The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer.
Your comment is quite extraordinary as Orwell's work dealt with an unthinking bureaucracy resembling the Soviet Union. He also had the foresight to see the U.K. could be a totalitarian state.
An honest assessment of the revelations of USAID spending and its funding of literally thousands of media companies via direct grants or voluntary purchases would suggest the information environment surrounding this is not entirely benign. And it would suggest that reasonable people can also dispute the pure intentions of a system that makes it almost entirely impossible to fire people, and was started as a soft power system for US foreign policy.
But how does any of that relate to banning signal links regardless? This is an effort to reduce self-organization and solidarity between affected normal people. It isn’t just USAID, 100,000+ people are being illegally terminated across the government (probationary employees who are only allowed to be fired for “performance,” but many/most have fine reviews and/or just started).
If a bunch of new people are being fired after having just moved or started new positions, why wouldn’t people try self organizing to support their coworkers who just had their lives upended?
If you take USAID « revelations » by Musk at face value, you are… rather misled.
The very behavior of DOGE looks like kids unleashed in a factory they don’t understand, willing not to recognize their capacities are adequate to understand it in so little time.
There were knowledgeable people, they’ve been fired.
You wouldn’t accept it for a flying plane pilot or a surgeon in the surgery room, why would you accept it for state agencies?
The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer.
Your comment is quite extraordinary as Orwell's work dealt with an unthinking bureaucracy resembling the Soviet Union. He also had the foresight to see the U.K. could be a totalitarian state.
An honest assessment of the revelations of USAID spending and its funding of literally thousands of media companies via direct grants or voluntary purchases would suggest the information environment surrounding this is not entirely benign. And it would suggest that reasonable people can also dispute the pure intentions of a system that makes it almost entirely impossible to fire people, and was started as a soft power system for US foreign policy.
But how does any of that relate to banning signal links regardless? This is an effort to reduce self-organization and solidarity between affected normal people. It isn’t just USAID, 100,000+ people are being illegally terminated across the government (probationary employees who are only allowed to be fired for “performance,” but many/most have fine reviews and/or just started).
If a bunch of new people are being fired after having just moved or started new positions, why wouldn’t people try self organizing to support their coworkers who just had their lives upended?
1 reply →
If you take USAID « revelations » by Musk at face value, you are… rather misled.
The very behavior of DOGE looks like kids unleashed in a factory they don’t understand, willing not to recognize their capacities are adequate to understand it in so little time.
There were knowledgeable people, they’ve been fired.
You wouldn’t accept it for a flying plane pilot or a surgeon in the surgery room, why would you accept it for state agencies?
2 replies →