Phillip Pullman on 'Modern Liberty'

[Vermilion]

A chilling and interesting article by well known childrens' author, Phillip Pullman, the man responsible for the books that inspired 'The Golden Compass' film.

The nation's dreams are troubled, sometimes; dim rumours reach our sleeping ears, rumours that all is not well in the administration of justice; but an ancient spell murmurs through our somnolence, and we remember that the courts are bound to seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and we turn over and sleep soundly again.

Read it, pass it on, tell me what you think. It's giving me the shivers.
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[cloudy]

Wow.

What's scary is that what he's written could apply equally to the U.S.--the country that was founded on the principal of freedom and equality for everyone.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The exact shit he fears, happens wholesale here on A/H

 

[jimmyjoyce]

Thanks for that link. It's an unusual way to put a political argument, but he's right, of course. And couching it in the language of story/myth seems as valid - if not more valid - than the glib politician-speak we're normally served up. Maybe that's part of his point.

Yesterday, by the way, our government admitted that we, the spotless, upright British, really have been complicit in illegal Extraordinary Rendition. But, I think they said, the government didn't notice it at the time, because it was all in small print - so we're not guilty really. We'll just have an enquiry and tie the whole thing up in legalese. It's a measure of their arrogance that they expect us to accept that lie.

Hypocrisy really is a way of life in Britain. The language of our politics enshrines it, embodies it. Zizeck says somewhere that we live in an age of cynicism: we all know our politicians - our governors - lie to us, but we're too tired, or too powerless (it's the same thing really) to do anything about it.

Bush started the ball rolling two days after 9/11 with his 'gloves off for the CIA' speech. That's when water boarding and so on came back into fashion. And the British government, led by the knight in shiny armour, Tony Blair, said 'Yes, sir, please sir, of course you're right sir.'

Pullman's right: We don't get real information about anything. We get television instead. We're controlled by the arrogance of others - though those others look suddenly stupid when the whole world economic system they set up so diligently from the seventies onwards comes crashing down. As of now, that is.

Who said Orwell got it wrong in 1984?

 

[cantdog]

Thanks for that link. It's an unusual way to put a political argument, but he's right, of course. And couching it in the language of story/myth seems as valid - if not more valid - than the glib politician-speak we're normally served up. Maybe that's part of his point.

Yesterday, by the way, our government admitted that we, the spotless, upright British, really have been complicit in illegal Extraordinary Rendition. But, I think they said, the government didn't notice it at the time, because it was all in small print - so we're not guilty really. We'll just have an enquiry and tie the whole thing up in legalese. It's a measure of their arrogance that they expect us to accept that lie.

Hypocrisy really is a way of life in Britain. The language of our politics enshrines it, embodies it. Zizeck says somewhere that we live in an age of cynicism: we all know our politicians - our governors - lie to us, but we're too tired, or too powerless (it's the same thing really) to do anything about it.

Bush started the ball rolling two days after 9/11 with his 'gloves off for the CIA' speech. That's when water boarding and so on came back into fashion. And the British government, led by the knight in shiny armour, Tony Blair, said 'Yes, sir, please sir, of course you're right sir.'

Pullman's right: We don't get real information about anything. We get television instead. We're controlled by the arrogance of others - though those others look suddenly stupid when the whole world economic system they set up so diligently from the seventies onwards comes crashing down. As of now, that is.

Who said Orwell got it wrong in 1984?

No one that I know of, pard. People are instead struck by Orwell's accuracy.

Myth and fairy tale, parable and sloganeering are the threads from which the pronouncements of government are woven. Democratic input sets their teeth on edge, because they have never trusted it. Experts fear the power of the uninformed crowd, but rather than inform them, they spin stories for them.

 

[3113]

Who said Orwell got it wrong in 1984?

Only those who think that Big Brother can only happen under a communist government.

 

[cantdog]

Only those who think that Big Brother can only happen under a communist government.

I identified Big Brother with a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies occur anywhere there's been enough stability for a long enough time.