The stupid, it burns. And unfortunately, it is widespread. If you go over to Twitter now, the newest trending hashtag is #1984IsHere. The MAGAverse is distraught because its deity can no longer use the Twitter pulpit to proselytize his whims of the moment, so they are claiming that we now live in a totalitarian regime. Which means Twitter is the government, when the more apt analogy here is that Twitter is like the Christian bakery who didn’t want to make a wedding cake for the gay couple. But you can’t say that to a MAGAt or their eyes start to roll and smoke comes out their ears like Robby the Robot frying his circuits when given a command which contradicted his basic programming.
People who have actually read “1984” and who know how the First Amendment works are giving a tutorial.
Donald Trump’s genius lies in the fact that he knows how stupid most people are because he’s that stupid himself. He doesn’t know what the First Amendment says, either and it’s a cinch he’s never read “1984.” He thinks that he should be able to control Twitter, because Twitter dares to call out his lies and not play both sider with his enemies. He said as much in his executive order dated May 28, 2020.
Twitter now selectively decides to place a warning label on certain tweets in a manner that clearly reflects political bias. As has been reported, Twitter seems never to have placed such a label on another politician’s tweet. As recently as last week, Representative Adam Schiff was continuing to mislead his followers by peddling the long-disproved Russian Collusion Hoax, and Twitter did not flag those tweets. Unsurprisingly, its officer in charge of so-called ‘Site Integrity’ has flaunted his political bias in his own tweets.
Here’s another piece of sublime irony.
When Trump first showed up on the scene I cringed because I saw him for who and what he was immediately and could not believe that others couldn’t. Now I’m beginning to understand why. I had read “1984” and seen both versions of the movie. So I knew what I was looking at. But the MAGAts didn’t. And they didn’t even know what Hitler was about, either. Those two factors combined allowed a clown like Trump to come to power via the only standard of information and credibility that both Trump and his base do know about –television.
Apparently Trump is the true and proper representative for 74,223,744 Americans, 46% of those who voted. I will go to my grave utterly horrified by this truth. But I won’t go surprised. I grew up in suburbia and there were a lot of homes where the only reading material was TV Guide. The television was the babysitter, the tutor, the entertainer, and the companion. It was actually more like Brave New World than 1984. Books weren’t banned, it was just that nobody wanted to read one.
Television became its own element and it spawned its own demon. I understand a lot of things now that I didn’t in 2016.
Over decades, tax dollars were funneled away from schools and toward arms and wars, and tax cuts for the rich, subsidies for big oil and corporations. Basic education is now all you can hope for. I was lucky to go to a great elementary school with great teachers in the 50’s. Reading was encouraged, academics were encouraged, and citizenship was encouraged. Not any more and it’s not the fault of teachers. That leaves us with millions of barely educated people who don’t know how to think critically. “Keep ’em dumb and we can mold to our purposes.”
This is unfortunately true. Teaching in schools varied when I was growing up. I went to a horrible school one year in junior high — as it was then called. I guess it’s middle school now. Bottom line, I didn’t learn algebra in the 7th grade and then I didn’t catch up in either 8th or 9th grade. By the 10th I took the last math class I was forced to take. I hated math with a passion. In retrospect I realized that if I had just had a tutor all would have been well. But it helped me understand how learning and school was a torture for a lot of kids. That’s tragic. And look where lack of education has led us.
I was going to try to teach in Dallas ISD. But they lost my application and cashed my money order !?!
Was a tutor at SWTSU. Did anything with a number (physics, chemistry, and math … and avoided stats but could still do) and at all levels. I do my math old school. Thus my nephews and nieces… you really couldn’t teach now. Probably strangle some principle or get fired for… teaching. I still tell kids to put the percent sign when multiplying by 100% and not “100”. Heck still gets my “units conversion” OCD madness afire when folks (Dell) use “24/7/365″… and not 24/7/52.
24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, 52 weeks in a year… yeah, not winning with business/marketing folks and public. Why Trump won… marketing. SOB
One co worker didn’t know I could cross multiply upside down! Yikes. Or, that one Amazonian boss at a temp agency: 20 percent of 80 is 20!!! Kinda ruins the whole concept of per cent (100).
Which is funny… haha… because one of her co workers/recruiters was one of a group that would daily whine outside of a classroom for two weeks “that minorities get the better jobs!!”. A capstone course in Geography. After so many years in that major (they were seniors)… they were clueless. My first upper level course. They had no idea what property rights were or why they are described as a bundle of rights. MAGAts in training.
Egads. My late father (school in 30s) would eat the young 40 years ago and now, when it came to fractions and percents. Basic math. Adding and multiplying… would be faster and more accurate. Not even close.
Tutoring helps. But not really paid for knowledge. Like the mechanic not paying for the fix but why I fixed.
And why folks with means… get their kids taught… better? Or enough to get into better schools.
But when tutoring after semester (and paid), the business major would whine and just want “the major points and just get done”. Which I did…and yet, they didn’t want to struggle and learn. Just get done… and no respect for the learning process. Wanted to strangle these … well they have no idea want engineering majors had to endure taking physics from physics major at a major university. Do standard deviation by hand… no calculator results. All by hand and written down. Just sadistic… and making a point? Of which I still don’t get. But learn how some things were done… step by step and in detail.
And why this country is suffering in education. It takes W O R K … and have to pay educators for … education and learning.
I was very lucky to have parents who taught me the alphabet, to count, and how to write my name and address and phone number before I started school. Mom also read to me, and encouraged me to read later on. I had more good teachers than bad or indifferent ones in the 60s and 70s. I have read 1984, and many other books. In fact the signature line in my emails reads “1984 was a warning, not a blueprint!”
I have also seen the dumbing down of far too many in this country and around the world. That is one of the reasons that we are where we are today, but not the only one
I was told by my Maga little brother that my college degree had expired. This was during a rant and an assault where he blamed me for everything wrong in his life. He’s 53 and has never grown up, has never taken responsibility for his own life.
Well my chemistry degree earned from 93-99 (money problems last semester in junior year… cost me two years). Well it expired in 2000s. Yes, it did. How so… folks I have seen posts by other chemists: need BS for a $10/hour job!!!!
Tried QA/QC… and I was too anal. Had one job where they thought I was crazy for putting a cap on a flour transfer pipe… outside. Made $15/hour for… washing jars… well machine did the work but nobody wanted to do… the dirty work of emptying cheese from jars. The agony!!!! Yeah, kids never done jobs in 105 in the shade… then in the sun. LOL
There was a push starting a couple decades ago to get critical thinking skills to be explicitly taught starting in primary school. However, the curriculum that was published and then used in schools dumbed it down to nothing more than expressing an opinion without any instruction in how opinions are defended or validated by facts and logic. A whole generation thinks that all opinions are valid and that opinions cannot be refuted simply because they are opinions.
In his (should be these days) famous “Wires & Lights in a box” speech the legendary Edward R. Murrow warned about the news becoming entertainment instead of factual, in depth reporting on the issues of the day. Things turned out far worse than he feared.
I have often thought about visionaries like Murrow and Rod Serling and how they would be horrified. Serling in particular. This is one of his stories come to horrible life.
Serling would have been horrified but not exactly surprised, Ursula. I think he also would have been gratified to see such swift blowback and principled resistance.
Semi-topical sidebar: don’t you find it remarkable how Twilight Zone continues to live on and make him and his work remembered? I keep running into Millennials and Gen Z kids who have a lot to say and love about it.
Twilight Zone was ahead of its time – although it also was the perfect representation of it’s time. That’s its sheer brilliance. The study of psychology burst into public consciousness in the 1950’s and so much of TZ is about that. So Serling caught the zeitgeist of the time and also picked up on so many of the moral and social issues as well. He was one of us, politically. He said, “I can’t write about Republicans and Democrats but I can write about the same themes with robots and Martians.” Indeed he could and did.
One of the shows (Claude Akins ..?.. of Sheriff Lobo fame) was actually put in one of my English books. That good. How fear could just tear up a town.
Like these fools, 1984 came, went and is now rotting bones. I much prefer what Warren Ellis had to say about it, that it was more about 1948 than the future.
Television may have been the start of dumbing us down. I remember when it was called the boob tube and idiot box. Now, texting and social media seems to have furthered the process. The information about education was enlightening to me, as another factor.
The history of the Crusades alone and the darker sections of the Renaissance should dispel that notion on how tech by itself is to blame. I’ve long found that argument a convenient Luddite scapegoat which absolves of us of our actual part of the blame. We want to improve as a species, we gotta do better than that.
the ironic thing is that trump still could go out and do press conferences or whatever on actual television and he would be carried by many networks live, reaching millions of people. Why twitter seems to be his lifeline to his supporters is mystifying.
Because it limits him to a brief flurry of words, which is all he’s capable of handling. Anything longer gets him into sheer incoherence, with his brain left way behind his mouth. Also there’s no risk of any awkward questions afterwards.
Press conferences means he has to answer questions on the fly. That means his stupid becomes glaringly obvious and that’s one thing he’s not too stupid to understand.
In addition to what everyone else said, recall how nearly all the major networks have been making sure those conferences got damn near no coverage by 2020. Even Fox joined in on the blackout every once in a while. Twitter has no such filters and so it being taken away from him cripples him.
Ursula, Do you have links for those three images?
Dana, if you right click on the image you can download it. In Firefox it’s ‘save image as’
Thanks. Yes, but there are some forums that do not allow users to upload images, so I need actual links.
Absolutely agree! If anyone is endangering First Amendment rights, it’s Trump, with his continual assault on the media and claims of Fake News. Had the coup succeeded, we would have quickly been locked into a dictatorship in which Trump, as Big Brother, would decide our reality. Any attempt to report the facts would be terminal. I also strongly agree that Brave New World is a model for where we are now. Our society has spawned a sub-culture that seems to have basic cognitive deficiencies that prevent them from critically evaluating events. It wasn’t prenatal metering of oxygen that did it, but rather a general dumbing-down of the population to make them oblivious to the massive transfer of wealth that has occurred. Lower taxes and starve the education system. That did it.
I think we should refrain from using the word ‘think’ when discussing the stuff going on in their heads. I see no evidence.
“The Glass Teat”
good ol’ Harlan Ellison
I am 78 years old and have been aware of Donald Trump since the first day he came on the scene in the 1970s. Didn’t think much of him then, with his cons and bankruptcies and failed businesses. Don’t think anything good of him now because he has tried to destroy my country. What a pity that racism, xenophobia, the hard right desire for fascism all came together as hey have been preparing to do since the 1980 election People with functioning brains have been paying an increasingly heavy price for allowing the right to coopt our message and turn it to a negative. I am not at all certain this tragedy can ever be reversed, as Democrats continue to play their optimistically conciliatory part as the tragic hero with a fatal flaw. If we do not begin to practice tough love instead of always turning the other cheek, we are doomed, and the next four years will make not a whit of difference.
I can go one better regarding ‘1984’ – I not only read the book, saw both versions of the movie but also the original screen adaptation by the BBC waaaay back with Peter Cushing as Winston Smith.
I also had ‘Animal Farm’ as the set book for my final year English Lit exam in school