Current Affairs 10:59 pm
Also, to anybody who saw it, what an utterly disappointing way for Curtis to end his ‘The Trap’ series on Sunday night.
Parts 1 and 2 were wonderful; part 3 was rushed, shoddy, philosophically impoverished, historically inaccurate and essentially one fat assertion after another. Perhaps if he’d made 4 parts instead of 3 it would have helped. But i was left disappointed and unsatisfied.
Current Affairs and Middle East 10:55 pm
So, are we going to go to war with Iran?
Ironic really, isn’t it? Iraq was never a threat, and the war is a pointless exercise in blood-shedding and facilitating the promotion of extremist Islam.
But commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan rule out any serious threat that we could pose to Iran. And Iran know it. What a pretty pickle B, B and the Neo-Cs have gotten into.
And how long before Comrade Putin turns the power back on to that uranium enrichment plant? Not long i’d guess; probably just long enough to time it so that Russia (or Russia via Iran) can shit on the UK and USA from the greatest possible height. And you know what, I can’t say we didn’t have it coming, or that we don’t really deserve it.
Just a shame so many innocent people are going to die (sooner or later). If ’shame’ is the right word. Which it obviously isn’t.
Over and out.
Africa and Current Affairs and Europe and North America and Philosophy and Politics 11:27 pm
So the big public debate at the moment is over the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery. Or more precisely, whether European leaders should a) apologise for slavery and b) pay reparations. Now there is a lot being said on this….so I thought I might as well wade in.
To begin, who exactly is apologising? The British Labour Government? Corporations who are founded upon corporations that used slaves? The mayors/councils of cities that grew out of slavery (e.g. Liverpool)? Now my problem is that none of these groups kept slaves, condoned slavery, or benefited directly from slavery. They are all in fact completely opposed to slavery - as any decent, normal, right-minded 21st Century human being should be.
I guess my major problems are therefore as follows. Firstly, how can they possibly apologise? They didn’t do anything to promote slavery. Now you may rightly point out that they have all benefited from a slave-owning past. That is clearly something not to be proud of. And so it would make sense for them to say - as i think they should and do say – that they are truly, deeply sorry slavery every occurred and was facilitated by their own ancestors. But how can they appologise for it? They (or perhaps more precisely, we) didn’t do it. So if they do apologise, it’s a completely hollow apology; it can by definition mean nothing, because they are apologising for something they did not do.
The counter-move to this line is to point out that apologising – even if hollow – can help heal divisions and mend old wounds. But i don’t think that argument is going to go through. If the descendants of slaves want an apology simply to heal the wounds of history, then why ask for a direct apology which entails assignable guilt? If all that is needed is a show of remorse from the ’side of the slave owners’, then surely that is provided by expressing a deep and sincere sorrow for the fact that slavery ever occurred, and also a sorrow that the wealth of the west is (in large parts) built upon the legacy of slavery? What can a direct apology, of the form “we the government of Great Britain apologise for keeping your ancestors as slaves” possibly achieve that the expression of deep-felt, sincere remorse cannot? When you factor into this the fact that any apology would be necessity by hollow on the part of the apology-makers it all becomes ever more implausible.
This leads me to a second point. If the Government (or whoever) did apologise, then who would they be apologising to? The great-great-grandchildren of slaves? How on earth can any apology regarding the slave trade possibly be made to them? They are not themselves slaves, nor ever have been. Now i have no problem what-so-ever with the Government (or whoever) sincerely saying that they are sorry that slavery ever happened and that the descendants of slaves have to live with that historical and psychological burden to this day. But apologising to modern day descendants for crimes committed over 200 years ago, by people who are not us, and are long since dead, just increases the charge of hollowness over again.
At this point I must make a digression in order to fend off an apparent incoherence in my position. Underlying the above argument is essentially a sentiment that runs; “it was just too long ago for apologising to make any sense”. But someone could object and say “surely you think that Japan was right to apologise for the ill-treatment of PoWs in WWII? But at the time of apologising, many of the Japanese who were responsible were dead, as nearly 60 years had passed?”. And i would have to agree that i do think Japan was right to apologise. So what i need to try and show is that there is an asymmetry between Japan and Slavery. The way to do this, i think, is to allege that the length of time involved does make a difference. That is not to make a crass assertion that after 200 years too much time has passed, but after 60 years not enough, and those are the delineating parameters. Rather, it is to say something like the following. As regards Japan, the government of the late 20th Century was relatively directly connected to that of the 1940s (although those who wish to argue with me can start by pointing out that 1940s Japan was effectively ruled by a Military junta, early 21st Century Japan is democratic). But more importantly, there were still Japanese and American/British men (and women) alive who had directly contributed to or experienced the horrendous treatment of PoWs. To acknowledge that what was done to those young men, and the impacts it had upon their immediate families, went a long way to healing and reconciliation, and the closing of one particularly unpleasant chapter of 20th Century history. But with slavery, the time elapsed just seems too much; no slaves still live, nor do any of their immediate families. No slave-owners still live, nor do any of their immediate families. This is, I think, significant. What i am trying to get at is the intuitive thought that time matters. We may not be able to say exactly when apologies are or are not appropriate (there is certainly no hard-and-fact cut off point like a number of years passed, or a condition, e.g. ‘no remaining immediate relatives’), but we can, i think, at least try and distinguish cases when they arise. However, to illustrate how hard this is going to be, consider whether the British Government should apologise to the families of men who were shot for desertion in WWI, even though many of them were probably suffering from shell-shock. It’s been 90 years. How much does that matter? I can’t decide.
Anyway, returning to the main argument. My third point is regarding reparations payments, and flows naturally from the points made above. Firstly, who is to pay them? The Governments of nations that abolished slavery two centuries ago? Exactly how would these reparations be determined? According to the value slavery is estimated to have contributed to the British economy adjusted for 200 years of inflation? Or according to how much the descendants (all of them?) say is enough? And how should these reparations be funded? By taxing the citizens of western democracies whose personal ancestors never owned slaves, and who benefited from the slave trade only incidentally? If you wish to turn to people with a more direct link to slavery – the descendants of slave owners – how exactly do you go about it? Do you simply say that because their great-great-grandfathers owned slaves, vast chuncks of their wealth/property should be taken away? What about those descendants who got unlucky and have ended up as impoverished white trash living in trailer parks? And if you are going to justify redistribution based on past wrongs committed by ancestors, then does this mean we can hunt down Britain’s landed Aristocracy and take what they have? After all, historically the rich are essentially those who have been best (or friends with those who were best) at exploiting others through the use of violence, guile and coercion. The reparations question is something of a quagmire, to say the least.
And, of course, secondly; who are we going to pay reparations to? Presumably the descendants of slaves. Well, in the 1990 US census, there were 30Million respondants who described themselves as Afro-American. That’s 12% of the population. A good chunk of those will be descended from slaves. Are we to give them all reparations? What about those who have managed (against the odds) to do well for themselves, say becoming lawyers or doctors? Do they get the same level of reparations as poor impoverished unemployed black single mothers in Harlem? Who is going to regulate these reparations payments? But more importantly, how can they be justified? I, as a middle-class white male in the UK, am not going to dismiss the psychological and historical impact of slavery – the fact is i cannot understand such a thing and how it must affect many black people. But what i can say is that i do not understand how the descendants of slaves can themselves be either entitled to reparations from the descendants of slave owners, nor how those reparations could meaningfully heal the psychological wounds of slave history. Surely mere money cannot make something like the horrendous psychological legacy of slavery simply disappear? If the answer comes back that it can, then I have two responses. The first is one i don’t like, and wish to avoid taking; it is the charge that if the psychological wounds of slavery can be healed by mere cash, then they aren’t as deep as they’ve been presented to be. I don’t like that line, for obvious reasons (but not least that it makes me look like an insensitive, presumptuous bastard). One i like a little better is this; that really the calls for reparations are not about healing deep psychological wounds at all. They’re about greed. To this, we shall return.
My fourth and most controversial point is this. I think the above arguments on their own should stand up to scrutiny to show that the arguments for apology and reparations are unsustainable. But now factor this into the equation: slavery was not a European invention nor monopoly. Slavery existed in Africa long before the Europeans arrived. The European slave trade was greatly facilitated by African slavers and the slave-trade they had already established. African slavery continued well after 1807 – indeed according to the UN it is still going on today. The fact of the matter is that European slavery – while horrendous and unforgivable – was not alone. But of course, there’s no demand for the nations of Africa to pay reparations to the descendants of African slaves? Why?
Well one answer might be that they are not of moral equivalence. This argument to me seems odd. After all, slavery is surely abominable and unjustified not ceteris paribus, but simpliciter. So the argument that European and African slavery are not morally equivalent must have some special grounding. Usually the claim is that European nations made so much money from slavery, that individuals and governments built vast fortunes from it, and that it helped facilitate the wealth of the West while impoverishing Africa. Now this is true - but i’m i’m not seeing how the difference in wealth acquired from slavery carries any moral weight. After all, slavery is wrong because of what it does to individual people. If i take Stephen as a slave, deny him all rights, force him to work, beat him, rape him and then sell him on, how can it possibly make any difference if i make or lose £1000 from doing so? The moral abhorrence of slavery lies in the violence (on so many levels) done to the individual agent. Money can’t make it better or worse.
But if the objector wants to say that the difference is that African countries are too poor to pay reparations, or the African slavers have no links to the modern governments, then i have this to say. Firstly, I do not see how modern European governments can be more justifiably linked to slavers who operated over 200 years ago, save by the fact Europe has been fortunate enough to enjoy stable and continuing nation-states for the last 200 years (at least, for the most part. And i admit we did a lot to prevent such peace and prosperity as go with this from obtaining in Africa). But further, how can the fact European nations are richer be any kind of justification? If two men commit the same parking offence, we do not generally say the millionaire must pay his parking fine, but that the man who earns minimum wage need not (or though perhaps we should…rendering this perhaps a bad annalogy; Discuss [20]).
And this final point leads into my conclusion. Firstly, talk of direct apologies is nonsensical and by necessity hollow. The people doing the apologising were not slavers, and the people who are being apologised to are not slaves. The assignable guilt of slavery is now too distant to pin on any particular individuals, groups, nations or governments. For those whom slavery still affects through a psychological history a direct apology could not really mean anything; it would be hollow and dishonest. So any continued calls for direct-apologies-cum-admissions-of-guilt - usually leading to calls for reparations - cannot be, it seems to me, honestly motivated.
Rather they are motivated by greed; by an attempt to get money from rich European nations who can more easily afford to pay it. If this were not the case, a) why not demand reparations from African nations, however poor they are? and b) why ask for reparations at all? As i said above, how can reparations honestly do anything for the deep psychological harm i am sure slavery has done and continues to do for the descendants of African slaves?
The sad conclusion I find myself drawing is that the issue of slavery is being manipulated by a greedy few, who twist the issue away from examining our (often shameful) pasts and coming to terms with them, into a grab for money from the most likely to pay it. I think if there were any sincerity in the calls for reparations, then they would be pushing for all nations (perhaps especially those who benefited from slavery - European, African and American) to contribute and help the UN drive to rescue the estimated 8.5 million slaves in the world today, rather than trying to divert money to individuals who are not themselves now slaves.
To spell out the obvious: I am not a racist, and nor do I support slavery. Nor do i seek to be an apologist for European exploitation of other nations, upon which so much of our wealth is based. What i do support is honesty, clear-headed debate, and the looking to the future rather than the past, while never forgetting that we must of course remember our past to make a better future.
Current Affairs and Politics and Sagar's Social Commentaries 5:49 pm
I’ve spent a chunk of today exploring the blog justanothersoldier.com
I find this really interesting, for two main reasons. First, it’s written by an infantryman who is on the ground in Iraq. He blogs when off duty, sometimes within hours of what he is writing about. It’s intense stuff at times. Like the post about how Iraqi street kids drive him nuts and he sometimes wants to kill them. Or the photos of dead civilians.
But this guy is no jarhead. No no; this blog is well written, intelligent and moving. The guy has an incredible grasp of irony and subtlety, and his posts are often compassionate and well-considered. But the fact is, he is in a combat situation, detailing what he has just been through, and so there is a lot of raw emotion in here. Some people are making a fuss about posts, like the one about strangling street kids – what they are not seeing is that these are the normal sentiments of a man in an extremely stressful situation, written just after the time of happening. This is the real deal, straight from the grunt’s mouth.
What i find fascinating is that this is historically unprecedented; a new development in the history and analysis of warfare; the perspective of a soldier on the ground while on the ground. In short, this stuff if important for historical and political reasons - and it’s also a testament to how much the internet is changing the world.
Secondly, and following the above, i like to read some of the arguments that take place in the comment sections of the blog. Generally you get a division between “liberal anti-war/Bush” and “conservative pro-war/Bush”. The latter believe 9/11 was caused by Iraq and that Bush took the right approach, the former obviously disagree. The latter like to say that you can’t criticise the troops till you’ve been one. The former say they oppose the war but support the troops. The latter (especially those who are troops) really hate this line.
And this interests me. Not because the debates are interesting; in fact most of the posters are pretty stupid and couldn’t argue their way out of a wet paper bag, while being stuck in a long car journey with most of them would be a personal nightmare. But this is significant because ordinary people are debating politics through the internet – debating with the type of people they would probably never meet in real life, and if they did would probably refuse to talk to for more than five minutes. The internet is opening things up as regards the free exchange of ideas, and the conduct of argument and disagreement. I think that, overall, is a good thing, even if the things people are saying are, in general, pretty dumb.
However, one thing that does interest me is whether this guy really is just another soldier. Because this blog really forces me to reconsider a lot of pre-conceptions I possess about soldiers, and American ones, especially. If he really is just another soldier, that’s something to think about too.
Current Affairs and Politics and Sagar's Social Commentaries 11:49 pm
Apologies to any avid Cliche readers, as updates have been sparse as of late. This is mainly due to the fact i spent last week indulging in the pleasure of reading without having to condense reams of information into a 3000 word essay. However during that time i came to some conclusions. Namely that Plato was bonkers, that The Republic is one of the most irritating pieces of philosophy I have yet come across, and that Plato himself is the weakest of the Philosophers First XI that i have so far read. I cannot believe I once thought this book held Answers. How age and experience does improve one’s reflections.
But this week my lack of posts has been due to the fact my time has been eaten away by working at Payment Shield Insurance company. My job? I’m a “letter facilitator”. Which entails? Putting pieces of paper in envelopes for 7 hours a day, for £5.50 an hour, while i am watched by supervisors who allege that i took 20 rather than 15 minutes break (when i didn’t) and fail to notice that two days running i simply didn’t take any afternoon breaks to which i am entitled. Whoever said the Marxist theory of alienation was dead should come and work with me for a day. And i don’t even have to do this for a living like some poor bastards.
I was going to temporarily turn the blog into a latter-day-Engels investigation into the conditions of Britain’s new low-paid, un-valued workers. You see, while i personally letter-facilitate, i work in the corner of a massive call centre, a truly monstrous place indeed. But midway through what was going to be a fantastic post last night my house had a power cut and I lost everything. I have lost the enthusiasm of last night, so suffice to say now that in answer to your question, What is it like to work in a call centre for Payment Shield Insurance?; “Imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever”.
Anyway. Back to the Political. Or rather, what 21st Century New-Speakers would call the Political. I happen to think labour alienation is very political. But i’m old fashioned like that.
I wanted to say something about the Budget, but i’ve not made the time to read up on it, so have nothing particular to say as of yet. Except one thing. That all this rhetoric of Gordon Brown being “a tax and spend Chancellor in disguise” is severely depressing. There was once (or so i am led to believe) a time when taxing and spending was a good thing. Thanks Milton, thanks Maggie.
One thing i dohave something to say about today is this. When watching the 10 o’Clock News, a feature on wounded American soldiers returning from Iraq really moved me. A young soldier who had both his legs blown off in a mortar attack told the BBC reporter that he didn’t regret going to Iraq, because he had done his bit to try and stop another 9/11 ever happening, and that made it worth it*.
And this just makes me sick. Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld, Cheeney, Rice etc etc can all rot in hell. Not only did these fuckers know that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had nothing at all to do with 9/11, but they have begun a war which has done more than anything else to radicalise young Muslims and make another 9/11 more likely than ever.
Young Americans are giving their lives and limbs for a lie. There is no justice in this world. But if i could be granted just one wish it would be to see Bush, Blair and co. out on patrol in Baghdad, coming under enemy fire and mortar attack. To see the fear in their eyes, and for them to know what they sent their own young men – the young men of the populations to whom they lied – to face. Failing that, i’d like to see them all hanged for war crimes.
*His young wife, who looks after him, and also has to look after their 4 year old daughter, looked less convinced i must say. By which i mean she looked exhausted and in despair.
Current Affairs 12:11 am
For all its failings, noteably the recent ’scandal’ regarding live phone-ins, the BBC still stands out as a good example of how a media outlet can be operated to provide quality broadcasting.
The fact it has guaranteed constitutional independence and financial security, meaning it need not rely on corporate sponsorship is something to be acknowledged and cheered in this age of Murdoch owned press, and the Sky-Virgin war of appealing to the lowest common denominator’s idiotic preferences. It allows the BBC to fund and air programmes to suit a wide range of people, and on occasion produce programming which is of a truly high intellectual standard.
I think here of the recent series, The Trap, which is a thoughtful, tenacious, rigorous and impassioned explanation of how this bizarre, early 21st Century society, with its rhetoric of freedom and choice, and its reality of growing wealth inequality and curtailment of centuries-old liberty has come about. Not to mention bringing out the utterly glaring and depressing truth of how badly New Labour has betrayed British socialism and many of the people who trusted it and brought it to power. Adam Curtis’ earlier documentary, The Power of Nightmares, was excellent, but The Trap is a remarkable achievement. Genuine intellectual argument in the medium of television. It is really to be applauded. And in turn, so is the BBC.
If you’ve missed the first two parts of the trap, then I am disappointed for you. I would still strongly suggest tuning in on Sunday at 9pm on BBC 2 to watch the final episode. For a taster, go here.
Current Affairs and Politics 9:20 pm
What’s Left? Well according to Nick Cohen, just Nick Cohen.
I was going to post up a whole review of What’s Left?, but it would be too depressing, too time-consuming a task. I blitzed What’s Left? in two days because i have proper reading to do this vacation. So it will suffice to summarise my bigger objections to Cohen, in no particular order:
1) His characterisation of ‘the left’ as an all-encompassing hegemon is nothing but a cartoon, designed to make ‘the left’ look obviously bonkers, and Nick Cohen obviously sanity’s last saviour.
2) He spends a disppraportionate time attacking obscure Marxists from the 1970s, for no particular reason save to grind axes and fuel the project cited in 1.
3) He wants to talk politics/political theory, but quite frankly is generally too ignorant to do it. Describing Ba’athist Iraq as ‘fascist’ is academically controversial (by which i mean political theorists might contest that Hussein’s regime was specifically ‘fascist’), but describing Islamic Fundamentalism as ‘fascism’ is just wrong, inaccurate, lazy and deceptive.
4) Connected to the above, his book is horrendously sloppy as regards technical terminology especially, but also more generally. If you are going to say at the outset that ‘the left’ means X, even if that is awfully controversial and many well-read, sensible, intelligent people will strongly disagree, then please maintain ‘the left’ as meaning X. Don’t without warning take it to mean Y and Z before going back to X, again without justification or warning. Oh, and using the terms ‘left’ and ‘liberal’ interchangeably is bad enough, but doing so with no clear or consistent application is basically inexcusable from a book which purports to be a serious work on modern politics.
5) His historical examples are either mundanely true (by which i mean i would expect a child of 11 to know the story being told) or highly suspect. From suspect historical examples he produces the most fantastically bad analogies. Apparently, not invading Iraq in 2003 would have been analogous to the appeasment Hitler in 1938. If you can’t see on your own why this is just nonesense, then it will take more than me to explain.
6) The thesis of the book seems utterly incoherent. On the one hand he says the left has ‘lost its way’; on the other he cites Virginia Wolff (his favourite target on this point) and the Bloomsbury Group as disgusting examples of Liberal Worms who like the 2003 anti-war protesters have no stomachs an appease ‘fascist’ regimes. Again, he glorifies his mother for not buying Franco’s oranges, yet admonishes the modern anti-globalisation movement for boycotting companies who don’t give the developing world a fair deal. By the end of the book, you start to feel as though Cohen doesn’t think the Left ever ‘lost its way’, rather he thinks the Left has forever been a gutless worm of a movement, which he mistakenly saw good in. Now the scales have fallen from his eyes, the Left can be re-born in the image of………yes, you can guess who.
7) Half good points or historical facts are marred by the needless injection of emotive assertions. Incidentally, he lambasts Michael Moore, but often I found that Cohen was only a marginally more sophisticated Moore, albeit with different aims.
8 ) Connected to general shoddyness, the footnoting in this book is pathetic. While all quotes are to some degree referenced, many assertions implying statistical data or theoretical backing are simply made with no accompanying reference. Apparently, the insight of Nick Cohen is all that is required in order to see the truth.
9) Cohen still cannot grasp a basic position it is entirely legitimate for liberal people/thinkers to hold. Namely, that there is nothing wrong with holding ‘A’: that ‘fascist’ (if we grant that term) dictatorship is wrong, abhorrent, and cet. par. should be removed, if necessary by force; while also holding ‘B’: That the case for war may be ill-made, dishonest and highly suspect. That war itself is likely to be a disaster, especially its aftermath. That western liberal democracies should operate within the framework of the UN of that organisation is to have any meaningful influence. That western liberal democracies should only fight wars for very good reasons, and that destabilisation of a volatile area like the middle east, the fuelling of Islamic fundamentalism, the ignoring of the UN security council, and the violation of principles of national sovereignty (which could set disastrous precedents) do not constitute good reason. But holding B does not therefore negate A. It is possible to hold both A and B; a commitment to B does not entail a commitment to (here playing fast and loose with my definitions; sorry to any philosophers out there) ‘¬A’: that ‘fascist’ dictatorships are good things, and that by not actively supporting war against them we therefore not only condone them, but solicit their activities and happily condemn their people to misery.
Cohen’s basic inability to see this, and his adoption of a crude ‘absolutist’ position regarding war (i.e. either your for war or your for dictatorship) is, for me, his biggest failing.
10) Connected to 9, Cohen’s entire “us versus them” mentality is naive and unhelpful. He cannot consistently define the “us” (unless it means ‘Nick Cohen and (on the face of it) Bush, Blair and the Neo Cons) or the “them” consistently (although at times there is apparently an international alliance between Marxist extremists who control the global anti-war movement, and Islamic Fundamentalists. Oh, and George Galloway is not, contrary to what you might believe, seen as an embarrassment by 99.99% of the anti-war movement - he is its shining light and beloved leader) . Note: Cohen outright doesn’t invoke the “us versus them” rhetoric a la Bush, but it’s definitely there.
11) To sum up, this isn’t a serious book for serious people. It’s targetted at a mass audience of Guardain/Observer readers with little or no knowledge of the contemporary academic/intellectual scene. Cohen hopes his shoddy, poorly thought out, often intellectually impoverished work will get past the average non-specialist reader and be seen as either plausible and/or groundbreaking. It’s neither. In fact, I think this book is best seen as a propaganda recruiting tool for Cohen’s new pet project, The Euston Manifesto Group.
There’s actually far, far more wrong with What’s Left than just that. But that’s enough venting for me to feel less irritated, at least for today.
For really avid Cohen (dis?)enthusiasts, over at Aaronovitch Watch there is some excellent demolition of What’s Left? (thanks to The Virtual Stoa for pointing me to this). To go straight to the discussion of Cohen’s new ‘effort’, go here. Obviously, start at the bottom and work upwards.
And for a really wonderful and succinct review-cum-destruction of Cohen’s book go to (i can’t believe i’m writing this) The Telegraph’s review page, here.
Stuff only I know why is here 2:40 pm
When i’m watching my TV
And a man comes on and tells me
How white my shirts can be
But he can’t be a man cos he doesn’t smoke
The same cigarettes as me.
A Ministry of Justice? Thursday, Mar 29 2007
Current Affairs and Politics and Sagar's Social Commentaries Paul Sagar 10:45 pm
What’s next? Ministries of Truth, War, Plenty and Love?
After all, with effectively compulsory I.D. cards on their way, the removal of trial by jury, and the possibility of holding suspects for 90 days without so much as a charge, this would all make sense.
May we soon be directing our two minute hates at Mahmoud “Emmanuel Goldstein” Ahmadinejad?
Of course, i’m being facetious, but i can’t help be shocked at the continued levels of general ignorance and stupidity amongst the New Labour Top Brass. Did you know, in one of his earlier speeches Tony Blair declared that “we have a thousand days to prepare for a thousand years!”. Now who does that remind you of? Then again, i doubt any New Labour head honchos have actually every read 1984….or else you’d hope they wouldn’t be doing any of this crazy, scary stuff.
Oh well, you can always dream….until the Thought Police come knocking that is.
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