Dayorder 12.30.06
A glorious victory: the Ministry of Love has recently shipped copies of the book to several dozen unpersons.
Video of this historic event will be posted shortly.
Today, we are indebted to Comrade Paglino of Ohio and Comrade Loftis of New York, who have brought our collection total to 86 books. This represents 27% of our goal!
Meanwhile, we are still accepting copies of 1984 at:
PO Box 655
Guilford, CT 06437
In other news, we wish to share with you photographs of actual members of the Ministry of Love, who recently emerged from their underground headquarters to mourn the passing of the United States Constitution.
Here you see the gravesite where the Constitution was laid to its eternal rest.
Mourners gather to pay their respects to the document. This small child was especially upset.
Finally, Comrade Cobb reads the eulogy.
First Shipment Scheduled
We have scheduled our first shipment of The Book for this week.
We will be shipping to all unpersons about to be vaporized, as well as all other Inner Party Member of the Senate who voted for torture.
All representatives from the Ministry of Truth are invited to witness the proceedings.
Please contact us at our email address for additional information.
We are, however, still accepting books for the Inner Party Members who survived the Purge.
Please ship them to:
Box 655
Guilford, CT
06437
Dayorder 12.3.06
Comrades,
Due to your excellent response, we have received 68 copies of 1984 thus far, representing nearly 21% of our collection goal.
We want to single out Comrade Levy of Massachusetts, who shipped us eight brand new copies from Amazon.
We at Miniluv are also stepping up our preparations for Hate Weekend: afterdowningstreet.org
Regards,
O’Brien
Newfound Comrades!
We just learned about this: Harvard University Law Students Hold Funeral for U.S. Constitution
We humbly request that you meet us in the room above Charrington’s shop on Saturday, 1300 hours.
About Newspeak
Here at Miniluv we understand that many of the proles who peruse this site may not have the latest edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. Therefore we have included a few definitions below. All these were found at Newspeak Dictionary
Recently rescued from the Memory Hole…
Learning to love Big Brother: George W. Bush channels George Orwell
by Daniel Kurtzman
Sunday, July 28, 2002
San Francisco Chronicle
Here’s a question for constitutional scholars: Can a sitting president be charged with plagiarism?
As President Bush wages his war against terrorism and moves to create a huge homeland security apparatus, he appears to be borrowing heavily, if not ripping off ideas outright, from George Orwell. The work in question is “1984, ” the prophetic novel about a government that controls the masses by spreading propaganda, cracking down on subversive thought and altering history to suit its needs. It was intended to be read as a warning about the evils of totalitarianism — not a how-to manual.
Granted, we’re a long way from resembling the kind of authoritarian state Orwell depicted, but some of the similarities are starting to get a bit eerie.
PERMANENT WAR
In “1984,” the state remained perpetually at war against a vague and ever-changing enemy. The war took place largely in the abstract, but it served as a convenient vehicle to fuel hatred, nurture fear and justify the regime’s autocratic practices.
Bush’s war against terrorism has become almost as amorphous. Although we are told the president’s resolve is steady and the mission clear, we seem to know less and less about the enemy we are fighting. What began as a war against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda quickly morphed into a war against Afghanistan, followed by dire warnings about an “Axis of Evil,” the targeting of terrorists in some 50 to 60 countries, and now the beginnings of a major campaign against Iraq. Exactly what will constitute success in this war remains unclear, but the one thing the Bush administration has made certain is that the war will continue “indefinitely.”
MINISTRY OF TRUTH
Serving as the propaganda arm of the ruling party in “1984,” the Ministry of Truth not only spread lies to suit its strategic goals, but constantly rewrote and falsified history. It is a practice that has become increasingly commonplace in the Bush White House, where presidential transcripts are routinely sanitized to remove the president’s gaffes, accounts of intelligence warnings prior to Sept. 11 get spottier with each retelling, and the facts surrounding Bush’s past financial dealings are subject to continual revision.
The Bush administration has been surprisingly up front about its intentions of propagating falsehoods. In February, for example, the Pentagon announced a plan to create an Office of Strategic Influence to provide false news and information abroad to help manipulate public opinion and further its military objectives. Following a public outcry, the Pentagon said it would close the office — news that would have sounded more convincing had it not come from a place that just announced it was planning to spread misinformation.
INFALLIBLE LEADER
An omnipresent and all-powerful leader, Big Brother commanded the total, unquestioning support of the people. He was both adored and feared, and no one dared speak out against him, lest they be met by the wrath of the state.
President Bush may not be as menacing a figure, but he has hardly concealed his desire for greater powers. Never mind that he has mentioned — on no fewer than three occasions — how much easier things would be if he were dictator. By abandoning many of the checks and balances established in the Constitution to keep any one branch of government from becoming too powerful, Bush has already achieved the greatest expansion of executive powers since Nixon. His approval ratings remain remarkably high, and his minions have worked hard to cultivate an image of infallibility. Nowhere was that more apparent than during a recent commencement address Bush gave at Ohio State, where students were threatened with arrest and expulsion if they protested the speech. They were ordered to give him a “thunderous ovation,” and they did.
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING
The ever-watchful eye of Big Brother kept constant tabs on the citizens of Orwell’s totalitarian state, using two-way telescreens to monitor people’s every move while simultaneously broadcasting party propaganda.
While that technology may not have arrived yet, public video surveillance has become all the rage in law enforcement, with cameras being deployed everywhere from sporting events to public beaches. The Bush administration has also announced plans to recruit millions of Americans to form a corps of citizen spies who will serve as “extra eyes and ears for law enforcement,” reporting any suspicious activity as part of a program dubbed Operation TIPS –
Terrorism Information and Prevention System.
And thanks to the hastily passed USA Patriot Act, the Justice Department has sweeping new powers to monitor phone conversations, Internet usage, business transactions and library reading records. Best of all, law enforcement need not be burdened any longer with such inconveniences as probable cause.
THOUGHT POLICE
Charged with eradicating dissent and ferreting out resistance, the ever- present Thought Police described in “1984″ carefully monitored all unorthodox or potentially subversive thoughts. The Bush administration is not prosecuting thought crime yet, but members have been quick to question the patriotism of anyone who dares criticize their handling of the war on terrorism or homeland defense. Take, for example, the way Attorney General John Ashcroft answered critics of his anti-terrorism measures, saying that opponents of the administration “only aid terrorists” and “give ammunition to America’s enemies. “ (America gave them ammunition first)
Even more ominous was the stern warning White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer sent to Americans after Bill Maher, host of the now defunct “Politically Incorrect,” called past U.S. military actions “cowardly.” Said Fleischer, “There are reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.”
What would it take to turn America into the kind of society that Orwell warned about, a society that envisions war as peace, freedom as slavery and ignorance as strength? Would it happen overnight, or would it involve a gradual erosion of freedoms with the people’s consent?
Because we are a nation at war — as we are constantly reminded — most Americans say they are willing to sacrifice many of our freedoms in return for the promise of greater security. We have been asked to put our blind faith in government and most of us have done so with patriotic fervor. But when the government abuses that trust and begins to stamp out the freedom of dissent that is the hallmark of a democratic society, can there be any turning back?
So powerful was the state’s control over people’s minds in “1984″ that, eventually, everyone came to love Big Brother. Perhaps in time we all will, too.
Daniel Kurtzman is a San Francisco writer and former Washington political correspondent.
Miniluv Achieves 18% of Collection Goal.
Our brave comrades have thwarted the underground resistance to send the Ministry of Love a total of 57 copies of 1984. This is a glorious victory for Miniluv!
While we are still gathering books to reach our final goal of 315, we have become aware that many of the Inner Party Members who voted for torture did not survive the Great November Purge, and are soon to be vaporized. Therefore, we will be sending copies to these unpersons sooner than expected.
We are currently consulting with the Ministry of Truth to prepare a “total information awareness” campaign to promote this mailing. Any help that our comrades can provide is greatly appreciated.
~O’Brien
Wonderful News, Comrades!
Comrades at Unamerican and Students for an Orwellian Society have agreed to sign on as co-sponsors to this project. Details to follow.
We have reached 10% of our goal number. Books are coming in from brave comrades all across our homeland.
The following Inner Party Members are spoken for:
Bachus of Alabama
Calvert of California
Lieberman, Johnson, Simmons, and Shays of Connecticut
Brownback of Kansas
Gregg and Sununu of New Hampshire
Brown, Voinovich and DeWine of Ohio
Fitzpatrick, Specter and Santorum of Pennsylvania
J. Davis, T. Davis, Warner, and Allen of Virginia
To sponsor your own Member with a book donation, enclose a note with your shipment.
Keep spreading the word.
Ministry of Love Announces Doubleplusgood Book Collection Activity
The Ministry of Love announces its fourth-quarter plan to gather 315 separate copies of George Orwell’s landmark novel 1984, from proles and party comrades alike, all across our brave homeland.
Once collected, all 315 copies will be mailed separately to each Member of Congress who voted YEA on the Military Commissions Act (a.k.a. The Torture Bill) on September 28th and 29th, in the sixth year of our glorious leader’s regime. These shipments will occur with great fanfare, and hopefully, a television news crew on hand to capture the momentous occasion for inclusion in the Ministry of Truth’s ever-growing archives.
In case you’ve forgotten, our glorious leader’s regime has gifted us with the following remarkably Orwellian achievements:
* spying on ordinary citizens without their knowledge
* paid propaganda masquerading as news reports
* removal by Thought Police of ungoodthinkers (protesters) from all Party rallies and celebrations featuring our glorious leader
* community members encouraged to report “suspicious activities” of neighbors and co-workers
* the promise of an endless war
(for a more comprehensive list, go to studentsfororwell.org)
Now, through the farsightedness of these distinguished 315 Inner Party Members, House and Senate, we can add sanctioned torture and indefinite detainment of suspects to that noteworthy list.
To recognize those who have brought us one step closer to the utopian world envisioned by Orwell, Miniluv will enclose a handwritten note with each copy of 1984, thanking each 315 Inner Party Member individually for their achievement.
Send new and used copies of 1984 to the following address:
Ministry of Love
Box 655
Guilford, CT 06437
If buying books online, have them shipped directly to Miniluv.
If you would like your donation earmarked for a particular Inner Party Member, please note that with your shipment.
Goodthinkers always use media mail rates for shipping books.
Cash donations for postage to the Inner Party Members are doubleplushelpful.
Finally, remember:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
About
The goal of this blog is to collect 315 copies of Orwell’s 1984 and send them to every member of Congress who voted for the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which suspends the writ of Habeas Corpus for anyone deemed an “enemy combatant” by anyone in the Bush Administration, meaning they can detain you indefinitely without access to a court and torture you if they like.
We can be reached at unpersonsATgmailDOTcom
Big Brother is watching you.
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