For those who may not know, wikipedia is a lifeline for my world. I would hate to have to go back to encyclopedias and ordinary websites for my data.
You may also not know that Wikipedia is going to black itself out for the 18th of January. You can comment on the matter here - I suggest you make your voice heard. My comment is number 4348.
I would hate more the censoring of on-line content based on the whims of the proles.
ReplyDeleteYou have less to worry about the actual whims of the proles than of the 'perceived' nefarious plans of Goldstein.
ReplyDeleteI should be worried about perceptions? Wow, my cup really runneth over now!
ReplyDelete; )
What do you think this whole bullshit is about, if not perception? You think this is about something real?
ReplyDeleteI am curious to know who Goldstein and Big Brother are in this scenario by your lights, Alexis. Is Wikipedia Big Brother and congressional law makers Goldstein, or vice versa?
ReplyDeleteForgive me for being dense if the answer is obvious to you - I am genuinely curious what you think.
Goldstein and Big Brother were always, always, the same person in Orwell's drama. In this scenario, the one we're living in, Goldstein is whatever you're intended to be frightened of, and Big Brother is whatever you're meant to believe is taking care of you. As ever.
ReplyDeleteWith money owning the politicians through contributions and promises for after-political careers; with money owning the media distributors, the same ones fighting to see SOPA destroy their competitors, the Internet; with money dictating foreign policy; with money withheld from the majority and concentrated in an inaccessible minority, money is Big Brother. Money loves you, you love money, money takes care of you, money cures your ills, money fixes the world, money scares away the boogie man, money is god, money is salvation, money is the only thing separating you from famine, pestilence and death.
Everything else - that is, anything that you think of instead of money - is Goldstein. Everything else is heresy. To speak of anything else in positive terms is blasphemy.
To consider anything other than money to be worshipped "will bring the whole system crashing down;" this is preached and preached and preached, and somehow no one questions if this isn't a system that deserves to be brought crashing down ... but then, 'crashing' is universally interpreted as famine, pestilence and death, and the hope, hope, of money for each individual promises that in the present system these awful things will happen to someone else. If the system comes crashing down, it is interpreted, we will all die.
So hate Goldstein. Hate him. Hate him because he wants change. Hate him because he is not under money's thumb, like you are. Hate him for two minutes, hate him for every minute.