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George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

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Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#331

Post by XparXnoiAx »

pavanred wrote: post #200
beloch wrote: post #17

I must admit, I'm really confused by how impeachment works in the U.S.. Clinton was impeached for perjury and abuse of power because he took advantage of his position (and a political intern) and then lied about it. Now we have a president who is not giving up his business interests while in office and who has already told some absolute whoppers, including the release of official press releases that were nothing but…

I really wish people and the media stop over emphasizing about every gaffe and focus on real news stories. For instance, the "alternative facts" comment/incident is being talked about everywhere, from TV news channels to news parody shows to talk shows to social media etc. But, at the same time it seems like there is so much more important news that one would think deserves more attention like the executive orders, w…

For instance, the "alternative facts" comment/incident is being talked about everywhere

That's exactly why they said it. Notice how it distracted everyone from talking about the marches? Trump knows how to change the media narrative.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#332

Post by NeutronBoy »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #136
noobermin wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going to take off the objective hat and talk as a liberal. The answer I give to this is for the US, the President is both the head of state and the head of government. As is clear from recent articles about Trump's manner in the white house, his team is very much making many of the small policy decisions while Trump gets to strut out as the figurehead. So yes, Trump stepping down wouldn't mean much difference when it…

his team is very much making many of the small policy decisions while Trump gets to strut out as the figurehead. Which is pretty much exactly how you would expect a "I have no idea what I'm doing but I don't want to fuck it up so I'll fill my cabinet with people who know what they're doing and let them do their thing" administration to work. >Not to mention his poor demeanor, his lack of likeability, his unpopularity…

> Are these seriously that much more important than how well the job gets done. On some level I don't care if the president is a member of the goddamn KKK if the job gets done well enough.

That's very true, if they're the sort of person you trust to put their personal feelings and opinions aside when they make decisions. If you don't feel they're that sort of person, you better hope their values align to your own.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#333

Post by anjc »

ElectronCharge wrote: post #295

The most amazing thing to me is that the 0bama administration was very good at Orwellian manipulation, yet it was rarely remarked upon. I mean, the guy got a Nobel Peace Prize, then proceeded with eight years of undeclared war on many different countries. "Droning" became a verb...

....can't we just drone this guy?

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#335

Post by endisukaj »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #281

Kind of ironic given Bush and Obama were the ones to expand the surveillance state, Hillary demonised the shit out of Russia to try create an enemy/scapegoat, and here Trump is, only a few days in power, not having done anything particularly bad. Also, I should add - for Democrats out there who keep trying to compare Trump to Hitler, say he's fascist, etc... That weak rhetoric is what gave you guys your worst electio…

The worst result in 80 years is winning the popular vote with a margin of about 3 million?

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#336

Post by cyberferret »

pavanred wrote: post #200
beloch wrote: post #17

I must admit, I'm really confused by how impeachment works in the U.S.. Clinton was impeached for perjury and abuse of power because he took advantage of his position (and a political intern) and then lied about it. Now we have a president who is not giving up his business interests while in office and who has already told some absolute whoppers, including the release of official press releases that were nothing but…

I really wish people and the media stop over emphasizing about every gaffe and focus on real news stories. For instance, the "alternative facts" comment/incident is being talked about everywhere, from TV news channels to news parody shows to talk shows to social media etc. But, at the same time it seems like there is so much more important news that one would think deserves more attention like the executive orders, w…

Because "The standards you walk past, are the standards that you implicity accept/allow"...

Most of the worst dictators and tyrants in the world didn't start off at 'maximum mayhem'. They tend to start with lies, misinformation, subterfuge and misrepresentations, then they move up to things like false accusations, inquisitions, persecution and the like.

Every step just makes it easier to move closer to full blown deportations, incarcerations & executions etc.

A bit harder to stop them at the last step, when you have allowed the previous 99 steps to go unquestioned.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#337

Post by PhoneAccount »

icebraining wrote: post #239
zamalek wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. In addition to your points, Orwell has to do with both an overreaching left (thought crime) and right (surveillance state). The government even associates itself with socialism. That being said, it's not a stretch to imagine that it takes two successive and opposed politicians to set up and orwellian state. Trump would set up the surveillance state (as he threatens to do), and some future authoritative Democr…

Orwell has to do with both an overreaching left (thought crime) and right (surveillance state). No, the surveillance state is certainly not a right-wing-specific thing, and in fact Orwell was probably inspired by the Stasi and other Soviet secret police agencies. Just to give you an idea: By 1995, some 174,000 inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (IMs) Stasi informants had been identified, almost 2.5% of East Germany's populatio…

> in fact Orwell was probably inspired by the Stasi

You know when 1984 was written?

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#338

Post by joss82 »

dllthomas wrote: post #24
beloch wrote: post #17

I must admit, I'm really confused by how impeachment works in the U.S.. Clinton was impeached for perjury and abuse of power because he took advantage of his position (and a political intern) and then lied about it. Now we have a president who is not giving up his business interests while in office and who has already told some absolute whoppers, including the release of official press releases that were nothing but…

> I'm really confused by how impeachment works in the U.S. Impeachment requires a crime. Lying isn't usually a crime, and as best I can tell hasn't been one any of the times Trump has done it (.. yet?). It also hasn't been a crime any of the times Obama has done it. Failure to give up business interests is breaking precedent and confounding ethicists, but also doesn't seem to be illegal. When we come up with somethin…

Is lying about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq a crime?

Is lying about WMDs and then destroying the lives of millions of human beings (also known as iraqis) a crime?

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#339

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

legodt wrote: post #130
nyolfen wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm an outsider to all of this, but i've seen this come up repeatedly on my twitter feed and it seems like a lot of contention for what must be cumulatively (trans, non-binary) less than one percent of women(?)

Their smaller numbers does not render their concerns or oppression invalid

Right... but:

We've got to pick our battles. It's looking like we might have done some serious damage to the climate.

Does this mean we should ignore some minorty or another? Probably not.

Inclusivity is all people working toward our collective betterment. Inclusivity isn't agonising over which symbol or colour or words includes all the freaks. There will always be someone who feels left out.

Inclusivity is all the freaks working the frontline with the normals and everyone getting on with the job, then having a beer together afterwards. Or whatever roasts your goat.

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