DOWN THE MEMORY HOLE

[UMBERTO UMBERTO]

In Orwell's NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR ( his preferred version of the title), unpleasant or even simple actual versions of events go into the incinerator, a tube of which extends up under the desk of every history re-writer, like Winston Smith.

Bush's presidency is already getting the redacted memory-hole treatment.

Here's the sort of thing that's being circulated by BUSHKO, without challenge, by the corporate media:


( paste)

Bush lauded his own administration for beefing up and reshaping its intelligence community, cutting off the assets of terrorist groups, and employing diplomacy to attract world partners. He even gave a rare shout out to his former defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, for leading the charge for a more nimble military.

( end paste)


Here's the whole article ( which features a picture of Bush kissing a GI on the head . . .):

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/6156309.html



UU

[stilltrucking]

Four Legs Good
Two Legs Better.

I think that is how it goes, I can't quite remember what it said yesterday.

It is necesseary to plant these thoughts in our memory.

A Obi-Wan Kenobi mind trick

Remember how the intelligence was wrong?

Gosh darned intelligence failures,

"The biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq," he said. "A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington, D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess."

What is the point
The nightmare is over...
well for the next four years anyway.

[Arcadia]

welcome back? ECO!!!!!!

I´ll read the article later, but a Bush kiss don´t sound good.... arrgghh!!!!!

[Lightning Rod]

I can't wait for Karl Rove's version of this tune
(he should call his upcoming book "Winston's Song")

look for it soon in a bookstore or talkshow near you
I hope he pitches it on The View
those ladies might have a thing or two to teach him about dirty politics

[UMBERTO UMBERTO]

Orwell named his hero after Winston Churchill, who had his own political smoke and mirrors to flash at his constituency, and thought the atom bomb made a charming roast of sushi and tempura for the air conquistadores.

When O'Brien of the Thought Police is torturing Winston late in the novel
( 1984), he says the following:

" . . .Before we bring the session to an end, you can ask me a few questions, if you choose" (. . .)

( Winston asks him if Julia has betrayed him, and O'Brien says she betrayed him "immediately-- unreservedly . . .")

( Winston asks):

"Does Big Brother exist?"

"Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party."

"Does he exist the same way as I exist?"
"You do not exist," said O'Brien.


( end quote)

This is the most terrifying and true moment in the novel. O'Brien tells Winston the truth, metaphysically, politically, emotionally, ontologically.

The fantasy that GWB " was a guy you could sit down and have a beer with and who would explain the world to you in terms you could understand . . ." (god forbid . . .) was expedient to build as a substitute for vision and a way to exercise raw power in the service of greed.

Perhaps the pronoun should be plural: "We do not exist . . ."

I hope Obama can go beyond O'Brien and BUSHKO.


--UU

[stilltrucking]

Speaking of Orwell naming names:

Emmanuel Goldstein

Orwell was not an AntiSemite
At least I do not think so after reading his essay on AntiSemitism in Britian

"Winston's diaphragm was constricted. He could never see the face of Goldstein without a painful mixture of emotions. It was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard - a clever face, and yet somehow inherently despicable, with a kind of senile silliness in the long thin nose, near the end of which a pair of spectacles was perched. It resembled the face of a sheep, and the voice, too, had a sheep-like quality."

~1984 The Two Minute Hate.

1. History as Judgment and Promise in "A Canticle for Leibowitz" (L ...
(6:59). The emotion here seems comparable to 1984's Two Minutes' Hate, which. rises to a frenzy when the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, purported to be the ...
www.jstor.org/stable/4239743 - Similar pages
by D Manganiello - 1986



http://www.jstor.org/pss/4239743

If I ever win the lotto I am going to buy myself a subscription to JSTOR. So many tantalizing articles I can’t get access to.

[stilltrucking]

I don't know much about Orwell. I have only read three of his books, Homage To Catalonia, Animal Farm, and 1984. I saw the 1954 television version in 1954 when it first came out and it scared the hell out of me. This was during the time Crazy Mike (may he rest in peace) was punishing me by locking me in a pitch black basement that smelled of dead rats and maggots. Plenty of live rats too. So the worst fear scene coincided nicely with my worst fear. And the song Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree, broke my 14 year old heart.

Language becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

George Orwell

I dread the bickering that will be coming from the left about Obama. We have had this conversation elsewhere I think.

I heard a phrase that described his style of politics as "dog whistle politics"

I have a lot of confidence in the man. Al least his language is not slovenly and ugly. I find his speech soothing almost like listening to FDR during world war two.

I never thought he would win. That is how much confidence I have in the electorate after 2004.

[one of those jerks]

Orwell on Gaza

George Orwell Tells Us Everything We Need To Know About Liberals and Gaza

"All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts.

A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage -- torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians -- which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by 'our' side ... The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them" -- George Orwell

Orwell tells us everything we need to know about Gaza

[e_dog]

Bush is a *good president*.

the AFGAN *liberation* was a *success*.


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