Friday, March 14, 2008

Reefer Madness - Daniel Giannotta

“Informers have been caught framing innocent people. Law Enforcement agents have been caught using nonexistent information to justify search warrants.”
Stephen S Trott (former chief of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division during the Reagan years)

“We depend on misfortune to build up our force of migratory workers, “ the commision concluded, “and when the supply is low because there is not enough misfortune at home, we rely on misfortune abroad to replenish the supply”
President Commission on Migratory Workers, 1951

“The era of big government is over”
President Bill Clinton, 1996

"Black markets will always be with us. But they will recede in importance when our public morality is consistent with our private one. The underground is a good measure of the progress and the health of nations. When much is wrong, much needs to be hidden”
Eric Schlosser, Reefer Madness























Thursday, March 13, 2008

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - Louis Ochoa

Here is a list of categories, with corresponding quotes from each book to show the parallels.

Newspeak

CoEHM:
(President Sukarno) recruited an international team of linguist, and Bahasa Indonesia was the highly successful result. based on Malay, it avoids amny of the tense changes, irregular verbs, and other complications that characterize most languages. By the early 1970's, the majority of indonesians spoke it, although they continued to rely on Javanese and other local dialects within their own communities.

1984:

We're getting the language into it's final shape - the shape it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we've finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think... that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying words - scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition woon't contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.



Separation of class:

CoEHM:

The income ratio of the one-fifth of the worlds population in the wealthiest countried to the one-fifth in the poorest went from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in 1995.

MAIN would be called a closely held corporation; roughly 5 percent of its two thousand employees owned the company.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Yet from a statistical standpoint, this is recorded as economic progress.

1984:

Here in London, the great mass of the people never had enough to eat from birth to death.... At the same time there were a very few people, only a few thousands - the capitalists, they were called - who were rich and powerful. They owned everything there was to own.

Below Big Brother comes the Inner Party, its numbers limited to six millions, or something less than two percent of the population of Oceania. Below the Inner Party comes the Outer Party, which, if the Inner Party is described as the brain of the State, may be justly likened the the hands. Below that comes the dumb masses whom we habitually refer to as "the proles," numbering perhaps eighty-five per cent of the population. In terms of our earlier classification, the proles are the Low, for the slave populations of the equatorial lands, who pass constantly from conqueror to conqueror, are not a permanent of necessary part of the structure.


Control of Information:

CoEHM:

He (Roldos) died in a fiery plane crash on May 24, 1981. The world was shocked, Latin Americans were outraged. Newspapers throughout the hemisphere blazed , "CIA Assassination!" Many circumstances appeared to support these allegations. Despite world reactions, the news hardy made the U.S. press.

1984:

There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy.

It was known that the chiefs of the Department intended that within one week no references to the war with Eurasia, or the alliance with Eastasia, should remain in existence anywhere.

Doublethink:

CoEHM:

Charlie... badgered me about the need to be optimistic in my forecasts. (He) had made it clear that he expected Howard and me to come up with growth rates of at least 17 percent per annum.

"Charlie Illingworth tells me that your economic forecast is right on target and will justify load growth of between 17 and 20 percent. Is that right?"
I assured him it was.
He stood up and offered me his hand. "Congratulations. You've just been promoted."

I came up with the type of study my bosses wanted to see: a growth in electric demand averaging 19 percent per annum for twelve years after the new system was completed, tapering down to 17 percent for eight years, and then holding at 15 percent for the remainder of the twenty-five-year projection.

1984:

The party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated.

Applied to a party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when party discipline demands this.

War is Peace

CoEHM:

The United States spends over 87 Billion conducting a war in Iraqwhile the United Nations estimates that for less than half that amount we could provide clean water, adequate diets, sanitation services, and basic education to every person on the planet.

1984:

The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world...The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor

The consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.

War, it will be seen, not only accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way.

Orthodoxy:

CoEHM:

The system is fueled by a concept that has become gospel: the idea that all economic growth benefits humankind and the the greater the growth, the more widespread the benefits. This belief also has a corollary; that those people who excel at stoking the fires of economic growth should be exalted and rewarded, while those born on the fringes are available for exploitation.

1984:

Though you could not actually hear what the man was saying, you could not be in any doubts about its general nature. He might be denouncing Goldstein and demanding sterner measures against thought-criminals and saboteurs, he might be fulminating against the atrocities of the Eurasian army, he might be praising Big Brother or the heroes on the Malabar front - It made no difference. Whatever it was, you could be certain every word of it was pure orthodoxy, pure Ingsoc... The stuff coming out of him was not speech in the true sense: it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck.


Resistance to Institutions

CoEHM:

When enough of us become aware of how we are being exploited by the economic engine that creates an insatiable appetite for the worlds resources, and results in systems that foster slavery, we will no longer tolerate it. We will reassess our roll in a world where few swim in riches and the majority drown in poverty, pollution and violence. We will commit ourselves to navigating a course toward compassion, democracy, and social justice for all.

1984:

If there is hope, it lies in the Proles

She took it for granted that everyone, or nearly everyone, hated the party and would break the rules if he thought it safe to do so.

Perfectly Legal - Alex Odom

"Patriotism can often be translated into dollars and cents-in fact, the material side of patriotism is often quite as important as the spiritual side" (19)

In public policy, it matters less who has the best arguments and more who gets heard - and by whom" (307)

"The tax system today is not promoting prosperity based on individual enterprise and thriftiness. It is instead working, as all socialist redistribution schemes do. to enrich and benefit those who have access to the levers of power. IN America that is the political donor class."

If we can't make sure that everyone pays their fair share, then honest taxpayers get stuck making up the difference" (158)










Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Rouge State - Spencer Scotti

Ministry of Truth (Rouge State)
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”


“Measures of controlling the population and resources: ID Cards. An effective system of identification is fundamental to the program… Police patrols. Their purpose is to detect sources of insurgent support, sympathizers, and routes used by the insurgents. Curfew. The purpose is to permit the authorities to identify violators and take actions based on the premise that anyone who violates the curfew is an insurgent. Checkpoints. A system of verifying ID cards in all travel routes.”


Ministry of Love (Rouge State)
“Control- The capacity to cause or change certain types of human behavior by implying or using physical or psychological means to induce compliance”.

“Subject is brought into the facility blindfolded and handcuffed and should remain so during the entire processing…”

“Bedding should be minimal- cot and blanket- no mattress. The idea is to prevent the subject from relaxing and recovering from shock.”

Ministry of Plenty (Rouge State)
“A mission to carry some germs introduce them in Cuba to be used against the Soviets and against the Cuban economy, destroying exports.”

“US Congress passed the African Growth and Opportunity Act, an agreement that privatizes everything, deregulation, ending price controls and giving foreign multinationals the same rights as local companies.”

“Like a mammoth vacuum cleaner in the sky, the NSA sucks it all up: home phone, cellular phone, email, fax, satellite transmissions, fiber optics, microwave links, text, images, captured by satellites orbiting the earth 24 hours a day 7 days a week.”

1984 Quotes
"If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say this or that even, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death." —pg 32

"In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science.' The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc." —pg 159




















































Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Censored - Leslie Silva

-Propaganda Manipulation (Ministry of Truth):
"And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested." (1984)

"It's difficult to point to the problems with the coverage of ideas about alternative economic orders in the US because there is almost no such coverage. So, perhaps this part of the US ideology has been most evident the past year in corporate media coverage of other countries where the debate goes on, such as Venezuela. Despite the fact that President Hugo Chavez was democratically elected and is more popular in his country than President Bush is in the US, Chavez is routinely referred to in the US media as a "strong-man" or "autocrat". This likely is because journalists cannot conceive of a leader who speaks of "socialism for the twenty-first century" as anything but a Soviet-style dictator. The barely concealed hostility to Chavez in the US press would be laughable if it weren't so deadly serious; the possibility of US military action against Venezuela is real, and part of the process of creating public support for such actions is demonizing foreign leaders, with the help of the news media." (Censored)

-Historical Revisionism (Ministry of Truth):
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." (1984)

"That demonization process is possible in large part because of the second ideological assumption about the inherent benevolence of the US in its dealing around the world. In that worldview, US actions are presumed to be morally justified. If the effects of US policy end up being not so benevolent, any unpleasant consequences are written off as the result of well-intentioned policies that were flawed either because of inadequate planning or poor execution. For example, the US attack on Vietnam that left 3-4 million dead was portrayed by corporate journalists primarily as the unintended result of naivete and honest mistakes, not a vicious campaign to destroy a nation attempting to break out of the US sphere of influence. The more plausible explanation - that the administration officials manipulated intelligence to justify the war they had long planned to fight." (Censored)

-Psychological Manipulation (Doublethink):
"In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy."(1984)

"Corporate journalists agree that they should serve as watchdogs on power but bristle, of course, at the suggestion that they fail to do that. Herman pointed out that another powerful force shaping contemporary corporate journalism is the ideological limits within which journalists work. In other words, one of the most important things to remember about American journalists is that they are Americans - educated and socialized into a certain set of beliefs that are widely accepted in the halls of power and the intellectual institutions that serve power in the United States. There are three core ideas that are like the water we swim in - claims taken to be obvious and beyond question, unless one makes a concerted effort to analyze and challenge this "conventional wisdom".

1. capitalism is the natural way to organize an economy and therefore inevitable
2. the US, unique among nations, is inherently benevolent in its foreign and military policy, and
3. any political solutions that are "viable" and hence worthy of consideration, are defined by the platforms of the Democrats and Republican parties" (Censored)

-Fear and Order (Ministry of Love):
"Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength." (1984)

"Most corporate journalists either have internalized these ideological statements or are not willing to contest them. Social control is achieved primarily by manipulation of public opinion, with coercion and violence used sparingly. Anyone who has worked within these institutions knows there is some freedom to resist, but that the system of rewards and punishments for intellectual workers keeps the vast majority in line." (Censored)


(pre-war countries are portrayed as beautiful women in media. when war is declared countries are viewed as children or animals that need to be taught.)












Saturday, March 1, 2008

1984 Music

Hey guys, here is some music I've been working on for this project. I tried to use compositional techniques so that it would be somewhat formula based, similar to the music that the people listen to in the book. Although I doubt this is what their music would have sounded like, the principal is the same.

I used motives that come from the numbers 1, 9, 8, and 4. In the key of C minor, 1=C1, 9=D2, 8=C2, and 4=F1. In terms of a chromatic scale beginning on C, 1=C, 9=Ab, 8=G and 4=Eb. These two groups of notes serve as most of the melodic content of the piece, and all the other material has been derived from them. The last couple phrases (when the voice speaks "nine... teen... eighty...four) the words fall directly on their corresponding note.

The quotes are from 1984, recorded from the speech function of Textedit. If you guys have any other quotes you'd like me to put in, I can make the piece longer and add them. Just send me the text. I am also planning on adding some quotes from Confessions of an Economic Hit Man as well.

Any other comments or suggestions are welcome.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

1984 Themes

Some general themes of 1984 include
- double speak
- totalitarianism
- control of information (relates pretty well to by book on tax system)
- propaganda
- patriotism
- class/social systems
- language controll
- allocation of resources