1984 Watch: Fifty-Seven Channels and Only Obama's On

Yet another Obama speech. Sigh ... In "1984", the TVs were always on, and always tuned to Big Brother's latest speech. While no one today is forced to turn on the tube or listen, in some ways things are not so different: In most households, the TV is always on, and every program is about Obama.

This is now more true than ever. The new motto for CNN should be "CNN: All Obama, All the Time". Indeed, the only story about American politics that I have seen on CNN lately that was not about Obama was a story about Levi Johnston--a creep that impregnated a girl, and then ran off on her without paying child support and without trying to be a father to the child, and who is now bragging about it. This non-news story (since when is it news that kids hook-up, and that some young men are worthless fools?) was broadcast not once, but twice on consecutive mornings, as though somehow it was more important than any myriad of other things happening in the world.

I once had a Japanese friend who aspired to be a pastor. He printed out business cards with the title "pastor", posted a cross and a sign on the front of his house advertising church meetings, bought a few pews and put them in his living room along with a pulpit, and began having church services three times a week and prayer meetings early every morning, literally preaching to the empty pews because he had no congregation. This nonsense began in 2001, and the man is still at it today. He still preaches to empty pews in his own home.

Obama reminds me of that man. Somehow, I imagine that back in his community organizer days his living room must have had a podium with the presidential seal affixed to it, flanked by American flags. Every night, when his wife was out billing more hours as a corporate lawyer, he would turn on the teleprompter, and begin speaking to the empty fold-out chairs before him. Did the nanny sometimes dare to complain that his rousing oratory was waking up the babies? Did he stop his speechifying to soothe the crying girls, or did he continue speaking over the racket, regarding it as a mere distraction to his higher purpose of speaking when no one was listening? What did he do when the teleprompter broke and there was no one there to fix it? Did he just wing it, hoping that the vinyl seat covers would appreciate his audacity, or did he fish out prepared notes and begin again?

Of course, now Obama is president, and people have to listen to him. No more speaking to empty chairs for him.

For the record, I was against Bush's speech to the schoolchildren in 1991, and thought it was a travesty. And so, for the record, I was against Obama's speech to the schoolchildren this year. Many people say that the speech was not a bad thing, because all Obama said was a bunch of harmless pap. I disagree.

In socialist countries, 90% of everything that is said by the leadership and on the news is complete and utter nonsense. It is not as though they are speaking lies. It never rises to that level: It is simply gibberish. In my work, I sometimes have to deal with translations of different materials produced by mid-level leaders. Most of the time, it is difficult to make any sense at all of it. In a recent case, the publisher contacted the translator, a man who serves as an interpreter at the UN, and asked for clarification on a matter. His response was that he could not make heads or tails of the source material. This is fairly normal where I live. Leaders give long-winded speeches that are hopelessly obtuse. Then, in schools, there are the constant political meetings, where the kids have to go and listen to nonsense for hours on end. I often asked what was said at these meetings, and the standard reply was that no one really understood what the speaker was talking about--including the teachers. Indeed, many students sleep through these meetings. However, everyone has to show up, and in some cases students might be called upon to memorize some of the gibberish they were listening to.

But communication never really was the point of the whole exercise. The speeches are made, the articles written, the news stories broadcasted, not to communicate, but to control. People find their senses dulled by the monotonous drivel they are daily assaulted with. They may try to resist, but ultimately, their will is broken by it--they begin to passively receive what they hear, and it eats at their souls. The very obtuseness of the thought processes impressed upon them by this bombardment takes away their reasoning skills and makes them pliable. Ask any person on the street here (in my Asian abode) if he believes a word that is reported on the news, and he will say it is all lies, and that he believes none of it. Yet, the few polls that are taken in this country show that he does indeed believe it. It takes an active and aggressive stance to filter out this bombardment of inanity and lies, and most people do not have that much commitment to having thought processes of their own. Most people do not really want to think--at least not every moment of the day. It is too hard of work and too stressful. They want to relax. So in their relaxed state, the government begins to do the thinking for them.

It matters not that Obama uttered a bunch of gibberish to American schoolchildren. Nor does it matter if the children slept through his speech, acted up during it, or thought he was a senseless bore. What matters is the fact that he spoke to them--and that he felt a need to speak to them--at all, and that most everyone felt compelled to listen to him. When we have a middle-of-the-road reporter praising, in the New York Times, a failed, despotic state, saying that the mindless thugs who run it are "reasonably enlightened", and that it is a better system than the US; when we have a president and political party that is trying to ram a government takeover of nearly 20% of the US economy down the throats of an unwilling populace, using all manner of lies and distortions to do so; and when we have major TV networks turn into de facto propaganda bureaus of the US government, it is only right to be wary of Obama's motives and agenda. What's next: Are we going to force American schoolkids to go to school with little red handkerchiefs around their necks, and are we going to hang a framed picture of our dear leader in every classroom? Both of these could be characterized by many as harmless and nonpolitical, and many may not think it would be worth much of a fuss to object. Indeed, the actual political content of these things is low. However, the symbolic significance of these things is quite high--they are ways for the leaders to control the children and make them pliable. Forcing children to listen to the president give a speech--the very act of giving the speech cannot be divorced from its political significance--is part and parcel with these things. None of this is innocuous, regardless of the content of the message. This is how despots behave. That Bush the elder--a man of great deeds, who nevertheless at times acted as though he had as much sense as your average village idiot--gave a speech to schoolchildren does not at all change things or somehow make Obama's action right.

Small, symbolic acts often take on a significance and power that far outstrip the actual content of the act itself. If the speech was really not that important, if the whole thing was not that significant, then there was no reason to give the speech to begin with. The fact that Obama had to give the speech shows that it was important and was significant. All of these small, symbolic acts must be resisted, for this is how dictators take over a country, and then rule a country once they have control.

The difference is that we aren’t British pukes and that we would rather bleach the very soil we own rather than give it to the scum of DC.

In most households, the TV is always on,

I haven't owned a TV in over a decade.

Welcome to FR.

/johnny

The latest stats show that most Americans have more than two sets (if I recall), so you’re a minority. I watch TV to relax and because there is a dearth of reading materials here in English, but am increasingly finding less and less on worth watching or truly relaxing.
You’re welcome, BTW.

because there is a dearth of reading materials here in English,

I have months of reading if I have internet access, over and above my personal library. Most of it even free. Baen Free Library comes to mind.

Your use of the english language indicates that you are not from the States.

Your use of the word 'relaxing' sounds more like 'vegetative', to my mind, anyway.

I relax by despoiling God's nature, cutting down trees to make a large, nice home. And killing small fuzzy creatures and eating them.

I also enjoy walks on the beach in the rain, if my guys have arty overwatch.

/johnny

I am very much from the States. I just haven’t lived there for a long, long time. For years, the Internet was the only lifeline I and my family had to the US, but for long periods the news on the Internet was blocked or the Internet was difficult to use. Now we have an illegal satellite dish and we watch US TV via the Philippines. That and the Internet is where we get most of our news.

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