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3Sep2008 Filed under: Politics & Religion Author: Charles GuthrieI watched a lot of the GOP convention today, and I was reminded of something a great American author and playwright one time said:
“When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and holding a cross.”
I was okay with the celebration of the military, the prayer sessions, and the saluting of the flag… but when they started saying things like, “Bush has kept us safe for seven years by staying on the offense”, it just started to irk me something awful.
It’s frighteningly similar to what I’ve read in history books, and in some fictional books like “1984″. Here is a quote from the Wikipedia entry on “Perpetual War”:
The 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell was written from the viewpoint of a citizen of one of three fictional world-dominating superstates. These nations are in a state of perpetual war with each other. The state of war is used by each of the states to justify the control of their populations using Stalinist or other methods. By artificially creating fear and hate of an enemy, the actual existence of which is never made completely certain, the governments provided an excuse for their failures and, in the case of Oceania, enforced obedience to Big Brother. Moreover, eternal war formed the bedrock of the economy, as people could be kept busy manufacturing goods that would not improve their living standards, but would instead be destroyed on the battlefields. Thus perpetual war not only kept the population busy, it also encouraged a “siege mentality” in which hatred of the enemy and love for the government’s protection were social norms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_war
I’m not saying this is what is going on, but some of the people and the things they said at the GOP convention smacked a little similar.
There was the complete and total denial of any past mistakes on behalf of the administration, the rewriting of history (for example, Bush saying that McCain never cracked when he was being held as a PoW. McCain did crack and bend to their will, McCain has said so in his interviews), and the repeated phrase “we must stay on the offense to keep America safe” with no mention of an end or an enemy to be fighting, and how people kept repeating the idea that Bush has kept us safe all this time.
It can’t really be as bad as it seemed. It must be the liberal media twisting the events to make it look creepy… even though all the media companies are owned by conservatives and I was watching it on FOX News.
Oy, I think I’ll stick to my silly elephant and donkey cartoons and stop with the conspiracy theories before I scare myself sick. 
RØB
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:57 am
I think it was a novelist that said that, not a playwright. I also believe he said [:B:]the[/:B:] flag, not [:B:]a[:/B:] flag.
RØB
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:57 am
Crapfire, I knew I’d muck up that weird fake HTML.
RØB
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:58 am
Wow, the tag is still open. [/:B:]I think I’ve closed it now.
charles
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:17 am
hehe, another victim claimed by my BBS tags! MUAHAHAHA! [:bope:][:bope:][:bope:]
Charles
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:33 am
Also, he was both a novelist [:B:]and[/:B:] a playwright.
RØB
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
True enough, but his novels (and one in particular) are what won him the Nobel Prize in Literature (the first awarded to an American if I’m not mistaken). Also, how many plays did he write, again? Versus how many novels?
Okay, so I just went back to research the Nobel Prize thing, I’m pretty sure he was the first. At least TWO NORWEGIANS won before any Americans did? Jeezsh.
Charles
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Either way, I did say he was a great American [:B:]author[/:B:] and playwright. I think saying he was an author is enough of a statement to include his novels as part of his achievements.
Or is there a great difference between a novelist and an author?
RØB
September 4th, 2008 at 9:55 am
I figure if I could read the essential works by an author without snagging any of his plays, tagging “playwright” onto the end of his moniker is probably something I wouldn’t do, is all. It’s technically correct, just a little misleading. If we played “name the famous author and playwright” and started listing facts about the one in question, I would probably take a long time to guess him no matter how much some of the clues might give it away, due to the misleading (but again, technically correct) labeling of “playwright.”
An author is just one who writes anything. There are nonfiction authors, short story authors, authors of plays, authors of musicals, authors of poems, authors of songs. Novelist is a sub-set of author. If you call someone an author, you probably don’t need to add “and playwright,” which is a whole ‘nother topic of discussion I suppose!
I like how we haven’t even typed his name out in this thread yet.
Charles
September 4th, 2008 at 10:25 am
It’s to encourage people to Google it and do some research or perhaps even pay a visit to their local library and read about America’s rich history of authors, playwrights and novelists.
RØB
September 4th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Don’t forget poets, essayists, and short story…ists?