From: Eric
Burgess < zteecher@yahoo.com >
Date: Sun, 4 May
2003 12:32:36 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: big
dubya is watching
somebody just
asked me what i meant by comparing orwell's 1984 to bush's aircraft carrier
speech.
bush's speech
used what orwell termed "newspeak" in his novel. newspeak is the name
for the language that the government used to hide what it was doing. using
techniques such as oversimplification, euphemism, misrepresentation,
abbreviation, blurring, and reversal of meaning, newspeak makes language so
meaningless that it cannot be used to communicate (or even understand) the
activities of the state. thus, the whole aim of newspeak, according to orwell,
is to narrow the range of thought. listen carefully as big dubya speaks and you
will be able to identify all of the aformentioned techniques.
eb
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Date: Mon, 26
May 2003 09:15:41 -0700
Subject: Re: big
dubya is watching
From:
"Richard Winters" <jdrudge@earthlink.net>
I must apologize
for saying that my last note to you all would be my last.
I will try to
make this the last. There's a guy named Fritz Hemker who works for Arsalyn
Foundation. Arsalyn sponsors the Student Advocates for Voter Empowerment
(SAVE), a group I advise at Rosemead High School.
Hemker heard
about my reference to the Marine Corps report which says that Saddam didn't
really gas his own people. He sent me several emails trying to convince me the
Marines were wrong. I replied that the accuracy of the report wasn't the main
question. If the Marines were right, then our rhetoric, blaming Saddam for
gassing his own people is a BIG lie. If the Marines lied, then we are part of
an equally big lie, a cover-up to protect out then ally.
Hemker read the
report, finally, and unable to debunk it, sent me an email which said, "So
what if the Marines got it wrong. So we lied to protect our ally, so
what?" That "So what" said it all for me. It is the nexus of
everything I abhor about this administration. Yesterday, I wrote the following
poem which expresses what I feel. I just wanted to share this with you.
They wear
beautiful, expensive
suits -
He demands it,
lest the symbolic
magnificence of
the Oval Office be betrayed,
and they say,
"So what."
Not to the
suits, of course, they wear
them proudly to
the podiums where they
answer questions
with deceptions and,
"So
what."
It is okay to
lie, they seem to say,
if the lie will
get us votes,
If we really
want to believe the lie,
If we really
want you to believe the lie,
If we really
want to do what we want to do,
and the lie
makes it possible,
"So
what."
And the chains
of heaven groan,
and the
drawbridge stops half-down -
And the dead of
Hardy's poem gasp -
If our enemies
deceive, we give them
hellfire and
brimstone from above,
outpourings of
wanton power in a rage -
If we deceive,
"So what."
So all the
children, cut down in the
fires before
dawn, cry out -
So all the
mothers, clutching photos
of dead sons and
daughters, weep -
So all the hopes
for futures with ones
beloved vanish
in the charnel pit of war,
and vast tons of
falling bombs reduce q
world to
splashed blood and shards of still
warm flesh -
And at the
podiums, they turn to leave,
the prim,
stylish spokeswoman intones,
"Bad things
happen in war," - with a shrug -
"So
what." And they, the suited
ones, spend the monies lavished on them by the architects of death's agony -
They build castles on the hills they, only, can afford, and answer every query
with their epitaph, - - - "So what."
Dick
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