Fear, Freedom, And Foresight

Fear, Freedom, and Foresight

"Once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission" (V, "V for Vendetta"). Throughout history there has been struggle of power and control between a governing body and it's people. In the movie "V for Vendetta," the government has ultimate control over it's people in a dystopian future, created by a series of strategic events that could be in the near future for the United States. In the book review "Monsters, Androids, and Corporations," by an anonymous staff writer, the author speculates whether or not our views of the future are played out through the books we read and movies we watch. If movies actually represent our views of the future than "V for Vendetta" offers us foresight into a future that is not too far from, or at least capable of happening.

In the movie, Britain's government, known as Norsefire, has created the ultimate power and control over it's people. The government's power is mostly the result of a bioterrorist attack that killed eighty thousand people that was itself engineered by Norsefire. The attack generated fear across Britain that allowed Norsfire to win in a landslide in the upcoming election. As far as this prediction of the future representing our own views, one can see a cynical comparison to the September 11th attacks. Not to say that the U.S. government had anything to do with the attacks, but how the Bush administration could then use fear to gain power.

Throughout history, fear and war have been prevalent

in the election of governing body's. People in power also have a history of wanting to remain in power, sometimes at any cost. It is not difficult to see how the war in Iraq helped the Bush administration get re-elected. For example: Before the attacks, Bush's approval rating was at an all time low of less than 50%. After the attacks, Bush used the fear of terrorism to start a war against "terrorism," which lead to his increased approval rating before the election. If the Bush administration had listen to the UN and many other countries, there would not have been a war and Bush most likely would not have been re-elected. Without assuming Bush's reasoning for war included his personal benefit, it's hard to deny it helped his campaign.

So what sacrifices are people in power willing to make in order to stay in power, or to gain more? The Viral catastrophe in "V for Vendetta" was is the ultimate sacrifice to make by a government in order to gain power. The author of "Monsters, Androids, and Corporations" asks, do these images really reflect our views of the future?" (233). Obviously, as human beings, we would not like to believe this dystopian future is inevitable or even possible, but is it really that far-fetched? The war in Iraq was the product of the U.S. government misleading it's people, as was Norsefire's bio-terrorist attack.. Why did we attack Iraq when Saudi Arabia was mostly at fault? The Saudi government not only provided hundreds of millions of dollars to Al Qaeda, but fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudi. Experts believe that approximately fifty four to sixty thousand civilians have been killed by U.S. military intervention in Iraq, which doesn't include soldiers. That's not too far from the eighty thousand killed in the movie, and the Iraq body count is still going. The worst part about it is, the government has admitted it's wrongdoing and no one is being punished, in fact the Bush administration remains in power.

Are people so politically naive that government can pretty much do whatever it wants without consequences? Probably not, but it seems the people in the United States have no idea what their government is doing, nor do they seem to care. Is it going to take a government as