Part of why Elon wants to tank the economy first is a desperate public is easier to control and then to assign blame randomly to whichever group they want. Hitler succeeded in big part due to Germany being in a Depression and he used jews as a scapegoat for all it's problems.
Check out the brilliant cover of this Penguin edition. It’s hard to see in the photo but the title and author’s name are very faintly embossed in the black out bars. They can only be read when the book is tipped towards the light.
Greed is Trumps most dangerous quality. He will do anything for more, and more is never enough. I don’t think people have fully grasped the position we are in now. Election is over and we are in the calm before the storm.
Thank you Joyce, this was excellently written and timely.
It’s hard to watch the main stream media capitulate to the forces of disinformation. Many have turned away because we recognize the abrupt shift and don’t want to be “mind melded with the Party” it’s a way of protecting our reality.
Thank you for this post today and continuing to keep us engaged when all I want to do is crawl into a hole. But I will not! Ready to stay informed and fight! 💥
A lot of people have forgotten how inept the previous Trump administration was and will be shocked by how systematically organized the next one will be.
He isn't stupid, but he's not extremely intelligent, and he's supremely ignorant on a wide range of topics. He is however, a learner and intensely cunning. His choices for key positions demonstrates he has learned where and how to wield the power of the Presidency to achieve his goals.
Mainstream media FAILED liberal democracy acting like GOP state TV. They gave platform to MAGA republicans since 2016 without hard interviews pointing out non-answers on alt-facts and fake news to protect their parent company agenda...what happened to media watch dog against domestic terrorists???
Orwell disliked the radio as a new technology when it came. He worried it would be used for totalitarian propaganda.. I think our age of death by entertainment was best captured by Aldous Huxley in The Brave New World. He also hated the radio (Disembodied ghost voices).
Thanks for this comparison. Orwell published "Nineteen Eighty-Four" in 1949 - fiction then, but here in 2024 we are facing a similar dystopian reality.
Thank you for showing me BlueSky Social. I closed my Twitter account the day Elon Musk made a bid for it. Thanks again for reminding me to re-read 1984. I was able to borrow it free from Kindle Unlimited.
Mostly, thanks for all the chicken videos and picks. I no longer have any so I cherish yours.
Excellent direction. I had not considered the National Guard. It would take a great deal of propaganda to take ex-miltary men and turn them against people in their own communities. Sounds like a job for Stephen Miller.
I should reread it. I read it about six months ago. Then it was more like the living situation I am in now. Senior housing. Upper management has changed from Big Sister to Big Brother. Send an email to the on site manager and Big Brother now gets a copy. It is Orwellian. That has changed to us.
Reread "It Can't Happen Here." Not only did it predict the process of Trump's rise, but I'm pretty sure it also is going to be relatively accurate about what happens next.
I am not surprised but concerned how disconnected many I know are from what is currently happening. They are intelligent people, but have chosen to disconnect and say, “well, it is only for 4 years.” It is to this statement I respond “maybe not” then update them on the state of chaos.
The party in power has succumbed to Putin. Trump is just his American face. People in shopping malls have no clue. They’re not reading or rereading 1984. They’re not interested in politics. Go outside DC and see how distracted they are by traffic and toys. Even the Gaza protesters r gone.
Read it during his first term and remember this quote “Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’”
I can't re-read it. It's too terrifying. The 1st time I was young & naive & thought that couldn't happen. My anxiety over the here & now is enough. Being witness to the fall of an empire is not what I expected the 1st time I read it. Now, it would intensify my nightmares!
Excellent article! I found a copy of "1984" at a yard sale last summer & after re-reading it with deep chills, passed it along to many friends. 1984 is unfolding right before our eyes, if we choose to see what is happening. Many aren't. Big Brother is watching...believe it. Pay close attention.
Thank you for writing this. I have sent it to my two adult children and reposted it to Facebook. 1984 should be required reading for very high school student but it is sadly more likely it could become another banned book.
One of the most frightening of your Substack posts. Do we all assume that the world will continue as it has because we’re too lazy to awake to reality?
I would start with Hanna Arendt “Banality of Evil”. Then rewatch “V”. Then move to Bakunin and Emma Goldman. To see how we got here most of the books by Thom Hartman. How did that “They go low, We go high” workout?
Nicely done. Let us recall KellyAnne, who said "Alternate Facts", and the newly pauperized Rudy, who said "Facts aren't Facts". Somewhere there is the real playbook (Project 2025 isn't the internal how-to) and they've seen it. Barr saw it and left Govt.
A fun lesson about how well Doublethink and Propaganda work. "We've always been at war with the Migrant Caravan". "Egg prices and produce are too high, its the poorest peoples fault!"
Atwood, just after releasing The Handmaids Tale, was asked by Bill Moyers:"But you don't think that could happen here, do you?"
"Wanna bet?" was Atwoods reply.
Love your analysis, Counsellor. I've been reading your column for years. I shared much of your exposition on my facebook page, where I offered the same advice to re-read "1984" to my followers a few days ago. Every day I encourage people to follow you.
I started to read 1984 at the beginning of Trump's 1st term and then had to stop. My 19 year old son recently read it and shared the details and said, "mom you shouldn't read it, it doesn't end well and you won't like it". Yes my son is protecting me, he knows this empath well.
IIRC I also tried to read it early in the Trump term, and stopped, because it was too much. It'll be way worse now, but for me, I think the time has come when it's important to mentally arm myself.
I don't think I'm ready yet. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp and what is coming. I'm distracting myself by thinking about the garden I'm going to plant next year.
None of us is ready! I’ve been preparing since 2015, but I’m not ready.
We’re all going to need to find ways to keep sanity while fighting like hell. We need presence of mind to fight, because if we don’t fight we will not have a future. I’m still seeking ways to do both
I have been thinking about how to protect my family's health and finances. I think Bluesky is the platform to build communities nationally and locally to facilitate action and activism.
Growing up with the dark cloud of understanding re: 1984 I am terrified I (us) have to live thru this. I felt so safe growing up knowing life post WW2. Never thought I would see this.
The founding fathers left an emergency rip cord at the end of democracy - apportionment. It’s passed the House and Senate and is just waiting on the states.
In INGSOC's Newspeak, we would be called the "oldthinkers" who "unbellyfeel" TRUMPSOC or MAGASOC, as in, we who remember the past before they rewrote it and continue to stick to it, and would want to purge us and our knowledge. Don't let them. R=V/I.
Have you ever watched the movie “Conspiracy”? It’s about the Wannsee conference. What Nazis did to the Jews was considered “legal” because laws were changed as Hitler came into power. Hitler brought in his cronies who were loyal only to him. People don’t think it can happen here.
The intro to Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death” discusses how Orwell fears an outside influence that surveils and controls, while Huxley’s Brave New World posits people will willingly give up freedom for entertainment. We seem to have both.
Thank you Joyce for this. I wonder if you could find a translator, a sixth grade student perhaps, who would rewrite with illustrations? There is the inescapable divide, as all your readers are aware. So sad.
If we are not going to use the intelligence we have gathered about Trump's compromised relationship with Putin right now to defend our nation, when are we going to use it? Never?
I’m sick to my stomach and can’t believe we are facing a second Trump term. Every day I wake up and it feels like I’m living in a nightmare. No accountability for his crimes. No coverage of the daily outrages and bad policy aimed at destroying institutions and widening already gaping $ inequality.
Joyce, they are, for the most part, so stupid, greedy and ineffectual that they’re going to end up stepping on rakes most of the time. A worry is the cost of defense when the weaponized DOJ prosecutes enemies. It would be wise for the Sisters in Law to establish a go fund me page to help pay fees.
This is perfect. You are definitely on the right track here, as it is with foresight that tyranny can be prevented, by helping the public to feel in their hearts, and know with certainty in their minds, that there is no place in a free society for tyranny. Freedom must be strongly protected by all.
“1984” was required reading in my high school class. I was raised anti-authoritarian, to question everything government did or proposed. 1984 affected me profoundly & still does. The parallels to our government & society today terrify me - not for myself (I’m 73) but for my grandkids & their kids.
America started going downhill during Reagan’s admin. Something rotted in the GOP during Nixon’s admin & Reagan smeared it all over our society & economy.
Yes, I can see that. I’m looking at the situation from my country, in Europe. We have mostly had a social democratic government after the war. Building the country.We also had governments on the right. But nothing compare to USA.
Now there’s a strong right wind blowing over here, and it’s scary 🥴
Not just immigrants but gays, women, expertise, Universities, Dems, etc. Once demonized his target audience (agitprop victims) is inoculated against rational msgs offered by the demonized groups, they are met with an instant visceral hate response and immediately tuned out.
Comments
It’s hard to watch the main stream media capitulate to the forces of disinformation. Many have turned away because we recognize the abrupt shift and don’t want to be “mind melded with the Party” it’s a way of protecting our reality.
Contrary to what some think, Trump isn’t stupid.
He learned a lot about how to operate the levers of power the first time and he’s preparing to put that in action this time.
Mostly, thanks for all the chicken videos and picks. I no longer have any so I cherish yours.
I was thinking the same thing.
I remember reading it as a freshman in college.
English civil war
Cant keep a population oppressed and in bondage to the king 👑 and his aristocracy
Ending with red hot poker
🙂
"Wanna bet?" was Atwoods reply.
We’re all going to need to find ways to keep sanity while fighting like hell. We need presence of mind to fight, because if we don’t fight we will not have a future. I’m still seeking ways to do both
I have been observing and processing your words/thoughts over the years.
I have felt you elevate your concerns and the seriousness of your messages since the election. It is remarkable.
There must be no doubt about where we find ourselves in this moment.
They do bang up two part episode on George Orwell.
Make Biden #DeclassifyTrump, so we can force the Congress to #ImpeachTrumpNow.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/21/2287839/-We-Can-Stop-Trump?_=2024-11-21T11:19:50.000-08:00
Elmo already has computer access to cars. Next up, Elmos brain chip … if only Orwell were here for this
Now there’s a strong right wind blowing over here, and it’s scary 🥴
There was one prophetic quote by Jeff Goldblum’s character, OZ himself, when he said that, "If you want to bring people together give them an enemy".
This is right out of Goebbels playbook with the Jews in late 1930s Germany and with the Trump campaign for the past four years.