CORE IS NON-CORE:
Puny Nephew takes over from Big Brother

As Australiastan approaches the year 2004, the final victory of Illiberal forces over the evils of democratic egalitarianism is nigh. A mere two decades after George Orwell's 1984 and its bleak prophecy of extreme conservative rule (at the time of writing, Orwell thought such rule would take the form of militant socialism), it is perhaps time to give thanks to Big Brother's heir, Puny Nephew, who, with assiduous cunning, has led the Party through its harrowing years of glorious treachery.

An eager student of

DOUBLETHINK (1984, p.37 Penguin paperback)

"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them; to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy; to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis...just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink."

Puny Nephew has, over the years, revised and updated BB's slogans for all of us.

Big Brother	Puny Nephew
WAR IS PEACE	WAR IS SUBTERFUGE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY	FREEDOM IS CONSUMERISM
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH	IGNORANCE IS RE-ELECTION

And Puny Nephew has added a few of his own:

CORE IS NON-CORE DEMOCRACY IS GLOBALISATION A FAIR GO IS ASIO FREEDOM IS INTERNMENT TRUTH IS NEVER EVER WEALTH IS GST INTELLIGENCE IS TALKBACK

Ministries of the former time continue in the present, with slight alterations.

MINISTRY OF TRUTH: concerns itself, as of old, with news, entertainment, education and the fine arts, with new stipulations that there be no investigative news, and that what news there is must have no left wing bias, that is it must adhere to Party doctrine; that entertainment be geared solely for the youngest consumers of the Party's highly valued families; that education be the reserve of the ruling business/political class and that even then it be limited to doing sums and an exhaustive study of Machiavelli; and finally that there be no fine arts at all (with the exception of Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals).

MINISTRY OF PEACE: concerns itself with going to whichever war Umeruhca's leader, Idiot Son, tells us to.

MINISTRY OF LOVE: seeks to protect privileged citizens from terrorism by outlawing dissent.

MINISTRY OF PLENTY: seeks to gradually remove all benefits and rights from those deemed unhelpful to the acquisition of riches by the ruling business/political class by doubling the benefits and rights for useful Aspirationals.

And a few new ministries:

MINISTRY OF DOUBLESPEAK: the very foundation of Puny Nephew's reign, as exemplified by various non-core promises made during his Never Ever Period. This ministry is based on the principles of Doublethink.

MINISTRY OF SHAREHOLDER RIGHTS: concerns itself with insuring that the division between the grasping few and the somnambulant many, though wildly unbalanced, is nevertheless seen to be equal.

MINISTRY OF THE FAIR GO: seeks to complete the privatisation of all national assets so that the nation becomes bankrupt and is thus at the mercy of the ruling business/political class.

While Puny Nephew works on the fourth three year plan for his glorious state, let us give thanks with a can of Victoria Bitter (so much nicer than the Victory Gin of Big Brother's day) and be glad that, unlike the proles of then, we can exercise our Party-given right to vote for Puny Nephew. (Because, even if we didn't, he'd steal the election anyway.) He knows we are comforted by this certainty, even if we are not exactly relaxed from the fear of doing or saying the wrong thing now that his new terror laws are making us safe from ourselves. Above all, Puny Nephew knows that, just like the proles of 1984, we will do nothing to stop him. He may be puny, but he's not stupid.

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