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Scary stuff is right. We're definitly moving in that direction.
From a book summary.
1. War is important for consuming the products of human labour. If this work would be used to increase the standard of living, the control of the party over the people would decrease. War is the economy basis for a hierarchical society.
2. There is an emotional need to believe in the ultimate victory of Big Brother.
3. In becoming continuous, war has ceased to exist. The continuity of the war guarantees the permanence of the current order. In other words "War is Peace."
4. There have always been three main grades of society; the High, the Middle and the Low, and no change has brought human equality an inch nearer.
5. Collectivism doesn't lead to socialism. Wealth belongs to the new "high-class", the bureaucrats and administrators. Collectivism has ensured the permanence of economic inequality.
6. Wealth is not inherited from person to person, but it is kept within the ruling group.
7. The masses (proles) are given freedom of thought, because supposedly they don't think. A Party member is not allowed the slightest deviation of thought, and there is an elaborate mental training to ensure this, a training that can be summarised in the concept of doublethink.
The war could be the war on terrorism or the war on drugs. Big brother is GWB for sure. Emmanuel Goldstein is Osama. Yikes!
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