Monday Morning Breakfast For The Brain

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Orwell’s 1984 No Longer Reads Like Fiction: It’s The Reality Of Our Times

Via Zero Hedge

70 years ago, the British writer George Orwell captured the essence of technology in its ability to shape our destinies in his seminal work, 1984. The tragedy of our times is that we have failed to heed his warning.

No matter how many times I read 1984, the feeling of total helplessness and despair that weaves itself throughout Orwell’s masterpiece never fails to take me by surprise. Although usually referred to as a ‘dystopian futuristic novel’, it is actually a horror story on a scale far greater than anything that has emerged from the minds of prolific writers like Stephen King or Dean Koontz. The reason is simple. The nightmare world that the protagonist Winston Smith inhabits, a place called Oceania, is all too easily imaginable. Man, as opposed to some imaginary clown or demon, is the evil monster.

In the very first pages of the book, Orwell demonstrates an uncanny ability to foresee future trends in technology. Describing the protagonist Winston Smith’s frugal London flat, he mentions an instrument called a ‘telescreen’, which sounds strikingly similar to the handheld ‘smartphone’ that is enthusiastically used by billions of people around the world today.

Orwell describes the ubiquitous device as an “oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror” affixed to the wall that “could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely.” Sound familiar? It is through this gadget that the rulers of Oceania are able to monitor the actions of its citizens every minute of every day. At the same time, the denizens of 1984 were never allowed to forget they were living in a totalitarian surveillance state, under the control of the much-feared Thought Police. Massive posters with the slogan ‘Big Brother is Watching You’ were as prevalent as our modern-day advertising billboards. Today, however, such polite warnings about surveillance would seem redundant, as reports of unauthorized spying still gets the occasional lazy nod in the media now and then.

Read the entire article HERE.

The Anti-Trump Circus

Via American Greatness

Then there are the two-dozen would-be presidents in the current Democratic field. So desperate is the desire for an anti-Trump messiah that each week someone, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Great Stone Face” style, is declared the long-awaited heroic Trump destroyer. The once canonized “Beto” O’Rourke has descended into silliness after his loss in the Texas senate race to Ted Cruz. Like a scorched frog on a skillet, Beto jumps around the stage and makes strange noises that confirm as a rich, privileged white guy he is more than willing to pander far more than merely adopting a Mexican-American nickname, but lacks the knowledge and depth to know quite how to grovel other than apologizing in the abstract for his white rich upbringing.

Cory Booker still has not convinced Americans who know why he’s called “Spartacus” that he’s not crazy. Elizabeth Warren is in recovery, once she stopped showing DNA proof that she is not the Indian that for two decades she claimed to be for careerist purposes and whose lies Harvard was only too willing to promulgate. Bernie Sanders after 2016 seems as if he is going through the socialist motions—or rather suggesting that if things were once hard at 73 they are really hard at 77. He honeymooned in the Soviet Union, but the once newlywed Bill de Blasio topped that with Cuba.

How do you pander beyond legal infanticide? Julian Castro believes he can by offering free abortions to transgendered females without wombs. Mayor Pete Buttigieg is proving that intersectionality is a destruction derby and that black activists are not especially keen to envision him as a gay victim. It is hard to know who distrusts the narratives of Kamala Harris more, her own father or her past paramour and former enabling San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. And on and on.

In the old Democratic days, Trump might have seemed vulnerable to charges that the national debt is now hitting $22 trillion and his annual deficits are ranging between $500 billion and $1 trillion. Or Democrats might have claimed that Trump has not yet offered a comprehensive substitution to Obamacare. Instead, the progressive alternatives offer only the same stale message: Trump is bad and socialism is great.

Read the entire article HERE.

NEW THREAT: Antifa Plans Acid Attack on D.C. Free Speech Rally, Promises To Blind Attendees

Via Big League Politics

A man, possibly a Rolling Stone journalist who writes favorably about Antifa, has threatened to attack attendees of the Demand Free Speech rally with “muriatic acid, wax, and balloons” on July 6 in Washington, D.C.

The threats were made on a popular right wing Telegram channel. A user with the name “POUND ON YOUR BOY” made several threats against the rally, prompting co-organizer Enrique Tarrio to contact the FBI and DHS, who are now planning to provide additional security to the event.

Over the course of about 10 minutes last night, the “POUND ON YOUR BOY” account asked how the D.C. event is “coming along”, and referenced muriatic acid multiple times.

“I just want to toss as many balloons of Muriatic acid in the faces as many Proud Boys I can [sic]”, wrote the user, “I just want to blind as many of you c**k suckers are possible [sic].”

He continued making threats, and eventually concluded his participation in the Telegram channel with “We already have the Muriatic acid, wax, and balloons.”

Read the entire article HERE.

The Call For Reparations Isn’t About Justice, It’s About Power

Via The Federalist

Reparations Are Just a Way to Divide Americans

Reparations, then, is like any other issue that animates the American left these days. Where you stand on reparations is like where you stand on immigration. It has nothing to do with the merits or wisdom of a given policy and everything to do with whether or not you are a good person.

If you oppose reparations—just like if you oppose immigration or gay marriage or transgenderism—you are not a good person. In fact, you are part of the problem. You are helping to perpetrate the injustice at the heart of America, and therefore culpable. At a minimum, you can’t be allowed a say in how the country is governed, not anymore.

The goal here isn’t to heal or to bring together, but to divide. Cashin, the law professor, tries to shoehorn reparations into nothing more than increased taxpayer spending on “richly resourced schools and community centers, public transit, opportunity fellowships, housing choice vouchers, and mandatory inclusive housing elsewhere.” Nothing more than balancing out public spending in the face of “opportunity-hoarding among affluent whites.”

But this won’t be enough, because reparations aren’t really about outcomes or disparities or public spending. They are about sorting out Americans, separating the good from the wicked and making sure everyone knows the difference. They are about ushering in a new regime and new ruling elite.

You might think it insane for the 2020 Democratic candidates to push reparations going into the election cycle, especially since it polls so low among Democratic voters. But for them it is not about winning over Americans who are on the fence. The entire point of the debate is to ratchet up racial tension and drive a wedge into our national life.

That is another way of saying reparations aren’t really about the past at all. They’re about the future.

Read the entire article HERE.

Piles of poop, litter on trails, trampled wildflowers. In the social-media era, Washington’s public lands are being destroyed. What can be done?

Via The Seattle Times

Here’s a “wow” statistic from the U.S. Forest Service: In 2018, wilderness rangers buried more than 400 piles of human waste found scattered throughout the Enchantments near Leavenworth, which, minus the poo, is one of the loveliest wilderness destinations in all of Washington.

A bonus “wow”: The Enchantments camping zone, because of its immense popularity, is equipped with nine privies, all intended to make improper plopping avoidable. Nevertheless, on more than 400 occasions last year, according to a Forest Service spokesperson, visitors decided to plop with impunity and just walk away.

What is going on?

“It’s unbelievable how much surface pooping is going on out there,” said Craig Romano, a year-round hiker and author of 20 hiking guides for The Mountaineers Books. “I’m coming across it in places I never expected, even remote areas. I find it in the middle of a trail. And toilet paper. Streams of it! What I’m seeing is incredible. It’s absolutely disgusting.”

Romano believes outdoors etiquette violations have increased substantially over the last five years as, perhaps not coincidentally, social-media use has exploded.

Read the entire article HERE.

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