Silly Thinking
*with Jim Farris*
2011222 Curiosities served
Karl Rove/1984
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I can't seem to stop promoting my latest short story at Infinite Matrix. That is, no matter where I turn the world of 1984 confronts me head on. So, today for instance, while reading a story about Karl Rove I stumbe upon this quote:
But Rove also focused on what Bush advisers see as their greatest advantage in the campaign, Bush's popularity as a wartime president, and like Bush last week, Rove signaled that Iraq was just one chapter in a long war on terrorism...Asked by a student how the administration could justify war with Iraq when no weapons of mass destruction have been found, Rove replied, "First of all, it's the battle of Iraq, not the war." The war, he added, is an ongoing war against terrorism that has no fixed end date. As for the weapons of mass destruction, Rove said he had "absolutely no doubt" that they will be discovered in time.
And I couldn't help thinking about this:
Since about that time, war had been literally continuous, though strictly speaking it had not always been the same war. For several months during his childhood there had been confused street fighting in London itself, some of which he remembered vividly. But to trace out the history of the whole period, to say who was fighting whom at any given moment, would have been utterly impossible, since no written record, and no spoken word, ever made mention of any other alignment than the existing one. At this moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.
But Rove also focused on what Bush advisers see as their greatest advantage in the campaign, Bush's popularity as a wartime president, and like Bush last week, Rove signaled that Iraq was just one chapter in a long war on terrorism...Asked by a student how the administration could justify war with Iraq when no weapons of mass destruction have been found, Rove replied, "First of all, it's the battle of Iraq, not the war." The war, he added, is an ongoing war against terrorism that has no fixed end date. As for the weapons of mass destruction, Rove said he had "absolutely no doubt" that they will be discovered in time.
And I couldn't help thinking about this:
Since about that time, war had been literally continuous, though strictly speaking it had not always been the same war. For several months during his childhood there had been confused street fighting in London itself, some of which he remembered vividly. But to trace out the history of the whole period, to say who was fighting whom at any given moment, would have been utterly impossible, since no written record, and no spoken word, ever made mention of any other alignment than the existing one. At this moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.
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