# George Orwell: Don't Say I Didn't Warn You

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 4 Nov 2025, 46 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/68338673/podcast838_orwell.mp3

In "1984," Orwell described a thought-police totalitarian state. How prescient was he? Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: The Thinking Atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
[0:09] Speaker 1: an idea.
[0:10] Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through the.
[0:13] Speaker 1: Rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I
[0:19] Speaker 1: tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth, not
[0:22] Speaker 1: because I put my hand on a book and made
[0:24] Speaker 1: a wish and working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.
[0:32] Speaker 2: Truth Usian wisdom will come to you that way.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
[0:43] Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
[0:56] Speaker 2: Just you and me today. I'm not going to take calls.
[0:58] Speaker 2: We'll do that on the next broadcast. I wanted to
[1:01] Speaker 2: offer an opinion and then sound off all you want
[1:05] Speaker 2: in the comments section, because I do welcome your input.
[1:08] Speaker 2: But so much of what we have been seeing relates
[1:11] Speaker 2: to Orwell and his writings in Animal Farm and of
[1:15] Speaker 2: course nineteen eighty four. And you know how much I
[1:17] Speaker 2: love to read the words of other people, those who
[1:20] Speaker 2: are smarter and more astute than myself. I stand on
[1:24] Speaker 2: their shoulders, and as a narrator, I get a chance
[1:26] Speaker 2: to sort of bring that information to you, and I'm
[1:30] Speaker 2: going to do some or Well here at the beginning
[1:32] Speaker 2: and at the end, and in the middle, I want
[1:34] Speaker 2: to give an opinion. I don't know if I'm right
[1:37] Speaker 2: or wrong, but I have an opinion about this fiasco
[1:41] Speaker 2: with the White House Press Corps. And we'll get into
[1:44] Speaker 2: the specifics of what has happened if by chance, you
[1:47] Speaker 2: have been in a deep coma, or maybe you've just
[1:51] Speaker 2: been doing other things because you can't bear to watch anymore.
[1:54] Speaker 2: Of course, Orwell's nineteen eighty four talks about how the
[1:59] Speaker 2: government has begun. I'm a propaganda machine, rewriting history, fashioning
[2:04] Speaker 2: the news of the day, and altering our future so
[2:08] Speaker 2: that everybody essentially lines up like drones, and dear leader
[2:12] Speaker 2: is never challenged. So, of course nineteen eighty four is
[2:15] Speaker 2: being referred to by a lot of USTs these days.
[2:18] Speaker 2: And in chapter five, part one, the section here starts
[2:23] Speaker 2: like this. It says, just the man I was looking for,
[2:26] Speaker 2: said a voice at Winston's back, And of course Winston
[2:30] Speaker 2: is the protagonist of nineteen eighty four. He turned around.
[2:34] Speaker 2: It was his friend Seemi, who worked in the research department.
[2:38] Speaker 2: Perhaps friends was not exactly the right word. You did
[2:42] Speaker 2: not have friends nowadays you had comrades, but there were
[2:46] Speaker 2: some comrades whose society was pleasanter than that of others.
[2:51] Speaker 2: Seem was a philologist, a specialist in new Speak capital
[2:57] Speaker 2: N N E w knew Speak. Indeed, he was one
[3:01] Speaker 2: of the enormous team of experts now engaged in compiling
[3:05] Speaker 2: the eleventh edition of the New Speak Dictionary. How is
[3:10] Speaker 2: the dictionary getting on, said Winston, raising his voice to
[3:13] Speaker 2: overcome the noise, slowly said Seem, I'm on the adjectives.
[3:18] Speaker 2: It's fascinating. The eleventh edition is the definitive edition, he said.
[3:24] Speaker 2: We're getting the language into its final shape. The shape
[3:27] Speaker 2: is going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When
[3:31] Speaker 2: we've finished with it, people like you will have to
[3:34] Speaker 2: learn it all over again. You think I dare say
[3:38] Speaker 2: that our chief job is inventing new words, But not
[3:41] Speaker 2: a bit of it. We are destroying words, scores of them,
[3:45] Speaker 2: hundreds of them every day. We are cutting the language
[3:50] Speaker 2: down to the bone. The eleventh edition won't contain a
[3:53] Speaker 2: single word that will become obsolete before the year twenty fifty.
[3:58] Speaker 2: It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course,
[4:02] Speaker 2: the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, But
[4:06] Speaker 2: there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid
[4:09] Speaker 2: of as well. It isn't only synonyms. There are also antonyms.
[4:14] Speaker 2: After all, what justification is there for a word which
[4:18] Speaker 2: is simply the opposite of some other word? A word
[4:22] Speaker 2: contains its opposite in itself. Take good, for instance. If
[4:27] Speaker 2: you have a word like good, what need is there
[4:29] Speaker 2: for a word like bad? Un good will do just
[4:34] Speaker 2: as well better because it's an exact opposite which the
[4:38] Speaker 2: other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger
[4:41] Speaker 2: version of good, what sense is there? And having a
[4:43] Speaker 2: whole string of vague, useless words like excellent and splendid
[4:48] Speaker 2: and all the rest of them plus good covers the
[4:52] Speaker 2: meaning or double plus good if you want something stronger. Still,
[4:57] Speaker 2: of course we use those forms already. But but in
[5:00] Speaker 2: the final version of news Speak, there'll be nothing else.
[5:04] Speaker 2: In the end, the whole notion of goodness and badness
[5:07] Speaker 2: will be covered by only six words, in reality, only
[5:12] Speaker 2: one word. Don't you see the beauty of that? Winston?
[5:15] Speaker 2: It was BB's idea originally, of course, he added as
[5:19] Speaker 2: an afterthought, A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston's
[5:25] Speaker 2: face at the mention of big Brother. Nevertheless, see Me
[5:29] Speaker 2: immediately detected a certain lack of enthusiasm. You haven't a
[5:34] Speaker 2: real appreciation of news speak, Winston, he said, almost sadly.
[5:38] Speaker 2: Even when you write it, you're still thinking in old speak.
[5:43] Speaker 2: I've read some of those pieces that you write in
[5:45] Speaker 2: the Times. Occasionally they're good enough, but they're translations. In
[5:50] Speaker 2: your ear, you'd prefer to stick to old speak, with
[5:53] Speaker 2: all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You
[5:57] Speaker 2: don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do
[6:01] Speaker 2: you know that news speak is the only language in
[6:04] Speaker 2: the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year? Winston did
[6:10] Speaker 2: know that, of course, he smiled sympathetically. He hoped, not
[6:14] Speaker 2: trusting himself to speak. See Me bit off another fragment
[6:18] Speaker 2: of dark colored bread, chewed it briefly, and went on,
[6:22] Speaker 2: don't you see that the whole aim of new speak
[6:25] Speaker 2: is to narrow the range of thought. In the end,
[6:29] Speaker 2: we shall make thought crime literally impossible, because there will
[6:34] Speaker 2: be no words in which to express it. Every concept
[6:38] Speaker 2: that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly
[6:42] Speaker 2: one word, with its meaning rigidly defined, and all its
[6:46] Speaker 2: subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten already in the eleventh edition.
[6:51] Speaker 2: We're not far from that point. But the process will
[6:55] Speaker 2: still be continuing long after you and I are dead.
[6:59] Speaker 2: Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of
[7:03] Speaker 2: consciousness always a little smaller. Even now. Of course, there's
[7:07] Speaker 2: no reason or excuse for committing thought crime. It's merely
[7:11] Speaker 2: a question of self discipline, reality control. But in the
[7:16] Speaker 2: ends there won't be any need even for that. The
[7:20] Speaker 2: revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. News
[7:24] Speaker 2: speak is ingsock, and by the way, ingsoc is shorthand
[7:30] Speaker 2: for English socialism. The totalitarian political ideology of the super
[7:37] Speaker 2: state ing sook is characterized by the absolute control of
[7:42] Speaker 2: the party over every aspect of life, surveillance, manipulation of history,
[7:47] Speaker 2: psychological control, etc. Back to the excerpt from George Orwell,
[7:53] Speaker 2: news speak is ingsock and ingsoc is news speak. He added,
[7:59] Speaker 2: with a sort of mystical satisfaction. Has it ever occurred
[8:03] Speaker 2: to you, Winston, that by the year twenty fifty at
[8:05] Speaker 2: the very latest, not a single human being will be
[8:09] Speaker 2: alive who can understand such a conversation as we are
[8:12] Speaker 2: having now. By twenty fifty earlier, probably all real knowledge
[8:18] Speaker 2: of old speak will have disappeared. The whole literature of
[8:21] Speaker 2: the past will have been destroyed Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton Byron.
[8:26] Speaker 2: They'll exist only in new speak versions, not merely changed
[8:31] Speaker 2: into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of
[8:36] Speaker 2: what they used to be. Even the literature of the
[8:39] Speaker 2: Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could
[8:44] Speaker 2: you have a slogan like freedom is slavery? When the
[8:47] Speaker 2: concept of freedom has been abolished, The whole climate of
[8:51] Speaker 2: thought will be different. In fact, there will be no
[8:54] Speaker 2: thoughts as we understand it now, Orthodoxy means not a
[8:59] Speaker 2: thing thing, not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness. One
[9:06] Speaker 2: of these days, thought Winston, with sudden, deep conviction Seemi
[9:11] Speaker 2: will be vaporized. He is too intelligent, He sees too
[9:15] Speaker 2: clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not like
[9:19] Speaker 2: such people. One day he will disappear. It is written
[9:24] Speaker 2: in his face. So that's from chapter five of nineteen
[9:29] Speaker 2: eighty four, up there with Robert Green ingersoll as George
[9:33] Speaker 2: orwell as far as quotability. And we've seen so much
[9:37] Speaker 2: to quote. Who controls the past controls the future? Who
[9:41] Speaker 2: controls the present controls the past. The most effective way
[9:46] Speaker 2: to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own
[9:50] Speaker 2: understanding of their history. But if thought corrupts language, language
[9:56] Speaker 2: can also corrupt thought. If liberty means anything at all,
[10:01] Speaker 2: it means the right to tell people what they do
[10:04] Speaker 2: not want to hear. Until they have become conscious, they
[10:09] Speaker 2: will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled, they
[10:13] Speaker 2: cannot become conscious. This excerpt from nineteen eighty four. Now,
[10:20] Speaker 2: I will tell you the answer to my question. It
[10:22] Speaker 2: is this, the Party seeks power entirely for its own sake.
[10:27] Speaker 2: We are not interested in the good of others. We
[10:30] Speaker 2: are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power
[10:35] Speaker 2: means you will understand. Presently we are different from the
[10:39] Speaker 2: oligarchies of the past, and that we know what we
[10:42] Speaker 2: are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves,
[10:46] Speaker 2: were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian
[10:50] Speaker 2: Communists came very close to us and their methods, but
[10:53] Speaker 2: they never had the courage to recognize their own motives.
[10:57] Speaker 2: They pretended, perhaps they even be leaved, that they had
[11:01] Speaker 2: seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that
[11:05] Speaker 2: just around the corner, there lay a paradise where human
[11:08] Speaker 2: beings would be free and equal. We are not like that.
[11:13] Speaker 2: We know that no one ever seeses power with the
[11:16] Speaker 2: intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it
[11:20] Speaker 2: is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in
[11:24] Speaker 2: order to safeguard a revolution. One makes the revolution in
[11:28] Speaker 2: order to establish the dictatorship. The objective persecution is persecution.
[11:35] Speaker 2: The objective torture is torture. The objective power is power.
[11:41] Speaker 2: Now you begin to understand me now, because I don't
[11:47] Speaker 2: want to interrupt my thought, my offering of opinion, let
[11:52] Speaker 2: me take my short break right here and then come
[11:55] Speaker 2: back and talk about the big dramatic press core walk
[11:59] Speaker 2: out of twenty twenty five. Hang on, I just saw
[12:09] Speaker 2: a you gov poll that released that was talking about
[12:13] Speaker 2: the No King's protest from October eighteenth. The poll was
[12:17] Speaker 2: also published in The Economists just a few days ago. Now,
[12:21] Speaker 2: the original estimates where the No King's protests had about
[12:24] Speaker 2: seven million people in the United States and elsewhere marching
[12:28] Speaker 2: the streets. That's a big number, seven million people in
[12:32] Speaker 2: thousands of cities. But actually, according to the new u
[12:37] Speaker 2: gov poll, triple that number participated triple eight percent of
[12:44] Speaker 2: US adults. Around twenty million people participated and rallied and marched.
[12:51] Speaker 2: It's remarkable. According to the same poll, by a slight margin,
[12:56] Speaker 2: more Americans approved than disapprove of those protests. Two thirds
[13:02] Speaker 2: believe that it was a peaceful endeavor. That's still a
[13:04] Speaker 2: terrifying number. Right. Two thirds of Americans say it was peaceful.
[13:08] Speaker 2: That's a low estimate. Six percent of Americans say that
[13:13] Speaker 2: day was defined by violence. What I mean a lot
[13:20] Speaker 2: of US states did mobilize the National Guard in anticipation
[13:24] Speaker 2: of violence because the propagandist at the White House were
[13:28] Speaker 2: doing what inksok does, what big Brother does. They were
[13:33] Speaker 2: quote getting the language into its final shape, the shape
[13:37] Speaker 2: it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. What
[13:41] Speaker 2: was the narrative? What were the warnings? These aren't free
[13:45] Speaker 2: protesters expressing concern because they love their country. It's Antifa,
[13:49] Speaker 2: it's domestic terrorists they hate America. Makes no difference what
[13:53] Speaker 2: actually happened. The facts do not matter. As Orwell also
[13:58] Speaker 2: wrote in nineteen eight four, he said, the party told
[14:02] Speaker 2: you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.
[14:05] Speaker 2: It was their final, most essential command, which brings me
[14:10] Speaker 2: to the big Press Corps walk out of just a
[14:13] Speaker 2: few weeks ago. Let me set it up for you.
[14:16] Speaker 2: The White House Press Corps is a group of journalists, correspondents,
[14:20] Speaker 2: and media representatives and they meet at the Pentagon in
[14:24] Speaker 2: DC to cover the President and the goings on at
[14:28] Speaker 2: the White House and briefings by the Press Secretary. The
[14:32] Speaker 2: Press Corps itself was started back over one hundred years ago.
[14:35] Speaker 2: Now I find the White House press briefings pretty tedious
[14:40] Speaker 2: because with every administration, two varying degrees, the press secretary
[14:46] Speaker 2: is just a spin doctor. Never ever, not once, not once.
[14:51] Speaker 2: If I seen a press secretary he was pressed on
[14:54] Speaker 2: a hard question, looking at the reporter and going, you
[14:57] Speaker 2: know what, that's a good point. I may be wrong
[15:00] Speaker 2: on that, or we screwed that up, or this was
[15:03] Speaker 2: a mistake, but you know what, it's time to fix
[15:06] Speaker 2: it and course correct and we're going to do better
[15:08] Speaker 2: next time. Thank you for challenging me on that score.
[15:12] Speaker 2: Does that happen? I've never seen it happen. Instead, when
[15:16] Speaker 2: pressed reporters here a slick litany of prepared talking points.
[15:22] Speaker 2: So I think, you know, are there a couple of
[15:25] Speaker 2: useful things about these press conferences? It's interesting to see
[15:30] Speaker 2: which reporters actually do journalism, which ones are asking challenging
[15:35] Speaker 2: questions and pushing back, and which ones are asking smart queries,
[15:41] Speaker 2: and which ones are asking stupid stuff or acting just
[15:45] Speaker 2: like sick of fans. So that has been useful to
[15:49] Speaker 2: a degree. And I've also found a little bit of
[15:51] Speaker 2: utility in watching just how the Press secretary reacts when challenged.
[15:57] Speaker 2: Do they answer the question, do they dodge? Do they
[16:00] Speaker 2: out right? And this of course brings us to our
[16:03] Speaker 2: current Press Secretary, Carolyn Levitt, who is not a liar.
[16:09] Speaker 2: The word liar is far too charitable. Carolyn Levitt is
[16:14] Speaker 2: a psychopath, a straight up transactional, enabling, self serving Trump
[16:20] Speaker 2: boot licking ghoul whose press conferences are so orwellian. I'm
[16:26] Speaker 2: honestly surprised that the Press Corp didn't walk out a
[16:29] Speaker 2: long time ago. Carolyn Levitt Now, she got into politics.
[16:35] Speaker 2: She lost a congressional race three years ago. She lost
[16:38] Speaker 2: to a Democrat. She faced accusations of illegal campaign donations,
[16:44] Speaker 2: and then she went to work for Trump's super pack,
[16:47] Speaker 2: the political action committee that is called and I am
[16:50] Speaker 2: not kidding, trumps superback named Maga inc. Her face was
[16:56] Speaker 2: featured on a Project twenty twenty five training video for
[17:01] Speaker 2: you know, the Christian Nationalist takeover of the Nation, and she,
[17:04] Speaker 2: of course became Trump's press secretary during his campaign before
[17:08] Speaker 2: being named to the White House in November of twenty
[17:11] Speaker 2: twenty four. Now I'm going to get into the walkout.
[17:15] Speaker 2: Trump and his minions, of course, do not like to
[17:17] Speaker 2: be challenged, countered, or presented with pesky language that is
[17:22] Speaker 2: not new speak. And so the White House made a demand.
[17:28] Speaker 2: They said, sign our statement, a contract, really an agreement
[17:33] Speaker 2: guaranteeing that you will only have a more restricted access
[17:39] Speaker 2: to our people, lend sources, and you will only do
[17:42] Speaker 2: so when given an official escorts. Oh and you will
[17:48] Speaker 2: not be allowed to report any news, any news without
[17:53] Speaker 2: official approval from the White House. The Trump presidency wants
[17:59] Speaker 2: to manage massage info coming from what it calls a quote,
[18:04] Speaker 2: disruptive press, and so we want reporters to sign on
[18:08] Speaker 2: the dotted line, and we want you to guarantee to
[18:11] Speaker 2: us you will only report what we approve. Holy Nikes.
[18:18] Speaker 2: Rather than agree to this, you know, essentially they would
[18:21] Speaker 2: have become just propagandists. You know, you're told what the
[18:25] Speaker 2: news is by ingsock. Dozens of Press Corps reporters said
[18:30] Speaker 2: screw this and they turned in their badges walking out
[18:33] Speaker 2: of the Pentagon. And you can see the photos and
[18:35] Speaker 2: the video of the press and the big walkout is
[18:38] Speaker 2: very dramatic. October fifteenth, forty to fifty I think maybe
[18:42] Speaker 2: sixty journalists walking out of the Pentagon with boxes of
[18:47] Speaker 2: their stuff. And even Fox News joined the walkout. Fox News, Wow,
[18:56] Speaker 2: how bad do you have to be to lose five news,
[19:01] Speaker 2: dear leader State Television? Right, the walkout itself was news
[19:07] Speaker 2: for about six minutes until the country just shrugged and
[19:10] Speaker 2: moved on to the next crazy thing. But of course
[19:14] Speaker 2: we're doing twenty twenty five or well here, So we
[19:17] Speaker 2: have to ask why the censoring and propagandizing of important information.
[19:22] Speaker 2: This is the people's information. Why is it being shut down?
[19:26] Speaker 2: If not because the Ministry of Truth has been installed
[19:30] Speaker 2: instead of a government buy and for the people. So
[19:35] Speaker 2: this has been the adult portion of the conversation on
[19:38] Speaker 2: the broadcast. But now we begin romper room because the Pentagon,
[19:46] Speaker 2: the Pentagon has named a new Press Corps to replace
[19:50] Speaker 2: the old Press Corps, and it is so terrifyingly right
[19:54] Speaker 2: wing batshit that I cannot even come up with a punchline.
[19:58] Speaker 2: Check out these journalists like the Gateway Pundit. Now, the
[20:04] Speaker 2: Gateway Pundit is a far right disinformation mill that was
[20:07] Speaker 2: once blasted by the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology
[20:11] Speaker 2: for essentially being a hub of conspiracy theories and outright bullshit.
[20:17] Speaker 2: It is an anti VAXX publication, anti COVID science election denial.
[20:22] Speaker 2: It cannot even get the identities of America's mass shooters
[20:27] Speaker 2: right before it publishes the wrong names of innocent people
[20:31] Speaker 2: and gets those people named and blamed. It's crazy. Then
[20:35] Speaker 2: comes the post Millennial. This is a media outlet out
[20:39] Speaker 2: of Canada. They've got a mixed track record, but still
[20:42] Speaker 2: leaning rights and failing a whole lot of fact checks
[20:45] Speaker 2: before they publish their stories. Also part of news speak
[20:51] Speaker 2: is the conservative news site Human Events. Now. Human Events
[20:56] Speaker 2: Magazine has been muddling along for years until ton up.
[21:00] Speaker 2: It now has a front row seat in trump Isstand.
[21:05] Speaker 2: Back in the day, according to the man himself, it
[21:08] Speaker 2: was Ronald Reagan's favorite magazine and it published pieces by
[21:13] Speaker 2: nightmare human beings like Phyllis Schlaffley and Calter Sean Hannity
[21:18] Speaker 2: has been in it. Current magazine anchors include Brett Hammetcheck.
[21:23] Speaker 2: This is a guy who was an advisor for Charlie
[21:26] Speaker 2: Kirk's Turning Point USA and Jack Pisovic. He is a
[21:32] Speaker 2: conspiracy nutbar who once pushed the Pizza Gate thing. Remember
[21:36] Speaker 2: pizza Gate. It was a QAnon claim that there were
[21:41] Speaker 2: Democrat blood drinking child traffickers who were operating out of
[21:45] Speaker 2: the basement of a Washington, d C. Pizza parlor which
[21:48] Speaker 2: had no basement. That's the kind of journalist he is.
[21:51] Speaker 2: There's also an actual Turning Point USA affiliate called front
[21:56] Speaker 2: Lines Influencer, Tim Poole's an writing and a substack newsletter
[22:03] Speaker 2: called Washington Reporter. And here is my favorite new addition
[22:07] Speaker 2: to the White House press pool, Lindell TV, founded by
[22:12] Speaker 2: the my pillow guy, Mike Lindell. Oh oh yeah, this
[22:20] Speaker 2: guy is a piece of work, self professing Bible thumping
[22:26] Speaker 2: evangelical Christian and whack a doodle conspiracy theorist. Aha, but
[22:32] Speaker 2: he has a PhD. He has a doctorate honorary doctorate
[22:38] Speaker 2: from Liberty University. Liberty University, the Christian College which was
[22:44] Speaker 2: founded by Moral Majority leader and bigot and general cultural
[22:49] Speaker 2: pain in the ass Jerry Folwell Senior. Oh yes, it
[22:53] Speaker 2: was liberty that gave Lindell his honorary doctorate. And this guy,
[22:57] Speaker 2: Mike Lindell, is not He's crazy. He might be a grifter,
[23:04] Speaker 2: con tragically ignorant. I mean, I untethered to reality. He
[23:09] Speaker 2: lives in a bubble. But I genuinely think this man's
[23:13] Speaker 2: hard drive is skipping. There was a glitch in his matrix.
[23:19] Speaker 2: Mike Lindell founded My Pillow about twenty years ago. When
[23:23] Speaker 2: he grew it into a somewhat profitable business. Problem is,
[23:27] Speaker 2: there were a lot of customer complaints at the time.
[23:31] Speaker 2: The quality sucks a whole lot of retailers like bed
[23:34] Speaker 2: Bath and Beyond said, you know, not a lot of
[23:36] Speaker 2: demand for this stuff. So the retailers took My Pillows
[23:40] Speaker 2: off their shelves and the business really started to tank.
[23:43] Speaker 2: When Lyndell came out for Trump, he was a huge
[23:46] Speaker 2: Trump supporter. In twenty sixteen, he called Trump one point
[23:50] Speaker 2: zero a divine appointment. He was praised by the Great
[23:56] Speaker 2: Donald for his business acumen, and he used a lot
[24:00] Speaker 2: of his money to fund far right political candidates. Most tragically,
[24:07] Speaker 2: Mike Lindell began to speak words the nonsense which emitted
[24:13] Speaker 2: from the orifice under his nose is pretty remarkable. He
[24:18] Speaker 2: recommended for COVID to treat COVID nineteen. He recommended a
[24:22] Speaker 2: substance that is toxic to the heart. Am I saying
[24:27] Speaker 2: this right? Oleandron ol ea n drin This is dangerous
[24:33] Speaker 2: to the heart, he said, it's a COVID treatment. He
[24:36] Speaker 2: of course pounded the election fraud drum. He was at
[24:40] Speaker 2: the January sixth rally. Wasn't at the riot, wasn't part
[24:43] Speaker 2: of the break in the domestic terrorism at the Capitol,
[24:46] Speaker 2: but he was at the rally. On one American news
[24:50] Speaker 2: networkA n N, which by the way, is also part
[24:55] Speaker 2: of the New Press Corps, he bought three hours to
[25:00] Speaker 2: air a documentary and I'm using that word in the
[25:04] Speaker 2: loosest sense, documentary about how the election was stolen. This
[25:09] Speaker 2: movie was so crazy, so bad, so full of lies
[25:13] Speaker 2: that evena N fronted the broadcast with a big disclaimer say, well,
[25:21] Speaker 2: we're gonna air this, but yeah, yeah, you know, please
[25:24] Speaker 2: don't sue us smartmatic and dominion, because well you know,
[25:28] Speaker 2: we're just airing it. By the way, the Raspberry Awards,
[25:32] Speaker 2: which is the opposite of the Oscars. The Raspberries gave
[25:36] Speaker 2: this film called Absolute Proof its award for the Worst
[25:41] Speaker 2: Picture of the Year, and Mike Lindell's erratic behavior and
[25:47] Speaker 2: crazy theories, just toxic behaviors have reportedly gotten him millions
[25:52] Speaker 2: of dollars into debt. He's been going public and saying
[25:55] Speaker 2: how financially devastated he is. I'm sure this is all
[25:59] Speaker 2: you know, those woke lib domestic terrorist Antifa frog costume
[26:03] Speaker 2: wearing America hating rebels who are responsible for his decline,
[26:09] Speaker 2: you know, But he's just off the rails. His media outlet,
[26:13] Speaker 2: Lyndel TV is among the new elite as parts of
[26:18] Speaker 2: the approved White House Press Corps. And finally, after all
[26:24] Speaker 2: of this, here is the point, maybe the obvious point
[26:27] Speaker 2: that I have been coming to all along, the press
[26:31] Speaker 2: corps walk out and the hardline right wingers who are
[26:36] Speaker 2: replacing real journalists. All of it doesn't matter, doesn't matter,
[26:43] Speaker 2: not really, because everything Carolyn Levitt, Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth,
[26:49] Speaker 2: Stephen Miller, Mike Johnson, at everything these people have said
[26:54] Speaker 2: and done has almost always been better reported from outside
[26:59] Speaker 2: the press core room. Having that Pentagon press badge accomplished
[27:05] Speaker 2: mostly one thing, the media got fed bullshit from a
[27:10] Speaker 2: few feet away instead of seeing it from a few
[27:13] Speaker 2: miles away. I mean, I swear to you that's the
[27:15] Speaker 2: only difference. Are you in the room or out of
[27:18] Speaker 2: the room. As Big Brother Bullhorn's news speak to the commoners,
[27:26] Speaker 2: Levitt doesn't answer questions. She either doesn't know the answer,
[27:31] Speaker 2: so she attacks the journalist, or she gives intentionally false
[27:34] Speaker 2: answers and then attacks the journalist. Every freaking week. This
[27:39] Speaker 2: woman claimed there were real officials with necessary expertise set Doge,
[27:45] Speaker 2: not a bunch of hackers that Elon Musk brought in
[27:48] Speaker 2: to probably backdoor our social Security numbers and who knows
[27:52] Speaker 2: what other private information and not really saving us any
[27:55] Speaker 2: money at all. She said, no, no, there are real
[27:58] Speaker 2: people with true expertise. When and ask who that person was,
[28:02] Speaker 2: she refused to answer. Tanking stocks soaring grocery prices prompted
[28:09] Speaker 2: Carolyn Levitt to say, great news, the economy is starting
[28:13] Speaker 2: to roar. That's a direct quote. She said that tariffs
[28:18] Speaker 2: were actually tax cuts on Americans. She claimed the Big
[28:22] Speaker 2: Beautiful Bill is not a drain on the debt, when
[28:26] Speaker 2: in fact it adds about four trillion to the debt
[28:29] Speaker 2: In about ten years she blamed Democrats when key Trump
[28:34] Speaker 2: people shared classified information about military attacks on signal the
[28:40] Speaker 2: public messenger app. She said, it's the Democrats they were
[28:43] Speaker 2: making this is a big deal and no war plans
[28:46] Speaker 2: were actually discussed, when in fact it was all right
[28:51] Speaker 2: there in black and white. The party told you to
[28:55] Speaker 2: reject the evidence of your eyes and ears, she has said.
[29:01] Speaker 2: The Democratic Party, Now, this is a party in this
[29:03] Speaker 2: country made up of forty four million people, including me,
[29:07] Speaker 2: possibly you. The Democratic Party's main constituency. According to Carolyn Levitt,
[29:14] Speaker 2: is Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals. Well, I
[29:23] Speaker 2: meet a lot of liberal, progressive Democrats type people in
[29:27] Speaker 2: my travels, and I'm not seeing the pro Hamas T shirts.
[29:32] Speaker 2: I'm not seeing those demonstrations, illegal aliens. I may have
[29:37] Speaker 2: met some undocumented people along the way, and the vast
[29:40] Speaker 2: majority I've met or are often natural born residents here
[29:44] Speaker 2: violent criminals. I mean, how violent are they? They're doing
[29:47] Speaker 2: community service, they're running food banks, they're manning booths at
[29:52] Speaker 2: public events, having conversations about religion, secular values, the secular constitution, humanism.
[29:59] Speaker 2: How dare they those violent domestic terrorists? Many people say
[30:05] Speaker 2: she just a troll, or she's gas lighting, or she
[30:08] Speaker 2: just doesn't give a shits. I think she's a psychopath.
[30:13] Speaker 2: She is a straight up size. She is totally uninterested
[30:17] Speaker 2: in what is true or what is moral. She has
[30:20] Speaker 2: no empathy center. And for that reason, she fits right
[30:25] Speaker 2: end to the big brother model that you and I
[30:28] Speaker 2: are facing today. If questions are dodged and the answers
[30:32] Speaker 2: are worthless anyway, how valuable is how much do we
[30:36] Speaker 2: really need or want a White House press core fifty
[30:41] Speaker 2: or sixty people staging a walkout and getting replaced. This
[30:45] Speaker 2: is going to have almost zero impact on how the
[30:49] Speaker 2: journalists were reporting in the first place, or how seriously
[30:53] Speaker 2: we take the news speak that is vomiting out of
[30:56] Speaker 2: the administration's motor mouths. And I do fantasize that at
[31:02] Speaker 2: some point even Fox News writ Fox News part of
[31:05] Speaker 2: the walkout. Now, they haven't really changed their tune as
[31:09] Speaker 2: far as the prime time lineup and Fox and Friends
[31:12] Speaker 2: and all these sick of fans and whatnot. But I
[31:15] Speaker 2: can't help but think if Fox leaves, is there going
[31:19] Speaker 2: to be just a tiny little bit of that that
[31:22] Speaker 2: might maybe perhaps someday it's a dream, Is it a possibility.
[31:27] Speaker 2: Could it ever turn out that they might turn on
[31:31] Speaker 2: dear Leader and his merry band of stuck ups and sociopaths.
[31:36] Speaker 2: I can imagine it, I can fantasize about it. I
[31:42] Speaker 2: will not expect it. I'm going to read you some
[31:48] Speaker 2: more George Orwell from nineteen eighty four. Pretty remarkable that
[31:52] Speaker 2: this book was written between nineteen forty six and nineteen
[31:57] Speaker 2: forty nine. And it feels like a documentary of the times.
[32:03] Speaker 2: I feel like this is It's almost like Orwell was
[32:05] Speaker 2: not supposed to be an instruction manual people. It was
[32:08] Speaker 2: supposed to be a warning for the ages. But nobody
[32:12] Speaker 2: said it like Orwell did. And I'm going to read
[32:15] Speaker 2: more from him next. George Orwell famously wrote, and this
[32:27] Speaker 2: was not in nineteen eighty four. It was in a
[32:30] Speaker 2: piece called Homage to Catalonia. He said, all the war propaganda,
[32:35] Speaker 2: all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from
[32:39] Speaker 2: people who are not fighting. Isn't that the truth? Watching
[32:46] Speaker 2: Donald Trump play army in this way, he's murdering people
[32:51] Speaker 2: and knowing that this guy's a silverspoon trust fund baby
[32:55] Speaker 2: with five draft deferments. President bone spurs has been used
[33:00] Speaker 2: the United States military like his own little sandbox, his
[33:03] Speaker 2: own little military war game. It's a video game, and
[33:07] Speaker 2: he's sitting there mashing the buttons like an eight year old. Hell,
[33:10] Speaker 2: not even an eight year old. At least eight year
[33:12] Speaker 2: olds know how to play. From nineteen eighty four, or
[33:16] Speaker 2: Well wrote it was possible, no doubt, to imagine a
[33:19] Speaker 2: society in which wealth in the sense of personal possessions
[33:23] Speaker 2: and luxury should be evenly distributed, while power remained in
[33:28] Speaker 2: the hands of a small privileged cast. But in practice
[33:32] Speaker 2: such a society could not long remain stable, For if
[33:36] Speaker 2: leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great
[33:40] Speaker 2: mass of human beings, who are normally stupefied by poverty,
[33:44] Speaker 2: would become literate and would learn to think for themselves.
[33:48] Speaker 2: And when they had done this, they would sooner or
[33:51] Speaker 2: later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and
[33:56] Speaker 2: they would sweep it away. In the long run. A
[33:59] Speaker 2: higher archical society was only possible on a basis of
[34:03] Speaker 2: poverty and ignorance. That's chilling, especially considering the recent report
[34:10] Speaker 2: that the top ten percent of Americans added five trillion
[34:15] Speaker 2: dollars to their wealth in the second quarter of twenty
[34:20] Speaker 2: twenty five, the total wealth of that top ten percent
[34:23] Speaker 2: one hundred and thirteen trillion dollars. Meanwhile, the median household
[34:30] Speaker 2: income right here in the US is about eighty thousand dollars,
[34:35] Speaker 2: and I think that's pretty high for a great many people.
[34:38] Speaker 2: There's a huge and widening income gap in this country.
[34:42] Speaker 2: There are two thousand, seven hundred eighty one billionaires in
[34:47] Speaker 2: the world. And how about the dispensers of information or
[34:52] Speaker 2: disinformation in this country? How many hundreds or thousands of
[34:57] Speaker 2: media outlets are we looking at, whether it's national, state, regional,
[35:01] Speaker 2: local news, online media, radio, at cent. Did you know
[35:05] Speaker 2: that six companies own ninety percent of the media in
[35:12] Speaker 2: this country. Six corporations manage the flow of information here
[35:19] Speaker 2: in the United States. Those six including Comcast, Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramounts,
[35:26] Speaker 2: and Fox Corp. Compare that to forty years ago, when
[35:30] Speaker 2: ninety percent of our media was owned by fifty companies.
[35:33] Speaker 2: At least that was an improvement. But so much of
[35:36] Speaker 2: the oligarchy is really about the elites being able to
[35:39] Speaker 2: run unchecked. After all, I think many or most believe
[35:43] Speaker 2: they are genuinely smarter. They deserve to be in charge
[35:47] Speaker 2: they want consumers instead of free thinkers. It's all about
[35:51] Speaker 2: being a loyal party member. As the poor and the
[35:56] Speaker 2: relatively poor prop up the rich and the powerful for
[36:01] Speaker 2: the gain and benefits of the rich and the powerful,
[36:05] Speaker 2: we are all supposed to be proper party members, which
[36:11] Speaker 2: finally brings me back to nineteen eighty four and another
[36:15] Speaker 2: excerpt from that book. A party member is expected to
[36:20] Speaker 2: have no private emotions and no respites from enthusiasm. He
[36:25] Speaker 2: is supposed to live in a continuous frenzy of hatred
[36:28] Speaker 2: of foreign enemies and internal traitors, triumph over victories, and
[36:33] Speaker 2: self abasements before the power and wisdom of the party.
[36:38] Speaker 2: The discontents produced by his bare, unsatisfying life are deliberately
[36:43] Speaker 2: turned outwards and dissipated by such devices as the two
[36:47] Speaker 2: minutes hate. By the way two minutes Hate in nineteen
[36:51] Speaker 2: eighty four, it's exactly what you would think. It is
[36:53] Speaker 2: a designated slot where all kinds of bile about all
[36:58] Speaker 2: dissenters and outsiders, foreigners, others, etc. Just blast through these
[37:03] Speaker 2: publicly placed loud speakers. And it is a requirement for
[37:07] Speaker 2: you to subject yourself to the two minutes hate and
[37:12] Speaker 2: the speculations which might possibly induce a skeptical or rebellious attitude,
[37:17] Speaker 2: are killed in advance by his early acquired inner discipline.
[37:23] Speaker 2: The first and simplest stage in the discipline, which can
[37:25] Speaker 2: be taught even to young children, is called new speak.
[37:29] Speaker 2: Crime stop. Crime stop means the faculty of stopping short,
[37:35] Speaker 2: as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought.
[37:39] Speaker 2: It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing
[37:43] Speaker 2: to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if
[37:48] Speaker 2: they are inimical to insot and of being bored or
[37:52] Speaker 2: repelled by any train of thoughts which is capable of
[37:55] Speaker 2: leading in a heretical direction. Crime stop, in short, it
[38:00] Speaker 2: means protective stupidity. But stupidity is not enough. On the contrary,
[38:06] Speaker 2: Orthodoxy in the full sense demands a control over one's
[38:10] Speaker 2: own mental processes as complete as that of a contortionist
[38:14] Speaker 2: over his body. Oceanic society and Oceanic is linked with
[38:19] Speaker 2: ink sockets kind of the overarching big brother entity. Oceanic
[38:24] Speaker 2: society rests ultimately on the belief that big Brother is
[38:27] Speaker 2: omnipotence and that the party is infallible, but since in
[38:32] Speaker 2: reality Big Brother is not omnipotent and the party is
[38:36] Speaker 2: not infallible, there is need for an unwearying moment to
[38:40] Speaker 2: moment flexibility in the treatment of facts. The key word
[38:45] Speaker 2: here is black white. Like so many news speak words,
[38:49] Speaker 2: this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent,
[38:55] Speaker 2: it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is
[38:59] Speaker 2: white in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a
[39:03] Speaker 2: party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that
[39:06] Speaker 2: black is white when party discipline demands this. But it
[39:10] Speaker 2: means also the ability to believe that black is white,
[39:15] Speaker 2: and more to know that black is white and to
[39:19] Speaker 2: forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands
[39:23] Speaker 2: a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the
[39:27] Speaker 2: system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and
[39:31] Speaker 2: which is known in new speak as double think. The
[39:36] Speaker 2: alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons, one
[39:40] Speaker 2: of which is subsidiary and so to speak, precautionary. The
[39:45] Speaker 2: subsidiary reason is that the party member, like the proletarian,
[39:49] Speaker 2: tolerates present day conditions partly because he has no standards
[39:53] Speaker 2: of comparison. He must be cut off from the past,
[39:57] Speaker 2: just as he must be cut off from four or
[40:00] Speaker 2: in countries, because it is necessary for him to believe
[40:03] Speaker 2: that he is better off than his ancestors, and that
[40:07] Speaker 2: the average level of material comfort is constantly rising. But
[40:12] Speaker 2: by far the more important reason for the readjustment of
[40:15] Speaker 2: the past is the need to safeguard the infallibility of
[40:19] Speaker 2: the party. It is not merely that speeches, statistics, and
[40:23] Speaker 2: records of every kind must be constantly brought up to
[40:26] Speaker 2: date and in order to show that the predictions of
[40:29] Speaker 2: the party were in all cases right. It is also
[40:33] Speaker 2: that no change in doctrine or in political alignment can
[40:37] Speaker 2: ever be admitted, for to change one's mind or even
[40:40] Speaker 2: one's policy is a confession of weakness. If, for example,
[40:45] Speaker 2: Eurasia or East Asia, whichever it may be, is the
[40:49] Speaker 2: enemy today, then that country must have always been the enemy,
[40:53] Speaker 2: and if the facts say otherwise, than the facts must
[40:57] Speaker 2: be altered. Thus history is continuous rewritten. This day to
[41:02] Speaker 2: day falsification of the past carried out by the Ministry
[41:06] Speaker 2: of Truth is as necessary to the stability of the
[41:09] Speaker 2: regime as the work of repression and espionage carried out
[41:14] Speaker 2: by the ministry of Love. The mutability of the past
[41:19] Speaker 2: is the central tenets of Ngsak. Past events, it has argued,
[41:24] Speaker 2: have no objective existence, but survive only in written records
[41:29] Speaker 2: and in human memories. The past is whatever the records
[41:32] Speaker 2: and the memories agree upon, and since the party is
[41:36] Speaker 2: in full control of all records and in equally full
[41:39] Speaker 2: control of the minds of its members, it follows that
[41:43] Speaker 2: the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it.
[41:47] Speaker 2: It also follows that though the past is alterable, it
[41:51] Speaker 2: has never been altered in any specific instance. For when
[41:55] Speaker 2: it has been recreated in whatever shape is needed at
[41:58] Speaker 2: the moment, then this new new version is the past,
[42:02] Speaker 2: and no different past can ever have existed. This holds
[42:07] Speaker 2: good even when, as often happens, the same event has
[42:11] Speaker 2: to be altered out of recognition several times in the
[42:14] Speaker 2: course of a year. At all times, the party is
[42:17] Speaker 2: in possession of absolute truth, and clearly the absolute can
[42:21] Speaker 2: never have been different from what it is now. It
[42:25] Speaker 2: will be seen that the control of the past depends
[42:27] Speaker 2: above all on the training of memory to make sure
[42:31] Speaker 2: that all written records agree with the orthodoxy of the
[42:34] Speaker 2: moment is merely a mechanical act. But it is also
[42:38] Speaker 2: necessary to remember that events happened in the desired manner,
[42:44] Speaker 2: And if it is necessary to rearrange one's memories or
[42:48] Speaker 2: to tamper with written records, then it's necessary to forget
[42:52] Speaker 2: that one has done so. The trick of doing this
[42:55] Speaker 2: can be learned, like any other mental technique. It is
[42:58] Speaker 2: learned by the majority of party members, and certainly by
[43:02] Speaker 2: all who are intelligent as well as orthodox. In old
[43:07] Speaker 2: speak it is called, quite frankly, reality control. In new
[43:12] Speaker 2: speak it is called double think, though doublethink comprises much
[43:18] Speaker 2: else as well. I, as your host, cannot help but
[43:23] Speaker 2: think about Maga cult today, an entire demographic that does
[43:28] Speaker 2: not or will not understand our history, or they've rewritten it,
[43:32] Speaker 2: or they've allowed someone else to rewrite it. It's like
[43:36] Speaker 2: we see a completely different country. We live in a
[43:39] Speaker 2: different world, and we fashion opinions around the world we
[43:43] Speaker 2: live in, whether it's rooted in reality or not. The
[43:46] Speaker 2: two minutes hate try twenty four hour hate propaganda mills,
[43:52] Speaker 2: right outlets that are funneling reasons supposed reasons to other
[43:59] Speaker 2: and divide and inflict harmon and even destroy the other, Well,
[44:05] Speaker 2: that's just hate. And there's an epidemic, a cancer of hate.
[44:09] Speaker 2: So we're definitely seeing that. The party saying, don't trust
[44:14] Speaker 2: your eyes and ears. Remember Donald Trump said, what you
[44:17] Speaker 2: are seeing and what you are hearing is not what's happening.
[44:21] Speaker 2: Those were his words. Or well, well, you were right, George. Unfortunately, sadly, tragically,
[44:31] Speaker 2: you were kind of a prophet. I would love for
[44:35] Speaker 2: so many Americans to pick up a copy of nineteen
[44:38] Speaker 2: eighty four and read it cover to cover, and maybe
[44:41] Speaker 2: maybe they will feel the chill in their bones as
[44:44] Speaker 2: they see just how they have been and are being manipulated.
[44:50] Speaker 2: They recognize the strategy of the totalitarians, the oppressors, the oligarchs,
[44:56] Speaker 2: the agents of new speak, and maybe they can, indeed
[45:02] Speaker 2: someday break free. Anyway, that is our broadcast this week.
[45:08] Speaker 2: Thank you so much for allowing me to share or
[45:11] Speaker 2: well with you and a few of my thoughts. I
[45:13] Speaker 2: welcome your opinions in the comments section, and I will
[45:17] Speaker 2: see you next time.
[45:18] Speaker 1: Follow The Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a
[45:22] Speaker 1: complete archive of podcasts and videos, products like mugs and
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[45:29] Speaker 1: pages and resources, and details on upcoming Free thought events
[45:33] Speaker 1: and conventions. Log onto our website, The Thinkingatheist dot com

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