The Strength of Ignorance...

The Meaning of War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, and Ignorance Is Strength in Orwell's "1984", Natalie Franks, PhD, Owlcation

Topics: Climate Change, Global Warming, Existentialism, Politics

Note: Please forgive the midweek rant but...this...is...insane.

Mr. Trump is less an ideologue than an armchair naysayer about climate change, according to people who know him. He came into office viewing agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency as bastions of what he calls the “deep state,” and his contempt for their past work on the issue is an animating factor in trying to force them to abandon key aspects of the methodology they use to try to understand the causes and consequences of a dangerously warming planet.

As a result, parts of the federal government will no longer fulfill what scientists say is one of the most urgent jobs of climate science studies: reporting on the future effects of a rapidly warming planet and presenting a picture of what the earth could look like by the end of the century if the global economy continues to emit heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution from burning fossil fuels.

The attack on science is underway throughout the government. In the most recent example, the White House-appointed director of the United States Geological Survey, James Reilly, a former astronaut and petroleum geologist, has ordered that scientific assessments produced by that office use only computer-generated climate models that project the impact of climate change through 2040, rather than through the end of the century, as had been done previously.

Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science
Coral Davenport and Mark Landler, New York Times

It's insane, but cynical: the current Russian-installed occupant of the Oval Office is 72, meaning by 2040 if the afterlife doesn't want to screw with him, he'd be 93, still Virtual Reality tweeting his inane thoughts further rattled by Entropy, Alzheimer's and Dementia while firmly encompassed in adult pampers on his sixth trophy wife from whatever is left of the Czech Republic! We're personally causing the extinction of millions of species, and one of them might be the linchpin break in our own food chain.

NONE of the morons making these decisions will live to see the impact of them. They will cash in and peace out to the planet richer than Solomon, fiddling like Nero as the world burns. The end of white Christian Evangelical America occurred rather quietly around 2017, only noted by demographers, authors that notice such things...and white Christian Americans! This is why they could vote for the vagina gripper without a hint of pious hypocrisy, literally 81% of them selling what's left of their souls. This is why they're in a wholesale panic in Texas...TEXAS could turn blue by 2045! This is a naked power grab masquerading in choir robes that are demonstrably, decidedly Klan white. The other impact other than the lack of coitus would likely be the proliferation of readily available guns for violence, the opioid crisis and farmers affected by the trade tariffs committing harikari. But we won't talk about that because...logic (or, lack thereof).

They don’t even WANT you to vote a week from Tuesday. They hate voters and they hate voting. They have worked with a religious fervor to game voting tallies in Missouri, and Tennessee, and North Dakota, and Ohio (we can thank the Supreme Court for that), and Florida, and North Carolina, and most notably in Georgia, where elderly black people were literally pulled over for trying to vote, and where Republican gubernatorial candidate and current secretary of state Brian Kemp purged over 300,000 people from the voter rolls. They don’t want you voting, and they don’t particularly care if it’s fair or not. And if you happen to resist, the president already tacitly endorsed violence against you.

This is because Republicans hate a true representative democracy. And if they hate that, then they hate America. And if they hate America, then they hate you. I know Republicans say they LOVE America. They love it so much they wanna marry it. But that’s not true. They only love using America, mostly as a means of engineering hate.

They also hate your kids. If they liked your kids, they would support paid maternity leave, free health care, free child care, better public schools, and they would do everything in their power to enact stricter gun control laws so that schoolchildren don’t get routinely slaughtered en masse. They hate all of those ideas. They even hate teachers. You ever meet a teacher? They’re fucking saints, man. It doesn’t matter. Republicans hate them and would rather die than pay teachers a living wage.

In fact, they don’t just hate your kids, they hate your grandchildren as well. If Republicans gave the thinnest of shits about your grandkids, they would act with incredible haste on every Defcon 1 climate report that says we’re doomed if we don’t stop humping carbon to death. But they don’t. They hate the Earth, they hate the future, and they HATE any report that might dare ask them to take a break from pillaging the lands. Those reports go right into the shredder.

And they hate reporters too. Of course they hate reporters. A reporter just got kidnapped, tortured, and dismembered by Saudi Arabia (the country that was home to the majority of 9/11 hijackers, mind you). Did Republicans give a shit? Of course not. This is because they hate reporters. They get so much mileage out of hating reporters, it’s almost impressive. Why, it’s as if breeding hate and resentment is the only thing they do competently! They hate facts. They hate whistleblowers. They hate the truth. They don’t even like QUESTIONS. How dare you ask a Republican a question? That’s really rude. The president thinks you should be body slammed. If Republican leaders liked answering for shit, they would hold more town halls. Instead, they fuck off back to their home states and huddle up with their donors.

Republicans Hate You, Drew Magary, GQ

"War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength." George Orwell, 1984, Spark Notes

These words are the official slogans of the Party, and are inscribed in massive letters on the white pyramid of the Ministry of Truth, as Winston observes in Book One, Chapter I. Because it is introduced so early in the novel, this creed serves as the reader’s first introduction to the idea of doublethink. By weakening the independence and strength of individuals’ minds and forcing them to live in a constant state of propaganda-induced fear, the Party is able to force its subjects to accept anything it decrees, even if it is entirely illogical—for instance, the Ministry of Peace is in charge of waging war, the Ministry of Love is in charge of political torture, and the Ministry of Truth is in charge of doctoring history books to reflect the Party’s ideology.

That the national slogan of Oceania is equally contradictory is an important testament to the power of the Party’s mass campaign of psychological control. In theory, the Party is able to maintain that “War Is Peace” because having a common enemy keeps the people of Oceania united. “Freedom Is Slavery” because, according to the Party, the man who is independent is doomed to fail. By the same token, “Slavery Is Freedom,” because the man subjected to the collective will is free from danger and want. “Ignorance Is Strength” because the inability of the people to recognize these contradictions cements the power of the authoritarian regime.

This is insane...and terrifying.

...and we are all living through a tweet-created, GOP-enabled dystopian nightmare.

This is terrifying as we might be staring down the barrel of our own extinction.

At least there will be no billionaires,..

...or assholes (not that for most, there isn't much of a difference).