WINSTON SMITH (GEORGE ORWELL’S 1984)

I was in my mid-teens, residing in Antioch, California, when I read 1984, the classic George Orwell’s novel, which dealt with absolute corrupt power. I thought that this absolute power manifested in the previous administration because we heard how much a murderer President George Bush was; I supposed I was wrong because the Republicans lost. What was it that the biased press was clamoring about which symbolized Orwell’s chilling visions of power: President Bush, under the FISA program, had the gall to listen to conversations emanating out of terrorist enclaves-oh, but President Obama maintained the program; perhaps. it was the closing down of Gitmo, that eye sore of an exemplar of a human rights violator that represented Orwell’s Oceania-oh, but Gitmo is still housing those nice boys we call Jihadists; or perhaps, it was the illegal war being prosecuted in the theatre of the ancient crescent plains we now call Iraq-oh, it is still being prosecuted. How is it that President Obama is not the murderer Bush was when the foreign policies enacted to deal with the terrorists under Bush are mostly intact-as a matter of fact, President Obama has signed off on more drone attacks per capita than Bush did during the same duration in power. We are told that our new minted Presidential Messiah needs more time-some body correct me, but didn’t Jesus turned the water into wine instantly; didn’t Lazarus come forth from the grave right away; and didn’t the woman with the issue of blood instantly cured…the same for the blind and the lepers… Our president messiah has been resorting lately to blaming Bush, which incidentally Bush didn’t do to President Clinton. Someone should tell our messiah, even at the risk of being stricken with fire called down from heaven or Chicago, that, perhaps, it was the fact that the country had angst about the Iraqi War and the economy, which propelled him to power. But the press has become the mouth piece of the “rhetorician in chief” and the “Sheepdom” is willingly being led down the Primrose path-we’ve become Winston Smith, the main character in 1984, who at least fought with all his efforts not to be indoctrinated. Somebody help me because I now think that 2 + 2 is 5; that freedom is slavery; that ignorance is strength; and that war is peace, all the perverted tenets…of Orwell’s chilling 1984.

-Verily Prime