Orwell saw this coming

In his all-too-prescient novel 1984, published on 8 June 1949, British author George Orwell predicted a world in which an all-powerful nanny state would watch everyone through surveillance devices called "video screens", watching out for anti-social (and anti-government!) behaviour.

For years now, there have been CCTV cameras outside George Orwell's  home in London. Now a sign has been added warning all and sundry to be of good behaviour... or else!  

Only in No-longer-great Britain, you say? If you live in the USA or Canada... or China... look around you. All that's missing is the sign.

And speaking of English thinkers and writers who had disturbing visions of the future of their sceptered septic isle, check out "'I told you this would happen!': Enoch Powell", WWW 10/8/11.

VIDEO: Wuhan woman risks life to complain about Communists

Agent 35, bless her, has passed along an interesting video posted on social media (such as it is) in China but a woman from Wuhan -- the original focal point of the corona virus -- who is fed up with... well... everything in general and the Communist Party of China in particular. The woman has since disappeared!



Agent 35 writes:
The woman's comment about TV holds true in our country too. When I was growing up, I used to hear TV referred to as the "idiot box" or "boob tube", which I thought was a comment on its frivolity. Today the two labels are still true, but more insidious is its new use as a propaganda source found throughout our homes in various rooms and even in our pockets.
This woman is imprisoned in the type of society the Left envisions as Utopia for us.

CCTV is watching you!

Not SCTV... CCTV -- Closed Circuit Television. In his latest "clip book", The [Un]documented Mark Steyn (Regnery 2014), friend Mark writes: "It accompanies you as you make your way to work whether by car, bus, train, or taxi. And it's there waiting for you at the end of your shift, as you go to buy your groceries or head to the movies."

He goes on to quote from The Defector, a novel by American author Daniel Silva: "...CCTV, the ubiquitous network of 10,000 closed-circuit television cameras that gave London's Metropolitan Police the ability to monitor activity, criminal or otherwise, on virtually every street in the British capital.... The subjects of the United Kingdom, birthplace of Western democracy, now resided in an Orwellian world where their every movement was watched over by the eyes of the state."

Mr. Steyn says that's true, except for the "10,000" cameras. By some calculations, he wrote in 2009, the snoop-robots [Walt's phrase. Ed.] numbered some 5,000,000. That would include this one, ironically watching innocent people passing by the home of... wait for it... George Orwell!

Thanks to Agent 34. Walt knows you're watching!