Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Tag Archives: Orwell

From the land of the free to the @BarackObama #Orwellian #PRISM security state

Posted on by Posted in Issues regarding US persons abroad 36 Comments

 

What’s up in the “Land of the free and the home of the brave”?

The above two tweets reference articles in today’s Globe. Note the following from the second article:

Obama’s record on whistleblowing

Since taking office less than six years ago, Mr. Obama has pursued more espionage charges against government employees than all other past presidents combined. It was therefore unsurprising that when Mr. Manning pleaded guilty earlier this year to several lesser offences that would have brought him about 20 years of imprisonment, the government refused to bargain and opted instead to prosecute the most serious charges.

By throwing the book at, and making an example of Mr. Manning, Ed Snowden and all other alleged whistleblowers, the U.S. administration clearly hopes to send an intimidating chill throughout the civil service, and in so doing reduce the incidence of leaking.

Is this strategy, in combination with the imposition of curbs on civil liberties and constitutional rights, transforming the erstwhile land of the free into a something disturbingly Orwellian – a national security state? Not an insignificant query.

This is a good article and provides good opportunity for comment and discussion.

 

FATCASpeak – Double Plus Good Thought

Posted on by Posted in Issues regarding US persons abroad 18 Comments

 

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government…

It would have been quite impossible to render this into FATCASpeak while keeping to the sense of the original. The nearest one could come to doing so would be to swallow the whole passage up in the single word crimethink. A full translation could only be an ideological translation, whereby Jefferson’s words would be changed into a panegyric on absolute government.

A good deal of the literature of the past was, indeed, already being transformed in this way. Considerations of prestige made it desirable to preserve the memory of certain historical figures, while at the same time bringing their achievements into line with the philosophy of Amtot. Various writers, such as Eric, Orwell, Just Me, Em, Badger, Calgary, Plato, Petros, Deckard, Joe Smith, SwissPinoy, Jefferson Tomas, Blaze, Outraged Canadian, Roger, Nobledreamer, Tim, Victoria, Bubblebustin, Recalcitrant,  Markpinetree, Pacifica777, usxcanada, RenounceUScitizenship and some others were therefore in process of translation: when the task had been completed, their original writings, with all else that survived of the literature of the past, would be destroyed.

Continue reading →