We now live in a land where “Freedom Fries” and “Freedom Toast” are popping up. We have hundreds of persona non-gratis living in cages in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. We may have the victory in Iraq, if you want to call it that, but the war seems to be far from over. War is peace. Ignorance is strength. Freedom is slavery. The slogans of the government in George Orwell’s 1984 are becoming more apropos all the time.
The terrible events of 9/11 have led to grave consequences for the American democracy. Watching our bulwark of military strength, the Pentagon, hammered crudely with a jet plane and seeing those majestic towers in New York City crumble we all knew that life would never be the same.
This is certainly not the case literally, but just try and fit George W. Bush and his apparatus into the mold of 1984. In 1984 Oceania, the main country in the story, is said to always be at war with one of the world’s great powers. One day it is at war with Eurasisa. The next day it is war with Eastasia. Today we might be “restoring order” in Iraq. Yesterday we were bombing Afghanistan. Tomorrow we may very well be driving the tanks into Syria. For Bush and Company an indefinable “War on Terrorism” is quickly becoming a blank check to pre-emtively bomb anyone we want. War is peace.
Some hard-righters have joked that France could be on our invasion list. While most would find such a thing preposterous it shows just how far we have drifted from the shore of world consensus.
Eric Alterman commented in a recent edition of The Nation that, “Bush can inspire terrorist threats, ignore the ones we already face and evade responsibility for both because he is “tough” enough to spit in the face of world opinion.” Just as Big Brother lived distantly through interactive televisions called telescreens, it sometimes feels as though our representative government headed by Dubya is doing the same. Congress abdicated their Constitutional power to declare force to Bush and left our own weapons of mass destruction (such as 25,000 MOAB bombs) in his hardly adroit hands. Remember if you have above a C average you are doing better than he did in college. (Also, remember to ram an oil company into the ground and swindle townsfolk into buying a new stadium for your baseball team before you decided to run for political office.) It doesn’t matter what the people, your constituents, might have to say. It didn’t matter what the United Nations thought. It only really matters what the Bushies think. Freedom is slavery.
The coverage of the war in Iraq has been pure Hollywood. We have Ted Koppel riding “The Tip of the Spear” along with a hodgepodge of journalists and photographers given limited access to show the American people what is really going on.
When reporters and photographers are under the protection of the military one has to question their willingness, along with that of the companies they work for, to publish a scrap on controversial news.
The Center for Responsible Politics recently noted that the six U.S. companies on the list for rebuilding Iraq had contributed over 3.6 million to political campaigns through the past two election cycles. Two thirds of that money went to republicans. Of course you need only think of Dick Cheney’s former company Halliburton and their plum contract to put out the oil well fires in Iraq. By the way Cheney and his wife reported $490,999 in dividends. Think they might just own some Halliburton? Then again ignorance is strength.
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