Two Minutes of Hate

Why was it that they could never shout like that about anything that mattered?--Winston Smith in George Orwell's 1984

I've been thinking a lot about the Two Minutes of Hate in George Orwell's 1984 and how strikingly similar it is to what passes as the mainstream media in this country. There's always some new person or thing to hate: pedophiles, immigrants, murderers, or even politicians. Then there is the new permanent enemy: terrorists. And it's not that any of these people or things deserve any great amount of love or compassion, but do you ever stop and think, "Does it really matter?" Of course these things matter, you say! But do they? Did we really need to learn about the run away bride? Was that information that we needed in order to navigate our lives?

Most of what passes as news is not news. It is not at all relevant to our collective lives. Was Michael Jackson guilty? Unless you're child was spending the night at his house it really doesn't matter. Just about every day there is some new and heinous criminal that we must hate. We go to work and talk about how disgusted we are by so-and-so's actions. We talk about how reprehensible it all is. Recent examples: Adulterers need cards too, Police kill toddler, Man kills child who might be gay.

All the while our focus is kept off the things that really matter to all of us. While we go on and on about the most recent bad guy, an immoral and illegal war wages on in Iraq; union membership and the middle class in general is on a steep decline; what scant environmental protections we had are being quickly eroded and the mechanisms for enforcement are being dismantled. In short, the things that really matter continue to be ignored by the majority of Americans.

This is a problem on the Left and Right as far as I can tell. Far too many of us on the Left are content to simply demonize George W. Bush and his junta as the problem. He's certainly a war criminal and should be impeached and arrested for his crimes, but he's more a symptom than a root cause of the problems our nation faces. He's a cancerous tumor that needs to be removed, but he's not the cause of the cancer. Those on the Right have no shortage of bad guys to point the finger at. Any mention of G.W.'s crimes amounts to treason. Any suggestion that perhaps we should honor our international treaties as well as our constitution is heresy. The real problem with America is the dirty communist, socialist, fascist, terrorist-loving lefties.

Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.--George Orwell's 1984

The dystopias of Huxley , Orwell and Zamyatin have become all too real for most of us. We live in a world where clean air acts allow more pollution into the air; where the current reasons given for invading Iraq are maintained to have always been the reasons given: Iraq has always been our enemy, always will be our enemy. Euphamistic language abounds, and the madness continues.

We have the power to change all of this. It doesn't depend on the new supreme court nominee. It doesn't depend on who we put in office in 2006 or even in 2008. It largely depends on how active we are. Are we willing to organize, mobilize, and take action against tyranny and oppression? Or are we going to continue to bow down, to let our rage be dictated by the two minute hate fest we call the nightly news?

If you want to be revolutionary, start by turning off that TV! The revolution will not be televised.

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