mah9575's blog

This poster is inspired from the book 1984 written by George Orwell, an English socialist and political philosopher, as well as a great satirical writer. I am a fan of this book, as well as the political satire “Animal Farm”. I came across this poster when I was looking for something to write about for an English assignment.

How true is the message that it is conveying.

Not because we will it to be true, but because it has become true. In the book 1984, this was the message that was being fed to the normal populace. The main character stared at this message everyday. One may take Mr. Orwell’s message to mean that government oppression can manipulate the mind, but I believe it goes deeper than that.

We, as Americans, are the most hated yet necessary society in the world. We are the largest consumer market on Earth, we are surpassed by only China in terms of energy usage, we are the third largest country in terms of population, and we possess one of the world’s largest and most technologically advanced military.

This is the reason that the same people who hate us also understand that we are a dominant force in terms of global security. We police the world for the world, and no other superpower has the willpower, if not the capability, to do this. We as Americans pay the price militarily and financially to ensure that the world is peaceful, or as close as it can get. Without the United States in territories all over the world, we would not have a peace at all. The world would be thrown into a greater chaos than it already is. So, therefore, “War is Peace”

What about “Freedom is Slavery”? Are we in the United States truly as free as we believe? Are we really as independent and efficient as we think we are? The answer is no. Along with a big military, along with our choice of materialism, we have dug ourselves a hole that we cannot get out of. Trillions of dollars are owed to other nations, and millions of jobs are going oversees to countries like China, India, and other third-world countries with civil and human rights violations, torture techniques, and other forms of inhumanity, which is the same inhumane acts that we as Americans send our military to end. Freedom has been morphed into slavery, the slavery to uphold freedom. So, “Freedom is Slavery”.

Or how about “Ignorance is Strength”? Although we are a major superpower, many Americans are not going to colleges and expanding on education. Our public school system is very much like a vacuum, sucking in billions of dollars and children’s minds, and what are they being taught, if they are taught at all? Not just our education system, but also the political manipulation on Americans today. Politicians have used excuses of protecting our public interests for going into foreign territories and sending in our military, without looking into all of the effects of war.

So, what can we do? Several of these problems can be solved through economic independence and better education, as well as transparency from the government. Instead of not caring about what goes on in the world, or just allowing our government to do as it pleases, we have to continually act so that War may not always be Peace, Freedom can be truly free from Slavery, and Strength may be informed and without Ignorance.