George Orwell’s 1984 wasn’t supposed to be a how-to manual, yet here we are.

The corporate media coverage of the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine demonstrates the extent to which government and media have merged to become a sort of thought police to persecute individuality and independent thinking. There’s no discernible difference now between the corporate media talking-heads and the retired CIA spooks the networks bring on as guests. It’s hard to envision any difference from Orwell’s state-controlled media and our corporate one.

Meanwhile, the 2 minute hate is alive and well as the reaction to calls for diplomacy by the Congressional Progressive Caucus demonstrates. The CPC retracted the meek letter its members had written to President Biden politely asking him to consider attempting to try a little diplomacy to help end the conflict in Ukraine. The retraction followed a wave of public outrage against their slight deviation from the official belligerent narrative. The letter received backlash from warmongers in both parties, including from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It was personally slammed by Bernie Sanders, the supposed figurehead of the American left. Trolls and warmongers swarmed the social media notifications of every account which posted the letter in an official capacity, mindlessly bleating the words “appeasement” and “Chamberlain” in unison.

It really says so much about where we’re at and where we’re headed that the most incendiary and outrageous thing you can say in our society is that we should probably attempt to diplomatically de-escalate hostilities.

I guess we’ll always be at war with Eastasia.