If all this had been predicted 40 years ago, I'd have never believed it

other than Orwell, no writer could have ever written this bizarre scenario 40 years ago, after the nazis and fascists had been defeated. you couldn't have convinced me, in my wildest dreams that a day like this would come.

it can't happen here. that's what i always thought, but i was so wrong. sometimes the truth is so bizarre, it's weirder than anything a sci fi writer could come up with. but, the parallels between 1984 and now are frightening and prophetic.

i read 1984 17 years after it was written, and i figured a book like that would surely prevent any slide down back into totalitarianism, along with 'animal farm'. this shit was taught to us in jr. high.
and for me, it stuck. but i swear, i never thought i'd live to actually see it. big brother. Goldstein. war is peace. ignorance is strength. freedom is slavery. sci fi.

usual methods did not work.

Look at straight from Bacon's Rebellion to the Civil War to WW1, to labor strikes, to WW2 and the internment camps, to McCarthyism (which no mainstream politician really oppposed. The most radical senator would just say, "Those aren't the communists! They're different people!"), to the FBI infiltration of the SDS, Black Panthers, American Indians, and other leftist groups, to Reagan's "War on Drugs/Crime/Terror" to Waco to finally Bush II.

It's not a new thing, but we can make it a thing of the past if we educate people about what must be done.

and american histoy is full of ugliness, and we should face it, the good, the bad, warts and all.

It might cause people to think.

That's why Rummy hates the press.

:toast:

of the country in the 60's and I naively thought that things would only go further "out of control" to anarchy.
In a billion years I would never have thought that we would go back to the uptight, authoritarian '50's. Nixon looks like a liberal now.

a liberal Republican, an species that is now extinct but there used to be quite a few of them - the Rockefeller Republicans and their ilk.

Not 40 years, but still...

In Austin, TX in 1992 I worked with a born-again who was heavily involved in whatever local chapter of the Republican party, and he knew some big names (which is a little odd, because he was a lowly assistant manager at a 7-11).

He predicted, with what in retrospect was horrifying accuracy, more or less exactly what has come to pass. 9/11 was absent from the discussion, and Pat Robertson was of greater prominence in that envisioned future, but otherwise he was right on the money.

He declared, for example, that an evangelical would come out of Austin and take the Whitehouse, and he likewise asserted that Texas would be instrumental in taking over the Congress. He explicitly identified anti-choice propaganda and suppression of gay rights as two of the primary weapons that were to be used.

At the time I just figured that he was spouting bullshit. I mean, why would anyone believe him? But as more and more of what he said has come to pass, I've had to wonder how much he knew about the PNAC and the then-nascent Neocon movement.

At the time I just found him annoying because of the countless 8-hour chunks of proselytizing. But if I'd known that he was onto something, I would have listened more carefully.

Like I said--take it for what it's worth.

But the rest of the scenario your friend outlined is exactly the plan the conservatives have been working on for the last 30 years. Taking 9/11 out of it, it's no accident or twist of fate what's happened to our government. When someone told me in 1992 that there'd been a conservative plan in action for 20 years to take over school boards and train conservatives to win elections and control the media, I thought they were nuts. Little did I realize...

I guess not the PNAC, per se. That must be my blurring over the years, but the rest is as you said--in line with a plan three decades in the making. More, perhaps; unsurprisingly, my coworker identified the two most important events of the latter 20th century as the removal of school prayer and Roe v. Wade. Both, he predicted, would be "corrected" before long.

really building a foundation shortly after the 1964 election. And building the foundation of their movement was in many ways like building the foundation for a house: your underground, so to speak, and so people passing by do not appreciate what amount of work is being done. But the stronger the foundation, the more solid it is, the bigger of a building can be built upon it.

Nixon's administration was an odd group. Within it were many of the main players that we find today. But it wasn't what the radical right wing were looking to inhabit. The right wing was about as responsible for bringing the Nixon administration down as were democrats.

Carter was but a brief pause. But with the Reagan/Bush administration(s), they built their house above ground. These are people that would find Goldwater too liberal for their liking. A Rockefeller or even a Nixon would not fit in with their plans.

Although on most issues, I believe I am fairly far to the left, I can deal with moderate republicans. I think that while the party has to be true to its values, there is good reason to recognize that a significant portion of republicans -- such as fiscal conservatives -- have to find this administration out of touch with American values.

Maybe not under that name but Leo Strauss's works have been guiding the Neoconservative movement down exactly the path they are following now for decades.

http://olincenter.uchicago.edu/2001-2/straussconference.html

With the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Natural Right and History approaching, we judge the time ripe for a reassessment of Leo Strauss's thought starting with a reconsideration of his best-known work. Based on the Walgreen lectures he delivered in October 1949, which marked his debut at the University of Chicago, Natural Right and History was published in 1953 and first brought Strauss to the attention of a wide academic audience, especially in the United States.

Another good article on how long ago this nutcase infected our culture is here http://www.alternet.org/story/15935 And look who studied underhim and his influence...

was like something out of a sci-fi spectactular. I was totally mesmerized by it, it just seemed so perfectly choreographed.

The towers imploding in on themselves seemed like blackholes sucking in the optimism of the 21st century.

It was only with the coordinated global anti-war demonstrations on 15th Feb 2003 that I thought that perhaps another, more progressive 21st century did have a chance.

The whole 9/11 was orchestrated like a movie, but then real. That is what made it so strong and powerful. It was perfectly choreographed and it was something straight out of a movie script.

We all had hopes during those early demonstrations, but it soon turned out that it was going to be ignored. Right now, everything is being ignored and ridiculed.

that were released about the perps,the victims,the droning on by the networks all had that disconnected quality that I call the Land of Make Believe, with apologies to Mr.Rogers.

Not the idea of the airplanes hitting the towers, but blasting the towers afterwards was the icing on the cake. Otherwise the buildings would have burnt for several days which would have made the spectacle boring, but by blasting the buildings they not only got rid off any and all evidence, it was stunning video footage which could be repeated over and over again.

Here's an ironic twist. The movie Die Hard which obviously was one of the movies which must have inspired them took place in a building owned by Inktomi. Inktomi back in 2001 was a powerful company because they owned the search market (this was before Google take absolute control) and was owned by Akamai.

Akamai was the big brother of the internet back then. Most advertisements were run through them (nowadays Google has taken that part of the market as well). Aboard Flight 11 was Daniel C. Lewin, founder of Akamai. Just like the movies...

But who was Daniel C. Lewin. He wasn't just the founder of Akamai, the big brother which control the search engines and the online advertisement, he was an American-born former Israeli commando and counter-terrorist expert. ( http://www.populist.com/02.14.burns.html ). This is a weird world. No wonder some people put up their tinfoil hats :tinfoilhat:

That is when we would have become total zombies who will not even know we have to protest because everything is hunky dory.

30% off of all the things you don't need. Can't compare the news on Iraq to that, now can you?

Robert Heinlein predicted a theocracy in "Revolt in 2100."

Isaac Asimov wrote about a dark age (it's coming) in his "Foundation" trilogy.

--IMM

a card carrying member of the KKK to a cabinet position soon.And all the rightwing shills will find positives about the man/woman.

Orwell underestimated our infinite capacity for "periodic madness" as John LeCarre has put it.

I guess I don't have to tell you about science fiction.

I am an Orwellian, too. And I don't think we have outrun "1984." I think there are KKK members in the cabinet, but in it's more modern CCC incarnation.

BTW, I still roll at the scene where Bruce Campbell tries to remember "Klatoo..." in that movie (whose name I forget.)

--IMM

"Army of Darkness" a Bruce Campbell kinda tongue in cheek sci-fi classic. He is told those magic words, but when the time comes, he can't exactly remember them. The scene is hilarious.

I especially relate to that because in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" Hugh Marlowe hears them once and remembers them, which I found far-fetched. I had to hear them many times before they stuck in my mind.

--IMM

I got this name.

--IMM