totalitarianism - "1984" - Ukraine today

[Zenaan Harkness]

We think of the USA and other Western nations as "erroneously
considering that George Orwell's '1984' was a blueprint of what to
create rather than a warning of what to avoid" and how bad things are
(and yes, things really are pretty bad by important standards and
principles of human rights, freedom of travel, freedom to communicate)
yet we also consider "that relatively speaking, we have it pretty good
compared to the days of the inquisition, to pick a random historical
example".

Well, pity the folks failing to withstand the onslaught of fascist
think, open and invited encouragement to inform on your neighbours - and
many people doing so, and many journalists and other folk suffering
extended prison sentences as a result.

Today.

In the CIA's latest little "regime change exercise" in Ukraine.

With a Ministry of Truth (Ministry of Information) functioning right out
of Orwell's pages, with various phrases which cannot be spoken, certain
political parties banned and various films and TV shows banned in the
country, Ukraine excels at fascism like few other countries today can
compete with.

This is quite astounding from one perspective, but certainly a timely
reminder of one of the realities that humans can live and be towards one
another, today, as in here and now in an Eastern "European" country.

This particular insight stands out:
"According to Arendt totalitarian movements and states have in common
the conception of an objective enemy. Totalitarianism can hardly exist
without such a conception. After all, it must explain to the popular
masses the reasons why it needs to restrict their civic rights and why
they must endure total control"

We have before us, a real life, real time example of a nation (the
Western part at least) of Ukraine that is evidently descending in
specific and public ways, into a fascist totalitarian state - lest
anyone think for a moment that such realities were somehow 'behind' us
forever more...


Post-Maidan Ukraine Has Become a Full Fledged Totalitarian State
https://opendemocracy.net/od-russia/volodymyr-chemerys/totalitarian-tendencies-in-post-maidan-ukraine