When I was in high school, MHS - The Gold Medal Class of 1966 - everyone was talking about the novel 1984, by George Orwell. Everybody meant the 50+ students who were in the same classes, because we had levels from vocational training (auto mechanics, carpentry, metal) to future graduate students, about 750 in all.
A paperback bookstore was not far from Moline High, so we had access to the latest books. George Orwell's 1984 and his Animal Farm were very popular and often discussed. We did not have dumb-phones and computers to distract us, and many walked home, even in the snow.
Orwell established the dystopian theme which is commonly cited today. Utopia literally meant "nowhere" and suggests a perfect place to live - like Wisconsin - while dystopia is used today to designate a time where everything is going wrong.
I decided to read 1984 again, and two members are getting copies of the novel, too. I will be writing about it in the near future.
Three major themes in 1984 are:
- Newspeak
- Changing History
- Endless and Senseless War
Newspeak means constantly changing the meaning of words to the point where nobody would be able to make sense out of what is being said or written. The words do not necessarily mean what they imply but have a definite political meaning.
Newspeak
The literate among us should recognize Newspeak from two laws. One is Diversity-Equity-Inclusion. The other is Critical-Race-Theory. More than 10 years ago, UOP students were telling me that getting an entry level job at a computer company was almost impossible because of quotas. That is the point of DEI today, to create artificial barriers to install a political minority in all the leadership positions. Anyone can fill in the bottom jobs where needed, but the top management jobs must be reserved for a few.
Another charm of Newspeak is telling people what words they can use and forcing a new vocabulary aimed at pleasing and guiding the radical Left. The Bible Barons have been doing this with impunity since the 1950s, coughing up the Evil Four Plus One - RSV, ESV, NRSV, NIV plus the Beck Babel, aka the Beck Bible, aka Good News for Calvinist News. The majority of clergy will say that Isaiah 7:10 does not predict the Virgin Birth, that the words in Hebrew and Greek do not mean virgin, and that the Gospels borrow from mythological literature. (The modern commentaries do! but not the originals.)
I laughed at the WELS "objective genitive" in Greek because it made no sense. Grammar is a list of rules derived from literature. Paul did not agonize over a phrase being objective or subjective, but I learned it was sect-blasphemy to question this rigid and self-serving "translation." These Mequon professors cannot find Justification by Faith in Romans, Galatians or the entire Bible. They cannot be trusted with anything more complicated than Dick, Jane, and Sally. Spot was removed due to DEI violations.
Changing History
Changing History is constant today, because anything can be altered by replacing knowledge with alternatives. As Orwell wrote, the present can change the past, and the past can change the present. I was reading book once that praised the Federal Reserve Bank for being created to stop the cycles of prosperity and doom. I realized that was an unintentional humor book, because the cycles continued.
Pearl Harbor, 1941, was questioned by Congress in hearings, and many facts are now known, but most people still think that Pearl Harbor was a fluke, having all the carriers gone on that fateful day.
Did you know that the Wisconsin Sect was born orthodox? That came from its current Sect President, Mirthless Mark Schroeder. The present changes the past. Or didja know that WELS works tirelessly with ELCA? I proved it about joint worship, but they really gave it away with Snowbird, where the three synod presidents were photographed together, published in ELCA's magazine and reprinted in Calvinist News. An onslaught of insurance magazines (now working as one) proved how much and how often all three worked together. Result? that magazine no longer emphasizes the unionism of LCMS/ELCA/WELS, the only one being honest about it - ELCA. Too much self-satire in WELS and LCMS? - the facts are much worse. And the present definitely defines the past, and the history no longer matters.
Endless and Senseless War
Ukraine? Afghanistan? Panama? Viet Nam? So much can be said about these disasters - and more. I used to wonder why the oldest people were the most skeptical about our great and exciting wars.
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| The Great (Liar) Walther |
Matt the Fatt is showing us the way to 100% Lutheran Dystopia. The Missouri Sect was not begun by
- a bishop's pimp,
- a kidnapper,
- a thief who stole land and talked the son of Bishop Stephan out of it,
- who blamed Stephan's wife for the bishop's flagrant adultery and syphilis,
- and started Concordia Seminary from the books and gold stolen from the bishop, even the bishop's personal chalice.
The Wisconsin Sect was not a unionistic, Pietist sect - and all those facts about the LCMS are "nothing but lies and slander" as the proletariats used to scream daily in responses to this blog.
Matt the Fatt's big moment is coming at the best possible time.
