"A Message To Anyone Who Feels Like
'Winston' In Orwell's '1984'"
by Simon Black
“The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering... all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting - three hundred million people all with the same face.” That was a quote from George Orwell’s seminal work "1984" - a masterpiece that describes life in a totalitarian state that demands blind obedience.
The ‘Party’ controlled everything - the economy, daily life, and even the truth. In Orwell’s "1984", “the heresy of heresies was common sense.” “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
If you were ever caught committing a thoughtcrime - dissenting from the Party for even an instant - then “your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten.”
Now, our world obviously hasn’t become quite as extreme as Orwell’s dystopian vision. But Big Tech, Big Media, and Big Government certainly seem to be giving it their best effort. 70,000 thought criminals have already been purged from Twitter. Facebook and Reddit are feverishly removing user content. Apple, Google, and Amazon have banned entire apps and platforms.
Undoubtedly there is plenty of wacky content all over the Internet - misinformation, ignorance, rage, hate, violence, and just plain stupidity. But these moves by the Big Tech companies aren’t about violence. If they were, they would have deleted tens of thousands of accounts over the last few years– like the mostly peaceful BLM activist who Tweeted “white people may have to die”. Or the countless others who have advocated for violent uprisings against the police Then, of course, there’s the #assassinatetrump and #killtrump hashtags that has Twitter has allowed since at least 2016. Or the #killallmen hashtag that’s allowed on Twitter and Instagram.
This is not about violence. It’s about ideology. If you hold different beliefs than the ‘Party’, then you risk being canceled or ‘de-platformed’ by Big Tech. Icons like Ron Paul - who spent years criticizing the current administration’s monetary and national defense policies, and had nothing to do with the Capitol, have been suspended or locked out of their Facebook pages.
The hammer has dropped, and it is now obvious, beyond any doubt, that you better watch what you say - your livelihood, your social life, and your safety may just depend on it. Or else, you will be purged, canceled, deleted from the Internet, denied payment processing by Visa, PayPal, and Stripe, and expelled from domain registrars like GoDaddy.
The message is clear: behave and think exactly as we tell you, or you will lose everything you have worked for, in the blink of an eye. Sure, the ‘Party’ may give lip service to tolerance and unity. As long as you fall in line. Otherwise it’s more rage and ridicule. They act like you’re a crazy person because you have completely legitimate questions and concerns - whether about Covid lockdowns, censorship, media misinformation, etc.
It’s extraordinary that after so much deliberate misinformation and bias, the media still expects people to take them seriously. CNN seems to believe that think anyone who doubts their credibility is a ‘conspiracy theorist.’ All of these trends are probably making a lot of people very nervous. Even scared. Despair has undoubtedly set in, much like in Winston Smith, the main character in Orwell’s "1984."
So, for all the Winstons out there, the most important thing right now is to remain rational. As human beings we tend to make terrible decisions when we’re scared, sad, or angry. Have confidence in knowing that you have MUCH more control over your own life, livelihood, and future than they want to you believe. But you absolutely will have to make some deliberate, potentially difficult decisions.
For example, if you’re fed up with Big Tech, you can de-Google your life. No one is holding a gun to your head to have a Facebook account or use gmail. There are plenty of other options out there that we’ll discuss in future letters.
More importantly, you might find that your hometown isn’t safe anymore - especially if you live in a big city controlled by politicians intoxicated on their Covid powers. It’s really time to consider your immediate environment - if the local schools are brainwashing your kids, the dictatorial health officials shutting down your business, or nosy neighbors ready to turn you into the Gestapo for having family over for the holidays, then you might think about moving. That might simply mean moving a few miles to a new county. Or a new state/province. Or potentially overseas.
It might also be time to reconsider some of your business infrastructure - to have backup web servers and payment processors, for example, if you have an online business. It might be time to consider some new financial options as well, lest the banks jump on the band wagon and start ‘canceling’ accounts for heretics.
But that’s the silver lining: we’ve never had more alternatives than now. Everything - technology platforms, financial institutions, and even our personal residence - it’s all replaceable. All of it. We have never had more control over our own privacy, data, livelihood, and environment… as long as you have the willingness to take action."
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Freely download "1984", by George Orwell, here:
