Defeat Is Victory

On the wall of George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth from his novel 1984 there were three slogans:
WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
It occurred to me that these apply just a little bit too well to the way the Washington, DC establishment operates.
War certainly is peace: just look at how peaceful Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Syria and the Ukraine have become thanks to their peacemaking efforts. The only departures from absolute peacefulness which might be taking place there have to do with the fact that there are some people still alive there. This should resolve itself on its own, especially in the Ukraine, where the people now face the prospect of surviving a cold winter without heat or electricity.
Freedom is indeed slavery: to enjoy their ‘freedom,’ Americans spend most of their lives working off debt, be it a mortgage, medical debt incurred due to an illness, or student loans. Alternatively, they can also enjoy it by rotting in jail. They also work longer hours with less time off and worse benefits than in any other developed country, and their wages haven’t increased in two generations.
And what keeps it all happening is the fact that ignorance is indeed strength; if it wasn’t for the Americans’ overwhelming, willful ignorance of both their own affairs and the world at large, they would have rebelled by now, and the whole house of cards would have come tumbling down.
But there is a fourth slogan they need to add to the wall of Washington’s Ministry of Truth. It is this:
DEFEAT IS VICTORY…

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 12/09/2014.