Dear Editor:
True, it’s 2001, not 1984, but we may be now living in the totalitarian future George Orwell predicted. Remember Hate Week in that prophetic book, when all the worker-slaves were required to watch hateful images of the Enemy until they achieved orgiastic catharsis through hate? Through such images, along with patriotic slogans and flag-waving, the worker-slaves are thus trained to hate whomever. Noriega. Bin Laden. Ghaddafi. Saddam Hussein. Milosevic. The Palestinians. China. China! How eager are so many to have China! What’s China ever done to us?
In Orwell’s nightmarish novel, every room in the land had a huge 2-way TV on the wall. Through this screen, the worker-slave was fed the official news while also being observed. He could not turn off the screen, nor cover it up to hide from the eye of Big Brother – the guards would be at his door in 2 minutes.
The American spy plane damaged over China carried technology so sophisticated it could eavesdrop on phone calls and read “private” e-mail (yet we huff when the Chinese object to such snooping). If, while flying 100 miles off China’s coast, they can hear the tinkle in the toilet bowl when a Chinaman pees, imagine what, in the name of National Security, they can do right here at home sweet home.
T. Weed