In Orwell’s 1984, Oceania was always at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia. The tyranny always needed an enemy to keep the proles terrified and, therefore, their attention safely away from the real enemy. Today, our lords and masters use this warning of a future dystopia as a handbook and the war is not with Eastasia or Eurasia, it is with us and our chosen lifestyles. If it is not smoking, it is drinking. We are harangued about eating meat or butter, or trans fats, about eating too much or too little and we are not put salt on any of it or we will die. Now, their attention has turned to sugars and sugary drinks.
I no longer drink tea or coffee. I do like my coffee, but it doesn’t like me. As it is a migraine trigger, I am better off abstaining. I don’t drink alcohol – never really took to it. So I like to substitute it with fizzy, sugary drinks during the day when I am out and about. A quick sugar hit and all that. Well, it’s my body, isn’t it?
Well, no, apparently. Via Dick Puddlecote, we find that the puritans’ endless search for a new enemy leads us to just that; my hidden hoard of soft drinks.
With the war on drugs having been a resounding success, and the peddlers of other poisons, such as fatty foods, tobacco and alcohol, on the back foot, what we need is a government-backed campaign to target yet more of our degenerate consumption habits. After all, shadowy corporations with names like Schweppes and Coca-Cola are pushing a lethal concoction of syrup, sugar, aspartame, phosphoric acid, brominated vegetable oil, acesulfame and a whole host of other sinister-sounding ingredients. Governments the world over must unite for a global war on soda.
Will this pestilence of puritans never end? Will it take heads on spikes before they get the message that my body is my concern and that sin taxes are wrong, that my lifestyle is none of their goddamned business?
The Liberal Democrats, being as illiberal as ever, are taking up the mantle of the anti-soda war in Britain. At the upcoming Lib Dem party conference, the party will argue for the need for a fizzy-drink tax, presumably on the predictable grounds that it will ‘combat obesity’ while raising tax revenue. But, in reality, this is an attempt to use taxation as a means to change people’s consumption habits and lifestyles. In short, a fizzy-drink tax is a sin tax.
Ah, yes, the thoroughly illiberal democrats, now in government have taken up the mantle left by the outgoing Labour government. Now it is this insignificant runt party that is seeking to impose its authoritarian agenda on a bovine populace – who will, doubtless, accept that we do indeed need more sin taxes to “combat obesity” even though we need no such thing. If fizzy drinks make you fat, it certainly hasn’t worked on me. And even if it did, y’know what? It’s none of their fucking business!
XX In Orwell’s 1984, Oceania was always at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia. The tyranny always needed an enemy to keep the proles terrified and, therefore, their attention safely away from the real enemy. Today, our lords and masters use this warning of a future dystopia as a handbook and the war is not with Eastasia or Eurasia, it is with us and our chosen lifestyles. XX
He said that as well. The two are seperate and distinct.
Remember the “anti sex legue” in “1984”? O.K, In this case “sex”, but the basic principal could be applied to ANY life style/habit. Orwell left that open.
Or did he? Think of his “Cheap pornography, and …I can not remember the name but call it “National alcohol”. The “Government induced “physical jerks, over watched by “the screen”.*
The war against whomsoever was entirely seperate.
But today we have “Terrorism”. It started in Afghanistan. Now it is Syria? To say nothing of North Korea. Na egal.
The application differs. The principal remains the same.
* Thing is, you do not have to watch everybody. You just have to keep them in the dark as to whether they are being watched, or not.
The same applied to the Stassi, the KGB, and the Gestapo.
“catch” two or three per neighbourhood per week. The rest will obey, because “You never KNOW.”
Yes, I’d forgotten that. It’s been a long time since I read it.
A character that I found interesting in 1984 was the woman who used to sing pop songs while hanging out her washing. The political issues, that were discussed in the book by the cenral characters, just went over her head. Since the rebels were arrested, tortured and eventually made to conform, it would appear that washing woman was better off for never having rocked the boat. Orwell never made it clear that the sheep like people who manage to be content in the worst of circumstances, are the obstacle to getting things changed.
Sorry to be OT but since this blog is partly about riding and driving skills, I thought that visitors would like this:
http://youparklikeacunt.com/
Bad parking is an issue that tends to boil my piss, so this blog provides me with a bit of light relief.
Whos’ been visiting Julia M’s gaff then?
“ Orwell never made it clear that the sheep like people who manage to be content in the worst of circumstances, are the obstacle to getting things changed.”
Maybe he didn’t make it clear because that wasn’t his point and so allowing the individual would make of her situation and attitude what they will.
Huxley’s take on it (basically) is that key to the success of State Control is that people are happy in their servitude.
So the washerwoman….oblivious to the horror around her and singing happily…could be viewed as no threat to The State at all.
“Will it take heads on spikes?”
Well maybe not, but some kind of heavy duty backlash is on the cards.
And, of course, the “big” wars are fakes IIRC, so they can keep the sheeple under control.
Not QUITE that bad here, yet, (my wife was quite close enough to the so-called “Aldagte” bomb on 7/7, thank you) but the “precautions” being taken are clearly designed to intimidate, NOT to enhance real, actual security …..
I no longer drink tea or coffee. I do like my coffee, but it doesn’t like me. As it is a migraine trigger, I am better off abstaining.
One of my regulars has a post up about just this topic – coffee and its effects. Doesn’t seem to do anything bad to me but coffee cake does. Go figure.
I find it hard to think of a greater peddler of poison the the government (of any political hue).
Their poison, (financial and moral poison) is divisive, anti-society and indeed anti-human.
Almost ALL of the bogeyman threats issued by our dear leaders are to keep us frightened kiddies in our place, and to enable them (the dear leaders, that is) to issue further anti-individual, anti-libertarian draconian edicts to control us.
Governments (going by past experience) are the greatest threat to humanity.
Did I see the word “tax” in that piece LR?
Aaaaaaaaaah……