Orwell's 1984. Is it any less valid because 1984 was not the year it

all really occured??

I ask this because of a discussion I was having on christians, the rapture, and 2000.

Do we not see the same thing going on, where we worry about 1984 becoming a reality even though the year was not the same the underlying principles were?

It is 'faith' based on knowledge and fear - we know and can tell where bush and his little freak buddies are going with things, we fear the outcome, look for signs of it, and fight against said signs here and in the ballot box.

We are not looking for a date, but signs of something (ie, of big brother taking over). Christians, myself included I might add, are looking for a 'thing' to occur (or more accurately, a series of events) and not an actual date (well, there are some off the wall folks basing it all on dates...).

So maybe you think the end timers are fruitcakes, I am cool with that. But aren't we similar on a core level? We look for signs of bad things and yell about them loudly. We want to prevent something which maybe, deep down, we see as inevitable due to the nature of the 'beast'?

My take, back in the day (1980's-1990's) was that god knew mankind, saw us for what we were, and just knew that someday we would have the ability to toast ourselves (nukes, chem weapons, bio) and knew full well that selfish people would come into power and do horrid things. Same with Orwell.

Does not take a prophet to see that really, that mankind will fuck itself eventually. We worry about it, christians do, and so do other faiths. Maybe the one thing connecting all the faiths is that we all saw early on the sinful nature of our kind and could easily project that someday we would screw ourselves.

I don't need the bible to tell me that, I need only log on to DU and see the same thing day in and out. From the 9/11 forum to GD, we ain't got much faith in leaders and see them leading us down (ala dumb ass bush right now).

The christians were right, as were the orwell talking folks, etc. We are doomed probably. Religion or not, we see the grim picture, mankind is made up of some serious assholes in power, and the rest of us are screwed. We don't need to worry about a god punishing us for our sins and such, god ain't the problem - stupid leaders wanting more power and control over us is the problem - and now those leaders have tons of nukes, willing armies to do their bidding, and so on.

I don't need god to tell me the score, I can see it with my own two eyes. The prophets, religious or simply philisophical, were right. We are doomed because we are our own worst enemy.

Damn the conservatives and their power hungry shit anyway. Damn the leaders who use their people for their petty wars. The same today, yesterday, and forever. And I ain't talking about god here, I am talking about the human race.

Damned sad we are such a sorry race at the upper levels. We had such potential, and we squandered it on wars and power grabs. Death follows us like a puppy. Always there and seeming so sweet. Kill others, get what you want now, and only you matter. That is the way of folks in power. And it is damned sad to me.

That's how the CIA works, covert. Secret CIA wars, the mass media spewing propaganda, the doublespeak...It was all there and we didn't know it.

Carl Sagan discussing Drake's Equation figured that the reason we don't see any signs of intelligence out there is because technological civilizations invariably destroy themselves within a few thousand years.

Einstein said "I don't know what weapons they'll use in WWIII, but WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones" (paraphrase).

Countless others have noticed that civilizations rise and fall - Spengler etc.