Orwell Is Alive and Well and Living in Montclair, New Jersey and Hitler Is Now Fighting the Nazis
It began as a letter to the editor, in this case a weekly publication in Montclair, New Jersey. I wrote that short letter in response to the ongoing local display of the flag of the Ukraine and in it pointed out that the display violates protocols regarding proper use of the U.S. flag. I thought it would be dismissed as a crank letter but the editor chose to publish it and added a disclaimer that linked to a article titled “Montclair raises Ukrainian flag in Township Center to show solidarity.”
In this instance the local powers that be have clearly signaled their virtue as well as their skewed perception of what is actually happening in that region. I scanned the article quickly, playing particular attention to the dozen photographs of a recent candlelit vigil for the Ukraine. Most of the fervently posing and reverently photographed vigileers were, needless to say, wearing masks. I submit the following: falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. A population that lives in fear of a contagious disease never proven to exist has long ago lost the power of discernment. It simply cannot distinguish what is true from what is false, what is real from what is delusion.
Montclair and the rest of the state and country are, meanwhile, not alone in professing their deep and abiding love of the Ukraine. The ADL of all entities has officially gushed forth its great regard for that nation-state. I have contacted them regarding this but this was purely a formality. True, the Anti-Defamation League, formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, has been finding and condemning antisemitism, real and imagined, for over a century. But, in a stunning display of Orwellian doublethink the ADL now "condemns in the strongest terms Russia's unprovoked invasion (italics mine) of Ukraine..."
This is a remarkable reversal, given the ADL's well known position regarding the Ukraine's record of Nazi collaboration in the past as well as the presence of the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion now. On the subject of this Orwellian rewriting of history, another reality based outlet has published an article with this heading: "Israel lobby group ADL rehabilitates Hitler's accomplices in Ukraine." Yes, Hitler’s former accomplices are now doing battle with Putin who we are meanwhile told is the current Hitler of the new now. My friend, the Ukraine, the enemy of my enemy. But I really shouldn’t see anything unusual or untoward about these developments. We are living after all in interesting and Orwellian times.
In Chapter 9 of Part 2 of Orwell’s 1984, smack dab in the middle of the Hate Week festivities, Oceania abruptly switches its enemy. Oceania was at war with Eurasia and the war with Eastasia never existed. Poor overworked and underpaid Winston had to rewrite the history of the previous five years. I think Mr. Smith would have preferred these times. It is now infinitely easier to send whole swaths of annoying reality down the memory hole than it was in 1984.
Informed and rational people on the other hand, who still exist after all if only in scattered numbers, recognize this new Ukraine, established via the 2014 Maidan coup, for what it is. They know that the US political, military and financial creation and maintenance of this nation-state is yet another proxy war with Russia, as was the ten year Soviet-Afghan war that Zbigniew Brzezinski yearned for and helped to create. Furthermore, it is an act of aggression against Russia. Regardless of the machinations and hallucinations produced by corporate media, the U.S. is, far from fighting now or ever for anyone’s freedom and/or safety, merely doing what empires do.
Global Research, one of the first online, reality based news websites, published “Do Americans Really Want to Support the Neo-Nazi Filled Western Ukrainian Government?” The Nation published this a distant three years ago: "Neo-Nazis the and the Far Right are on the March in Ukraine." And The Times of Israel has decried the annual tribute in the Ukraine to Nazi collaborator and local hero Stepan Bandera. To name as they say but a few.
It recently republished "NATO-Exit inder Art. 13: Dismantle NATO, Close Down 800 Military Bases, Prosecute War Criminals." is a richly detailed and nuanced account of where we've been and been taken and where we're going. You could rightly call it, with apologies to Eduardo Galeano, "a primer for the looking-glass world." It includes a reference to an article bearing this heading: "3 reasons why America's massive nuclear arsenal actually makes the world safer."
In that article the author presents himself as "a father of two young children" and proceeds to tell us via a subheading of the article that "Nuclear weapons save lives." It's a somewhat folksy retelling of the military strategy known as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).
Nuclear weapons save lives.
Toxins are good for you.
Illnesses and deaths prove that the "vaccines" work.
Ignorance is strength.
The mendacity and the hypocrisy of this time and place are boundless, likewise the madness of crowds, the hypnosis of populations, and the continuous din of U.S.-Israeli-NATO moral posturing. “Liberal and progressive” Montclair has planted itself and its flags firmly on the wrong side of history, as well as reality itself, but meanwhile on the standard and safe side of American exceptionalism and expansionism. Unfortunately, its residents and the U.S. population at large can’t see this and doubtless never will. "It's easier to fool people than convince them that they've been fooled." Yes, it is far easier and has always been. Critical thought is all but dead in the U.S. and elsewhere. But George Orwell and his warnings and pronouncements are very much with us.
Jerry Bernini is a writer, editor and tutor in Montclair, New Jersey as well as an autodidact, and devout epistemologist. He can be reached via jtbernini@protonmail.com .