It is incredible, remarkable, and eerie, that George Orwell’s 1948 dystopian novel, 1984, has gotten the future, fundamentally right. We are being watched, by our own government, every day in every possible and conceivable way. Not just being watched in public, not just being tracked as we drive our cars, but we are watched through our activities on the internet, the channels we watch on TV, through our cell phones, our shopping, our friends, our associates, our activities, in everything except our thoughts.
Like sheep, only too willing or too obedient or too stupid to know any better, we readily in our everyday activities and behaviors want to be shorn. It shouldn’t be that way, but we the people are only too willing to trade some illusion of safety for giving up our fundamental rights without any real personal battle vs. the State at all. The government is effective in their propaganda, their semantics, and their activities that are well coordinated and well organized.
Big Brother already knows everything that he needs to know about me and you. The telescreen doesn’t need to be on in our house, watching us, seeing, us, recording us, because we aren’t a threat to the State in our homes; the State doesn’t need to know our thoughts as our thoughts don’t provide any real peril. It is our actions and not our thoughts that the state worries about and our actions are tracked through our activities and our movements and our keystrokes. All the pieces of the puzzle are already there for the government and they have already put those pieces together. In a way they know us better than we do ourselves and they understand that we are predictable, traceable, and compliant. Yes, there are a few protests here and there, a few voices that cry out into the wilderness, but that is expected and desired by the State. The protests are simply no more than a smokescreen that gives an illusion that there is an ongoing debate between our rights to privacy and the state’s right to protect our homeland and security. In America, it is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a country in which the people serve the government in which they in turn place all their trust and faith.
The only other major difference between our Big Brother and Orwell’s Big Brother is that our Government’s face isn’t one that projects any fear or intimidation or omniscience. Our Big Brother is here to help you, to protect you, and to serve you. The State sites statistics of how many attacks have been prevented, how many times that we have been saved, and how many threats that have been thwarted. The State reminds us to go about our business as we always have, but now we can take comfort in knowing that we have no fear to fear about.
Big Brother is our friend, our protector, our perfect big brother, looking out for us, guarding us, fighting for us and fighting beside us. Our big brother never loses, because like our imaginary big brother he is perfect in every way. Big Brother never sleeps, never rests, never quits, never ages, and keeps on getting stronger, more knowledgeable, and more powerful.
He is here, He will never leave, He is watching.