I think I last read “1984”, George Orwell’s famous account of a fictional dystopian totalitarian society, when I was a teenager in the 1960’s. I can’t exactly remember exactly when I read it so Kennedy or Johnson may have been President. Two events rocked my teenage sense of societal security and stability: the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962, and Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963. Otherwise, life growing up as a teenager in New York City in the early 1960’s was predictable and, other than the Cuban Missile Crisis, not something about which I worried a great deal. Getting into college, boys, well, that was something else.

Now, times have changed and we are seeing massive changes in many pillars of our government and our society.

Oceanania, the fictional superstate Orwell described, is overseen every minute by Big Brother. The Party is omnipresent and tele screens monitor every citizen’s behavior all the time. The Thought Police insures conformity and any deviation from the Party’s doctrine is punished.

I urge you to read (or re-read) it. So far, you can still order it on Amazon and buy it on the shelves in Barnes & Noble.