1984

I read this book in the 8th grade - a time when I was most unaware of the world around me. I honestly hated it. The writing didn't flow, the words were somewhere beyond my understanding, and the setting was dull and depressing. Upon mature reflection, I realize the truth in the words - as addressed in my later blog, "A New Rome..." I have become somewhat sympathetic to the visionary - to the call for revolution. Something is broken, and we must fix it soon...

The correlations between the following passage and our present conflict are nothing less than disturbing... take it from a warfighter's persepective.
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“It is absolutely necessary to their structure that there be no contact with foreigners…the average citizen…never sets eyes on a citizen of Eurasia or East-Asia, and he is forbidden the knowledge of foreign languages. If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate. It is therefore realized on all sides… that the main frontiers must never be crossed by anything except bombs.”

“Their lives are dedicated to world conquest, but they also know that it is necessary that the war should continue everlastingly and without victory…”

George Orwell, 1984, pg. 162
Sadly, a bright man was ridiculed for being twenty years short of truth…