Whilst drowning in work and not having a great deal of time to actually write anything here, the following two snippets caught my eye with references to 1984 :

Firstly from ZeroHedge, the following excerpt from an interesting article on the “War on Terror” and how Al Qaeda fighters are now allies and not terrorists in a wonderful mirroring of Oceania switching enemies from Eurasia to Eastasia with no one even noticing the difference :

In George Orwell’s novel 1984,  the country of Oceania has been in a war against Eurasia for years.

Oceania suddenly switches sides, naming Eastasia as its enemy and making its mortal enemy, Eurasia, its new ally.

The government uses propaganda to convince people that, “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia”.  The dumbed-down public doesn’t even notice that they’ve switches sides, and blindly rallies around Eurasia as its perennial friend and ally.

The same thing is happening in real life with Al Qaeda.

Western governments and mainstream media have admitted that Al Qaeda is fighting against the secular Syrian government, and that the West is supporting the Syrian opposition … which is helping Al Qaeda.

Similarly, the opposition which overthrew Libya’s Gadaffi was mainly Al Qaeda … and they now appear to be in control of Libya (and are instrumental in fighting in Syria.)

The U.S. also funds terrorist groups within Iran.

Of course, Al Qaeda was blamed for 9/11, and the entire decades-long “War on Terror” was premised on rooting out Al Qaeda and related groups.

So the fact that we now consider Al Qaeda fighters to be allies in any way, shape or form is positively Orwellian.

The second article, again from ZeroHedge, this time on the Thoughtcrime like nature of UK police arresting people for saying things on twitter :

Thoughtcrime Is Real

I am careful what I say on Twitter especially, and the internet in general.

The sad reality is that the internet is not the place for expressing views that you do not want the wider public — including law enforcement and intelligence agencies — to know you hold.

We already know that the National Security Agency will soon capture all communications — phone calls, search histories, web history, e-mails, passwords, etc — in their Utah data centre.

In Britain, a dangerous precedent is being set.

From the BBC:

A teenager arrested over a malicious tweet sent to Team GB diver Tom Daley has been issued with a warning.

Dorset Police said the 17-year-old boy was held at a guest house in the Weymouth area on suspicion of malicious communications and later bailed.

After coming fourth in the men’s synchronised 10m platform diving event on Monday, Daley, 18, from Plymouth received a message on Twitter.

It told him he had let down his father Rob, who died in 2011 from cancer.

Arrested and cautioned for expressing an opinion. Not for threatening violence. Not even for racial or sexual abuse — as happened in March when a student was convicted of incitement to racial hatred after he tweeted a series of racial slurs.

Just for expressing an opinion that the authorities found to be distasteful. 

I admit, it was a distasteful comment. But the idea that the government should arrest the person who made it is far, far, far more distasteful still.

Interestingly, the writer points out that whilst freedom of speech is enshrined in the US constitution, it doesn’t stop their agencies from acting where they can when people say things that offend the rulers :

Holidaymakers have been warned to watch their words after two friends were refused entry to the US on security grounds after a tweet.

Before his trip, Leigh Van Bryan wrote that he was going to “destroy America”.

He insisted he was referring to simply having a good time — but was sent home.

Trade association Abta told the BBC that the case highlighted that holidaymakers should never do anything to raise “concern or suspicion in any way”.

The US Department for Homeland Security picked up Mr Bryan’s messages ahead of his holiday in Los Angeles.

The 26-year-old bar manager wrote a message to a friend on the micro-blogging service, saying: “Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America.”

US law enforcement represents the overwhelming majority of requests to Twitter for users’ private information.

I see from the BBC that another police farce has joined the game today, again on twitter related beastliness :

In a statement, police said they had “arrested a 28-year-old man from the Port Talbot area in connection with offensive comments made on the social networking site Twitter”.

“The man was interviewed at Neath police station and has been released on police bail pending further inquiries,” police added.

Perhaps they are going after these people as an easy way of improving their results after last weeks release of data showing only one crime in four is actually solved :

Officers solved 27 per cent of crimes last year despite the fact overall crime fell to its lowest level for more than two decades.

The rate is the lowest since 2006-07 and means criminals responsible for up to three million offences escaped justice.

The figures were published on the Home Office website at the same time that ministers were heralding separate statistics that showed dramatic falls in crime.

It suggests that police performance is deteriorating even though there are fewer offences being committed.

..

A separate Home Office document shows that, during the same year, police solved 1,075,927 offences. One in seven burglaries was solved and fewer than half of the perpetrators of violent offences were caught.

Only a fifth of robberies were cleared up and three in 10 sexual offences.