1984 – Coast Contact

George Orwell’s 1984 was a classic tale of a world where the government watched everyone all of the time. Televisions were everywhere and every one of them had a camera that spied on everyone no matter where they were. If that wasn’t horrible enough, the government redefined everything and required everyone to accept their definitions.

Thus green could be called blue and black could be called white. Junk yards could be called beautiful and torture could be called pleasure.

Could the story of 1984 happen in America? Most of you would say “No.”
– Eric Snowden divulged the fact that our phone lines and e-mail contacts are being monitored by the CIA.
– Cameras identified the Boston Marathon bombers within a few hours thanks to cameras mounted on the streets.
– The Fort Hood massacre by Army Maj. Nidal Hasan has been called “work place violence” but not a terrorist attack. Interesting definition when you consider that just before the shooting began, many of the witnesses recounted, the gunman yelled “Allahu Akbar,” the Arabic exhortation meaning “God is great.”
– Former Vice President Dick Cheney on this past Sunday’s Meet the Press was asked by moderator Chuck Todd how he defined torture:
Well, torture, to me, Chuck, is an American citizen on a cell phone making a last call to his four young daughters shortly before he burns to death in the upper levels of the Trade Center in New York City on 9/11.

Todd followed up by asking whether rectal feeding was torture, and Cheney continued his distract-with-shiny-objects strategy.
I’ve told you what meets the definition of torture. It’s what 19 guys armed with airline tickets and box cutters did to 3,000 Americans on 9/11.

Killing unarmed Black men is justifiable homicide. We have grand juries that confirm it!

President Lyndon Johnson’s campaign rally cry was all about creating The Great Society. Within days of his ascendancy to office he told us about his “War on Poverty.” The census bureau says in 2012, the official poverty rate was 15.0 percent. There were 46.5 million people in poverty.

I have stopped going to the Town Hall meetings sponsored by my congressman. For him they are a great way of showing his constituency that he is really interested in the people he represents. I was at his last meeting that was held at the local high school. I learned nothing. Pocket sized booklets of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were free for the taking. These gimmicks have enabled him to be re-elected eight times.
The Declaration of Independence was the creation of the wealthy in 1776. The most famous signatory is John Hancock. Hancock was one of the wealthiest men in the Thirteen Colonies, having inherited a profitable mercantile business from his uncle. http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/signers/. It is the wealthy that made this country grow and succeed.

However it is the middle class that made this country an inspiration for the rest of the world. Thus far the 21st century has brought about that groups decline in significant numbers. If this country is to continue to be a beacon the government must take all action necessary to ensure those in the middle continue to thrive. As of this date the current congress has failed to “insure domestic Tranquility” and “promote the general Welfare” as directed in the preamble to the Constitution.

Recent evidence of a lack of effort to “promote the general Welfare” is the absence of legislation that would protect jobs and encourage hiring. Who cares? Not the mostly well-to-do members of Congress. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 25% in 2013. And you thought the representatives were representing you. They are not! They represent their best interests. That would be the money men who contribute to re-election campaigns.

The unemployment rate dropped to 6.7% in December. Sounds good. It’s all about smoke and mirrors. The BLS wrote in its latest report in January wrote, “The number of unemployed persons declined by 490,000 to 10.4 million,” but the bureau reported that only 74,000 jobs had been created. How can this be? Simple. More people stopped looking for work and are no longer counted as unemployed. The unemployment rate is a feel good number that does not tell us the real employment situation.

This situation reminds me of George Orwell’s 1984. Lies and double talk. Two and Two could be Five. Especially if the government says so. Town Hall meetings and the unemployment rate are two of the many government efforts to make you believe that our elected representatives are making America a great success story.

Don’t you believe it!

It takes more than the ballot box to change a 317 million population nation. Demonstrations and marches are needed. How many will be willing to participate? Not enough to make the changes. And so we march along as the peasants (the federal government hates that word) doing the bidding of our masters.