It is unfortunate for George Orwell that his name has come to symbolize the precise conditions he despised, but such are the vagaries pop culture memes. Orwell was a protector of freedoms and liberties, yet the opposite conditions bear his name. Jingoism-clad, reality-twisting justifications for the suppression of both basic rights and normal, legal dissent are hallmarks of Orwellian thought-control.

George Bush’s administration has been running roughshod over privacy in the US ever since 9/11. They claim to be tracking terrorists, but evidence has repeatedly emerged that they are also tracking dissenters and journalists. Here’s Republican John King on the latest revelations by the New York Times about bank account snooping by Bush and his long arm agencies:

“I am asking the Attorney General to begin an investigation and prosecution of the New York Times — the reporters, the editors and the publisher,” he said. “We’re at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous.” King claimed the Times “violated the Espionage Act, the Comint Act,” and that the paper was “pompous, arrogant, and more concerned about a left-wing elitist agenda than it is about the security of the American people.” King added, “for the editor of the New York Times to say that he decides it’s in the national interest — no one elected them to anything.”

“At war”, Treason, Pompous, Left-wing, elitist, arrogant, “national interest”, “unelected”…all of these code words point to the emergence of a dangerous trend in US politics. There is a growing chasm between Republicans and Democrats in the US. People are starting to move to neighborhoods of red and blue designations. The dumbing of America by the deterioration of mass media products and the educational system means everything is “debated” in Orwellian double-speak…on both sides! There are two isolating, absolutist narratives emerging that are leading the US into two solitudes. That’s dangerous for all of us.