Fellowship of Punditry

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Cul Heath

Mick Arran

Jeffrey Barbose

Inspector Lohmann

Eric M. Fink

Michael Lane

Rep. Mark B. Cohen

The Fellowship is accepting new members. Inquire within.

The Sages

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  • Into the Blogosphere
  • George Orwell

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    Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

    In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

    If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

    But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

    Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.

    Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie... a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.

    In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

    All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.

    At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.

    Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

    John Stuart Mill

    Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

    The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.

    The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.

    Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.

    A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

    Mark Twain

    Don't let schooling interfere with your education.

    All generalizations are false, including this one.

    A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

    Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

    Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

    The Public is merely a multiplied "me."

    Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial "we."

    Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

    Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.

    Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

    Winston Churchill

    The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

    I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

    Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.

    Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.

    Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

    However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.

    In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.

    Otto Von Bismarck

    When you want to fool the world, tell the truth.

    I have seen three emperors in their nakedness, and the sight was not inspiring.

    Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.

    Be polite; write diplomatically ;even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness.

    Voltaire

    A witty saying proves nothing.

    If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.

    When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.

    I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.

    To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.

    Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

    It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

    The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.

    Karl Marx

    Philosophy stands in the same relation to the study of the actual world as masturbation to sexual love.

    All I know is I'm not a Marxist.

    The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.

    Sunday, August 01, 2004

    An Un-Double-Plus-Bad Website

    By Nick

    Check out this group of thoughtcrime-liberaters, Students for an Orwellian Society. Below rip from their site:

    Students for an Orwellian Society (SOS) is a nationwide student group. The mission of SOS is to promote the vision of a society based upon the principles of Ingsoc, first articulated by George Orwell in his prophetic novel,
    1984.


    Our successes can be shown to fit into the three major ideals of Ingsoc as expressed by Orwell:

    War Is Peace


    Oceania (commonly called the US and Britain) is at war with
    Afghanistan Iraq. Oceania has always been at war with Afghanistan Iraq.
    Eurasia (commonly called Russia, Pakistan, etc.) is
    allied with Oceania in war against Afghanistan. Eurasia has always been allied with Oceania.

    It's not easy to
    capture someone killed the year before--until you harness the power of Ingsoc. When you've got Ingsoc on your side, though, it's so easy that the US did it again.

    Three cheers for
    Homeland Security drone patrols!

    In order to fight terrorism,
    we must cause it, says Donald Rumsfeld.

    It's okay that there were no "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq; that's not why we went to war. It's equally okay that there are so many of them in Oceania.

    Just like in 1984's Room 101, the Miniluv operations in Guantanamo bay
    were authorized to "exploit[] a prisoner's phobias, sometimes using muzzled dogs in interrogations." Doubleplusgood!

    Freedom Is Slavery


    The
    Anti-Terrorism Act ensures US citizens' freedom by ensuring the FBI's ability to examine their activities.

    If you are buying postage,
    do not ask for stamps without flags on them. Such would clearly be a sign of lack-of-patriotism, and we at SOS are glad to see that the Post Office is cracking down on it.

    We encourage all true citizens of this country to join
    Operation TIPS, which, we promise, will help further an Orwellian society in ways that we at SOS cannot even begin to fathom.

    There's really nothing we can say about DARPA's
    Total Information Awareness project except to thank them for all their hard work.

    While Victory Gin is not (as far as we know) yet available, the sale of
    freedom fries is an important first step; freedom fries and freedom toast are also now available in Congress. Also, check out Victory Beer.

    The truly Orwellian and praiseworthy Transportation Safety Administration gets our thanks for
    spotting anti-Americanism in passengers' baggage.

    Flying while wearing certain buttons
    may not be permitted. It is, apparently, okay to wear a button saying, "Hooray for Tony Blair," though.
    Similarly, carrying a note stating that you do not have a bomb in your bag is equivalent to saying that you do have a bomb.

    When flying, you may use the toilet. However, if it is occupied, do not
    wait in line for it to become free. Only a terrorist would do that.

    We've been notified that Apple Computer company, which once made public anti-Orwellianism pronouncements, is now
    coming around to our side. (Note: Link contains a quicktime movie.)

    In London, feel
    secure beneath the watchful eyes of Transport for London.
    We're pleased to see the
    subpoena of the National Lawyer's Guild and other anti-war activists. It's time to keep those activists in their place.

    In the UK, the wrongly convicted are
    charged for their "food and lodgings" while in prison.

    A student in Washington state was disciplined and questioned by the Secret Service for
    drawing ungood pictures of the President.

    Ignorance Is Strength


    Osama bin Laden's messages will no longer be shown in Oceania. This will improve the strength of the bloc.

    There is no dissent in this country. Those who disagree with President Bush are merely
    confused.

    The New York Times published an
    excellent piece of doublethink in its magazine section on Sunday 18 November. It is bad that Al-Jazeera fails to take American positions seriously. It is good that American media doesn't take Arab positions seriously. And all this from an Arab-American scholar who President Bush the First once called “more anti-Arab than the Israelis.”

    Government agencies are requesting that certain
    government reports be removed from public libraries. An excellent indication that SOS is having influence at the highest levels!

    The Guardian reports that PR firms have
    begun creating false citizens to try and shift the debate on certain key issues. Big Brother is certainly pleased!

    Do not wear a "Give Peace a Chance" t-shirt at the mall, or carry a protest sign when passing through. It may
    be illegal.

    It's good to know that the recent pro-war rallies have been
    sponsored by Clear Channel--we wouldn't want people expressing their opinions without the help of media conglomerates!

    We're pleased to learn that the government has
    been removing information from websites which do not agree with the current administration's policies. For example, the CDC's website no longer points out that condoms are an effective means of stopping sexually transmitted diseases.

    Thanks, Time Magazine for removing articles from your website!
    Reading an article critical of the government is a serious form of thoughtcrime-and, fortunately,
    the FBI takes such things seriously!

    Do not email President Bush.

    Youths in Arabic-speaking countries are encouraged to read
    Hi Magazine.

    A
    recent study showed that thanks to Fox News and other Minitrue news sources, most Americans believe untrue things about the war in Iraq.

    We are proud to present a
    special report on a specific instance of doublethink in the New York Times.

    The FBI urges you
    not to carry almanacs, lest you be labeled a terrorist.

    The Civil War
    will not be taught in US History courses in Georgia.

    "Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who
    count the votes decide everything." - Stalin, a man truly ahead of his time.

    In the grandest pro-Orwellian tradition, science is (fortunately)
    no longer a tool for objective truth, but rather one to promote an agenda. Huzzah!

    The UC-Davis Aggie has published
    an excellent article on SOS.

    It's a good thing that the Department of Homeland Security has
    asked its employees to be on the lookout for good photo-ops for the President.

    It's okay for the government to lie, according to the General Accounting Office.

    Students who publicly and personally
    question the Vice President's wife are guilty of a crime.

    posted by Nick at 8/01/2004 08:07:00 PM |

    Comments: Post a Comment

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    "Netpolitik is a new style of diplomacy that seeks to exploit the powerful capabilities of the Internet to shape politics, culture, values, and personal identity. But unlike Realpolitik — which seeks to advance a nation’s political interests through amoral coercion — Netpolitik traffics in “softer” issues such as moral legitimacy, culturalidentity, societal values, and public perception." - The Rise of Netpolitik

    PUN-DIT (n) : A learned man; a teacher; a source of opinion; a critic: a political pundit.

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