 |
“What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” said Donald Trump to the Veterans of Foreign Wars during its national convention in Kansas City last year.
That gem set off a stampede to bookstores across the US as Americans cleared the shelves of George Orwell’s classic, “1984.”
In his review of Dorian Lynskey’s “The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell’s 1984,” for The Atlantic, staff writer George Packer notes that the nation “staggers under the daily load of doublethink pouring from Trump,” an outpouring that is amplified by his GOP enablers, Fox News mouthpiece and fanatical supporters.
But the role of “Big Brother” is reserved for Apple, while Facebook and Google take the part of the Ministry of Truth.
Or as Lynskey wrote: “By definition, a country in which you are free to read 1984 is not the country described in 1984.”
Instead, Americans voluntarily succumbed to the lure of Big Brother by agreeing to nonstop surveillance by the mini-telescreens (e.g., iPhones) that they carry everywhere and tell everything to—without any pressure from the state.
"The state of mind the the Party enforces through terror in 1984, where truth becomes so unstable that it ceases to exist, we now induce in ourselves," wrote Packer.
The irony of the situation: Apple once perceived itself as the liberator from Big Brother conformity, which was represented by IBM as its PC clones.
Apple kicked off 1984 with its powerful Super Bowl “Big Brother” ad for The Mac, which was watched by 96M people.
A female athlete, representing The Mac, threw a sledgehammer into a giant telescreen that featured a shouting man who personified Big Brother of Orwell’s book.
To the astonishment of the audience of IBM-like gray zombies, the telescreen exploded. Apple’s message: “You’ll see why 1984, won’t be like 1984.”
Apple needs to update that marketing pitch to “You see why 2019 is like 1984.”
Big Brother is indeed watching, thanks to the iPhone and to the horror of the star of Apple’s classic Super Bowl ad.
Reed Hastings, the genius behind Netflix's DVD-by-mail strategy, steps down. If O'Dwyer's had a Corporate Hall of Fame, Reed would be in it... Donald Trump's revenge tour rolls on as his team strips $11M from Catholic Charities that is used to run shelters for migrant children who have entered the US alone... Crusader Pete Hegseth should lay off the biblical stuff for a while, or at least until the world has moved on from his boss’ depiction of himself as Jesus.
AI is disrupting shareholder activism communications, forcing financial PR pros to reshape their narratives so they are accurately interpreted and amplified by algorithmic engines, according to a white paper by KekstCNC... Team Trump sneaks into NYC to praise gas pipeline project... What's moral about threatening to wipe out an entire civilization, JD?
Pope Leo says he has no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the gospel. That is, after all, his job.
Melania Trump's bolt-out-of-the-blue April 9 appearance to claim she had no relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is not going to boost her -12 percent popularity rating. It may make it worse... Mentioning "Avignon," home of the antipopes, to the Vatican's US ambassador is like shouting "Remember the Alamo" on the streets of Mexico City.
Donald Trump served up his tastiest TACO on April 7 when he postponed his threat to wipe out Iran’s civilization for the blocking of Strait of Hormuz.
