[ExI] 1984 and Orwell's Warnings

[Lee Corbin]

Olga rightfully complains

>> The masters try to create a younger generation of followers who ignore (or 
>> do not even know about) history. I suppose that is why cycles occur of the 
>> same mistakes being repeated.
> 
> "The masters? ...? Er ... I wish we had "E Pluribus Unum" back as the U.S. 
> national motto, myself ... rather than the present "In God We Trust" ... 

Yes.  Now if "In God We Trust" were truly traditional, 
I would not have a problem with it.  But it's not!  For
it's own day, it was sheer ideological/religious correctness
foisted off on us by the same ilk that wants to go around 
renaming BC/AD and who have urges to rename
airports (to "John Wayne" and "Norman Mineta"), etc.

> [excerpt -  "A law was passed by the 84th United States Congress (P.L. 
> 84-140) and approved by the President on July 30, 1956. President Dwight D. 
> Eisenhower approved a joint resolution declaring In God We Trust the 
> national motto of the United States.[1] The same Congress had required, in 
> the previous year, that the words appear on all currency, as a Cold War 
> measure: "In these days when imperialistic and materialistic Communism seeks 
> to attack and destroy freedom, it is proper" to "remind all of us of this 
> self-evident truth" that "as long as this country trusts in God, it will 
> prevail."]:

There is even more to it than that, Olga.  Do you know 
when the words "In God We Trust" first appeared on
American coinage?  Well, it was the same fanatical bastids
who having triumphantly and violently smashed the south
decided that they needed even more propagandizing (this
time in the name of religion).  The year was 1864!

That phrase---"In God We Trust" would never have been
adopted by the Founding Fathers (oops, I mean Founding
Persons).  The idea would have struck them as ludicrous.
What on Earth has our currency to do with religion?

Yes, like Rafal and Amara, my heart is warmed to see the
old names re-adopted.  Tears almost came to my eyes
back in 1990 when I saw my first newspaper column datelined
"St. Petersburg, Russia". 

Okay---we've lost this one:  BC/AD.  From now on, until
history totally expunges one side or the other, there will be
war over words, over symbols.  The progressives will
smart every time they see the enemies "A.D." or "B.C.",
and the traditionalists will wince every time they see
the awkward [1] "B.C." and "B.C.E." or "B.P.".

We've lost. Form has triumphed over substance.

But can't we learn from this and vow "NO MORE
NAME CHANGES FOR THE SAKE OF
SYMBOLISM"?

Lee

[1]  Personally, as a question of style and information density,
      notice how superior "AD/BC" is.  It uses the first four
      letters of the alphabet once and only once, they're each
     distinct, and the two two-letter combinations are visually
     instantly distinguishable.
     This cannot be said for "B.C.E"  (which, argh!, has to
     use three letters!), and "C.E", which overlaps "B.C.E."
     increasing the difficulty of rapid accurate scanning.

     But then adding symbols and syllables has always been
     an important part of euphemism generation, and what I
     call multi-syllabic dignity, e.g., replacing the one syllable
     "black" with the seven syllable "African American", or
     the three syllable "janitor" with the seven syllable
     "sanitation engineer".