Presidential Candidates Vaporized?

by Groff Schroeder

 In George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984,[1] an imaginary “Big Brother” terrorizes the People of Oceania with incessant, invasive surveillance, endless war and unyielding threat of arrest, imprisonment and execution for “thoughtcrime.”  The government controls and manipulates all information, and even unplanned facial expressions can betray thoughts supporting human freedom to omnipresent bi-directional “telescreens,” attracting the “Thought Police” who mete out personalized torture in the “Ministry of Love.”    

Working in the “Ministry of Truth,” Orwell’s party member protagonist Winston destroys inconvenient information, rewriting published newspaper stories to reflect government needs.  In addition to routinely falsifying “facts” about the war and the economy, he helps “vaporize” individuals, creating a “non-person” by erasing evidence of their existence from newspapers and written documents – and thus history.  

What if a horrific crime (such as September 11th) took place, yet you never learned it occurred?  Would you feel great outrage?  Would you be disturbed that those who failed to defend us received promotions, made inconceivable fortunes from the resulting wars – or focused upon permanently destroying Constitutional freedoms rather than finding the ringleaders of the attack?  

What if the President of the United States issued an Executive Order (Military Order Number 1, November 13, 2001 – now extended to US Citizens) granting himself unprecedented, complete, unchecked and sweeping police powers over every human on earth – then built secret prisons all over the US?[2] [3]  Without news about the order, could you realize that everyone, everywhere faced imprisonment (without the probable cause, due process or habeas corpus rights the president claims to defend), for mere suspicion of thinking about committing a terrorist act – no evidence required?   

What if the US House passed a bill to the Senate (S1959) criminalizing the use of “force” against the government (grassroots lobbying?, logical arguments?, union organizing?) and declaring those who use it unlawful combatants?  Is it possible to oppose (or support) something you know nothing about? If Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Richard B. Cheney (House Resolution 333) were raised in the House of Representatives (November 6, 2007)[4] and you never learned of them, could you support the impeachment?   

When the names and policies of numerous, fully accredited candidates for President of the United States only rarely (or never) appear in the news, can you weigh their merits?  If the presidential candidates whose names are in the press participate in “official” debates etc. that exclude the rarely mentioned candidates – would they deserve your vote?   

There are/were seventeen official candidates for President of the United States.  Is it an “election” if the news media and/or party elites declare the winner (or eliminate accredited candidates) before the vast majority of the People vote?  Have the eliminated candidates been “vaporized?”  

In Orwell’s Oceania, “war is peace,” “freedom is slavery,” “ignorance is strength,” and most everyone is so afraid of the Thought Police that they believe anything their telescreens say – even when it directly contradicts what was said the day before.   When accredited presidential candidates withdraw before most people vote, the president summarily revokes hundreds of years of human rights precedent, and the House passes a bill to the Senate capable of criminalizing almost any form of political opposition, how far can we be from Orwell’s dystopia, where disinformation, peer pressure, fear and torture led Winston to “love” Big Brother - and admit that 2+2=5?