that people didn't foresee was the internet.... seriously.... even star trek.... it really didn't register....
I did book reports on both Orwell and Maggie Atwood (Canadian yay!)
One should check out "Survival" writtten in 1972 by Atwood as well.
Peace and Blessings
Lil Sparrow.
I met Margaret Atwood on one of her visits to Australia. Very smart lady. She reviewed a short story of mine.
More importantly, she, like George Orwell, did her best to warn us and now their predictions are beginning to come true!
Question is: will we let it happen?
We have certainly stepped over a line but i am ever hopeful that we have not reached a tipping point just yet and we can pull ourselves back.
The big crunch will come with the election of the next US president (sorry to heap it on you Americans). Another who runs things globally along the same lines as Bush and even an optimist like me will be depairing. A Bush opposite and hopefully we can begin to repair the damage.
American politicians, like ours and yours, are all tarred with the one capitalist/religio brush.
Until that changes we'll just get more of the same! Cheers.
Too right, Daniel.
We need anti-capitalist leaders more like Hugo Chavez, who'll stifle criticism and introduce legislation allowing Presidential terms for life.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/17/wchavez117.xml
Hear, hear!
P.P. if you can manage to maintain your more courteous tone you will be given access to this site.
Your views however, are predictably anti-peace and pro-establishment. You seem incapable of identifying the real culprits who are deliberately destroying any chance of world peace.
Daniel,
You mention that:
"Your views however, are predictably anti-peace and pro-establishment. You seem incapable of identifying the real culprits who are deliberately destroying any chance of world peace."
--Denying your own subjects the chance to possibly vote you out in future can hardly be pro-peace, can it? You, of all people, with such skepticism of politicians, should be most alarmed by this type of politcal strongman-ship.
UNLESS YOU APPROVE OF IT ????
(for one's own cause)
If this is what it takes to defeat the "evil" capitalist USA, it raises questions about what he has to offer, doesn't it? If the cause was so pure and so correct, Chavez wouldn't need to clamp down on dissenting viewpoints on TV stations, would he? If the cause was so justifiable that everyone knew it to be so, he would have no need to implant himself into power forever, would he?
Why hasn't this "noble" anti-capitalist cause got the credentialis to surely win people over purely due to its merits?
What does it say that it must oppress or stifle the freedoms of its own people in this "righteous" battle?
--Additionally, Hugo Chavez's policy has seen him purchase $4.3 Billion dollars of weapons during 2005/06, more than China. This is most anti-peace Daniel.
It amazes me, Pete, how come you focus exclusively on one man from a relatively small country (Chavez) and list all his sins (both real and imagined) yet Olmert, Bush, Blair and Howard,etc, don't register on your radar at all and neither does the fiasco in Iraq and the major shortcomings of capitalism and the serious threat posed by Christian and Zionist fundamentalists.
Do you really think that is balanced? Are you capable of seeing anything wrong with Western attitudes and policies? Will your world collapse if you admit that not everything generated by the West is perfect?
Such rigidity is dangerous!
Daniel, my focus is not just on Chavez, but also on Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il and other delusional Socialists who, in their aims of destroying capitalism, have only destroyed the civil liberties of their own populace.
Okay, now it must be said. Daniel, you have never, ever, uttered a single word of praise for the State of Israel since the inception of this blog.
Perhaps I've just come along to show you another side, but am a little more centrist when dealing with others who are also a bit more centrist.
As other bloggers here have pointed out, you believe it to be a completely one-sided battle, where you entirely blame only one party, whereas most people in the world see it as a two-sided battle.
Do YOU think this is "unbalanced" ?
Is that not "dangerous rigidity", being entirely incapable of uttering a single positive word towards the only democracy and most progressive state in the region?
-So to answer your question, of course all in the West is not perfect, but it sure as hell is better than every other method that mankind has tried.
That's why we see thousands upon thousands of human beings flocking TOWARDS the West, knocking on its doors, trying to get in. We don't see many Westerners flocking towards other systems, do we now.
You're correct. During the time this blog has been in operation I have never uttered one word of praise for Israel! But then, to my knowledge, Israel has never done anything worthy of praise whereas it has done countless things which should be strongly condemned and were!
Perhaps you could provide a list of all the things that Israel has done that deserve praise, Pete!
It's an irony, Worried, that what you say is a real possibility in a land that started off as a new beginning.
However, its violent past seems to have set the foundation of its destruction. Cheers.
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