1984

When most people think of Orwell's 1984 they think of Big Brother, the omnipresent government intrusion into the lives of its citizens. This is of course a concern but a much more disturbing aspect of the novel is the ever lasting war between Oceania and Eurasia.

The way we are conducting this present war on terror (and even to call it a war on terror is rife with Orwellian double speak or more precisely doublethink) there will be at least a generation that will never know what it's like to live in the United States during peacetime.

There are few choices when you're in a war, you win or lose. A negotiated truce as we have in Korea isn't even an option. And we are a long way from our enemy suing for peace. So we have entered 1984 through the most unlikely of circumstances.