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The Memory Hole

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The longer this administration is in power, the more I feel like I'm living in 1984. Joshua Micah Marshall over at Talking Points Memo has the goods on the Bush administration's attempt to remove all photographic evidence showing him with convicted felon and big-time Republican fund-raiser Jack Abramoff. Remember this the next time White House Disseminater-in-Chief Press Secretary Scott McClellen claims that the White House had little to do with Abramoff.

Oh, for good measure, the moment in 1984 I am referring to:

O'Brien stopped him with a movement of the hand.

'Another example,' he said. 'Some years ago you had a very serious delusion indeed. You believed that three men, three onetime Party members named Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford men who were executed for treachery and sabotage after making the fullest possible confession -- were not guilty of the crimes they were charged with. You believed that you had seen unmistakable documentary evidence proving that their confessions were false. There was a certain photograph about which you had a hallucination. You believed that you had actually held it in your hands. It was a photograph something like this.'

An oblong slip of newspaper had appeared between O'Brien's fingers. For perhaps five seconds it was within the angle of Winston's vision. It was a photograph, and there was no question of its identity. It was the photograph. It was another copy of the photograph of Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford at the party function in New York, which he had chanced upon eleven years ago and promptly destroyed. For only an instant it was before his eyes, then it was out of sight again. But he had seen it, unquestionably he had seen it! He made a desperate, agonizing effort to wrench the top half of his body free. It was impossible to move so much as a centimetre in any direction. For the moment he had even forgotten the dial. All he wanted was to hold the photograph in his fingers again, or at least to see it.

'It exists!' he cried.

'No,' said O'Brien.

He stepped across the room. There was a memory hole in the opposite wall. O'Brien lifted the grating. Unseen, the frail slip of paper was whirling away on the current of warm air; it was vanishing in a flash of flame. O'Brien turned away from the wall.

'Ashes,' he said. 'Not even identifiable ashes. Dust. It does not exist. It never existed.'

'But it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory. I remember it. You remember it.'

'I do not remember it,' said O'Brien.

I'd love for there to be a One Minute Hate where I could vent my frustrations about this administration on a daily basis.

Comments

( 3 comments — Leave a comment )
[info]madwriter wrote:
Jan. 26th, 2006 07:37 pm (UTC)
When Bush keeps saying that "I've had my picture taken with thousands of people", I REALLY wish somebody would stand up and say, "But Mister President, how many of those people funnelled six figures worth of donations to your political campaigns?"
[info]thetalkingmoose wrote:
Jan. 26th, 2006 09:17 pm (UTC)
Better still, I wish somebody else would stand up and say, "As a follow-up to Madwriter's question Mister President, if the pictures are so inconsequential, how come there's an obvious effort to make sure all of them are destroyed before they get published?"
[info]svengali wrote:
Jan. 28th, 2006 07:46 pm (UTC)
insanity is a minority of one
Thanks for reminding me - it's high time I put down "Third Chimpanzee" and "Naked Lunch" and re-read "1984".

Seeing as we're already well on our way living it.
( 3 comments — Leave a comment )