Independent media, news reporting, analysis, opinion, forensic historical research presentations. From a Libertarian to Anarcho-Libertarian Anti-Federalist perspective.
It's no secret, the U.S. Military is in serious trouble, badly infected with the latest strain of Cultural Marxism. But when I heard this wildly insane soldier declare that whoever she told to shelter in place in a lock-down who resisted was to her "the enemy", and would be dealt with accordingly. After explaining that if Martial Law was declared, the "guns wouldn't be pointed at another nation... but at YOU!
This has gone on long enough. When will Americans finally have enough?
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RTR TRUTH MEDIA - It often never ceases to amaze me just how accurate Orwell’s non-fiction and fiction alike are both extremely real. His works were supposed to warn us what not to tolerate or accept and, well, so much for that.
My two favorite Quotes by George Orwell - "And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested." – George Orwell, 1984
“If all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth." – George Orwell,1984
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Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name, George Orwell, was a brilliant English writer of the 20th century who transformed literature with his piercing social commentary and allegorical style. Considered classics, his novels Animal Farm and 1984 are read in classrooms around the world. His works have become so entrenched in popular and political culture that the term “Orwellian” is now commonly used to describe totalitarian and authoritarian societies.
Orwell also wrote numerous nonfiction books and essays documenting his own life experiences, which similarly express his gift for satire and controversial views on government. Throughout his writing career, he never feared tackling challenging topics and expressing his opinions, no matter how subversive. Read on for George Orwell’s best quotes about truth, reality, freedom, politics, power, and money.
Quotes About Truth & Reality
The concepts of truth and reality are major themes in many of Orwell’s novels—especially the chilling dystopian classic, 1984. As Orwell asserts, reality is what you make of it, but the truth isn’t always so clear.
1. “There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” - George Orwell, 1984
2. “Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.” – George Orwell, 1984
3. “This is the inevitable fate of the sentimentalist. All his opinions change into their opposites at the first brush of reality.” – George Orwell,The Road to Wigan Pier
4. "It's the one thing they can't do. They can make you say anything—anything—but they can't make you believe it. They can't get inside you." – George Orwell,1984
5. "And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested." – George Orwell, 1984
6. "If all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth." – George Orwell,1984
7. “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” – George Orwell,Animal Farm
8. “The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.” – George Orwell,1984
Quotes About Freedom
Many of Orwell’s works center around freedom and oppression—whether political or personal—as he seeks to define what being free truly means and questions what kind of freedom is worth living or dying for.
9. “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” – George Orwell, 1984
10. “Here you come upon the important fact that every revolutionary opinion draws part of its strength from a secret conviction that nothing can be changed.” – George Orwell,The Road to Wigan Pier
11. “Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom.” – George Orwell,Homage to Catalonia
12. “The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed.” – George Orwell, 1984
13. “I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt.” – George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier
14. “To die hating them, that was freedom.” – George Orwell, 1984
15. “We are living in a world in which nobody is free, in which hardly anybody is secure, in which it is almost impossible to be honest and to remain alive.” – George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier
16. “That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better.” – George Orwell, 1984
17. "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength." – George Orwell, 1984
Politics & Power Quotes
Political commentary is Orwell’s staple. His strong opposition to totalitarianism is clear throughout 1984 and Animal Farm as he criticizes the political structures in those stories, while his support of democratic socialism is apparent throughout his nonfiction works such as Homage to Catalonia and The Road to Wigan Pier.
18. “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” – George Orwell, 1984
19. “Man serves the interests of no creature except himself.” – George Orwell,Animal Farm
20. “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” – George Orwell, 1984
21. “There are occasions when it pays better to fight and be beaten than not to fight at all.” – George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia
22. “It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever gets near a front-line trench, except on the briefest of propaganda-tours.” – George Orwell,Homage to Catalonia
23. “For before you can be sure whether you are genuinely in favour of socialism, you have got to decide whether things at present are tolerable or not tolerable, and you have got to take up a definite attitude on the terribly difficult issue of class.” – George Orwell,The Road to Wigan Pier
24. “All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.” – George Orwell,Homage to Catalonia
25. “We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.” – George Orwell, 1984
26. “One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.” – George Orwell, 1984
27. “No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?”– George Orwell,Animal Farm
28. “In order to hate imperialism you have got to be part of it.” – George Orwell,The Road to Wigan Pier
29. “It is this fear of a supposedly dangerous mob that makes nearly all intelligent people conservative in their opinions.” – George Orwell,Down and Out in Paris and London
30. “Power is not a means; it is an end.” – George Orwell, 1984
31. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” – George Orwell,Animal Farm
32. “Man is the only creature that consumes without producing... Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.” – George Orwell,Animal Farm
Quotes About Money
Orwell’s opinions on money tie into his political views—especially his opposition to powerful authoritarian governments. In his youth, he witnessed poverty firsthand, leading to a satirical attitude towards money and how it shapes society.
33. “It is curious how people take it for granted that they have a right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level.” – George Orwell,Down and Out in Paris and London
34. “For after all, what is there behind it, except money? Money for the right kind of education, money for influential friends, money for leisure and peace of mind, money for trips to Italy. Money writes books, money sells them. Give me not righteousness, O lord, give me money, only money.” – George Orwell,Keep the Aspidistra Flying
35. “Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behaviour, just as money frees people from work.” – George Orwell,Down and Out in Paris and London
36. “You can possess money, or you can despise money; the one fatal thing is to worship money and fail to get it.” – George Orwell,Keep the Aspidistra Flying
37. “The mass of the rich and the poor are differentiated by their incomes and nothing else, and the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit.” – George Orwell,Down and Out in Paris and London
39. “If you set yourself to it, you can live the same life, rich or poor. You can still keep on with your books and your ideas. You just got to say to yourself, ‘I'm a free man in here’. . . and you're all right.” – George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
40. “In practice nobody cares whether work is useful or useless, productive or parasitic; the sole thing demanded is that it shall be profitable.” – George Orwell,Down and Out in Paris and London
41. “In all the modern talk about energy, efficiency, social service and the rest of it, what meaning is there except 'Get money, get it legally, and get a lot of it'? Money has become the grand test of virtue.” – George Orwell,Down and Out in Paris and London
42. “Faith, hope, money—only a saint could have the first two without having the third.” – George Orwell,Keep the Aspidistra Flying
43. “Within certain limits, it is actually true that the less money you have, the less you worry.” – George Orwell,Down and Out in Paris and London
Original article title : Dubious decisions in LaVoy Finicum shooting case revealed in trial of acquitted FBI agent
Forward by Tom Lacovara-Stewart
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Occupier
Alternative Media journalist, radio talk show host
American history educator, historian, father who misses his son every day, and friend of LaVoy Finicum who not a day passes that I don’t thank God I had the privilege of it all.
Allow me to explain why I posting this article on my site... for posterity, out of respect for my friend LaVoy who I rode with just the day before he was gunned down for the heinous crime of being on his way to meet with the Sheriff of Grant County Oregon, Sheriff Palmer. There was absolutely no reason whatsoever that anyone needed to die. They wanted him dead. Imagine if Sheriff Palmer had deputized all of us. Imagine if we were able to arrest the corrupt bastards. It takes special types of order following cowards to shoot a man in the back 3 times after hitting him with a rubber bullet in the front to make it look like he is reaching for a gun that only a select few of us “knew” where it was, which was on his dash under the Indian blanket. I’ll see you at the gates of hell... they won’t let me in. Afraid I might take over. But I’ll see you there. I hope you lay in bed sleepless every night thinking about LaVoys kids and grandkids... and his foster kids. That man did more good in 10 minutes than you FBI gunmen do in a lifetime. I’m sorry .... I held back. Would you like me to tell you how I really feel?
My respect to Maxine. For primarily a liberal writer, I think she was objective, as fair as anyone could hope for and she has my respect.
When a man witnesses an injustice, and he shakes his head.confounded and does little more than complain, he becomes worse than the man who commits it. At least that man acts as he is. At least he is true to his own evil self. What of the man who does nothing knowing he has witnessed injustice and potentially injury to others?
First - A Humble Warriors Prayer
by Tom Lacovara-Stewart
Dear God I implore You, give me the courage to stand up to tyranny, the wisdom to not make it worse by rash impulsive actions. Grant me the use of words that they may inspire those to turn from their evil ways, and spare us violence, but dear God nomatter my age, give me the steady hand and keen eye, the quickness of the draw and the good weather or caution to keep my powder dry... if it need be... and Lord, please do not let anyone die but if you do, let it be they who would never have received the truth and never hope to have been a better man.
I pray you only use me as an instrument of necessity, not of glory or revenge, but simply of honorable justice if there be no other way. But if there be no other way let it be me that won’t hesitate. And please let it be me rather than my son.
(Scene of the FBI and Oregon state police confrontation with refuge occupation spokesman Robert "LaVoy" Finicum on U.S. 395 on Jan. 26, 2016. / FBI video screenshot)
BY MAXINE BERNSTEIN
The Portland trial of an FBI agent acquitted in the chaotic highway confrontation that led to the collapse of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation revealed a series of dubious decisions and questionable police practices.
Both FBI agents and Oregon State Police officers used problematic tactics during and after what some witnesses described as a tumultuous and unexpected showdown at a roadblock on U.S. 395 in eastern Oregon.
Testimony in the trial of W. Joseph Astarita, a member of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, disclosed shots fired in apparent confusion, an unusual delay in securing the crime scene and a supervisor and another officer giving updates on the investigation to one of the two state police officers who fired fatal shots that day.
The FBI’s Inspection Division will now do an administrative review of the agents’ actions and recommend improvements.
“They’ll identify weaknesses. They’ll identify mistakes, and they’ll take actions to correct them,’’ said Greg Bretzing, the FBI special agent in charge at the time of the 2016 shooting case. He has since retired.
State police wouldn’t comment on whether any changes to policies or practices have been made by the agency, citing a lawsuit by the family of Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, the 54-year-old occupation spokesman shot and killed at the roadblock. One of the state police SWAT officers who fatally shot Finicum was promoted since the shooting.
(Refuge occupier Ryan Payne, on right, during the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge./ Les Zaitz)
Among the issues:
-- Did an initial 40mm rubber bullet fired at surrendering refuge occupier Ryan Payne escalate the attempt to arrest the refuge occupation’s leaders?
An FBI agent seemed to think so. He cursed at the state police SWAT trooper, Bob Olson, who fired the round as Payne appeared to surrender when police first stopped the occupiers on U.S. 395 to arrest them.
Payne, a militia member from Montana and one of the architects of the January 2016 armed refuge takeover, was in the front seat of Finicum’s idling truck. He put his head and hands out of the truck window in what appeared to be an attempt to surrender.
FBI agent Justin Travis Elkins testified that he had his eyes trained on Payne and the state police officer's shot "was totally unexpected.''
Elkins heard another FBI agent, Tim Dugan, turn to the state police officer and yell, "WTF was that?!'' Elkins said Payne was following commands and the shot escalated the stop.
State police said Payne hesitated and was shot in the hand with the rubber round.
Payne then got out of the truck and was taken into custody. But Finicum sped off in his truck with three others in the back seat headed toward the roadblock about a mile north on the remote highway where more FBI agents and state police officers waited.
-- A state police SWAT officer identified only as Officer 1 took three shots as Finicum’s truck raced toward the roadblock. He fired even though he acknowledged that he didn’t see the driver or passengers in the truck.
Though Officer 1 said he was supposed to be in a command role at the roadblock and directing others to act, he said he shot at Finicum's truck to get it to slow down or veer off.
On cross-examination, Officer 1 said he couldn't see into the truck.
One shot hit the front of the truck’s hood. Another hit the front grill. A third struck the driver’s side mirror.
FBI agent Astarita, in contrast, said he aimed his rifle at Finicum’s truck but didn’t shoot because he couldn’t see the driver or who was inside.
State police have kept Officer 1’s name secret, saying they fear he might face threats for the subsequent fatal shooting of Finicum. Officer 1 and a second state SWAT officer identified only as Officer 2 later shot Finicum in the back after he was seen reaching into his jacket where police said he had a loaded 9mm handgun in an inside jacket pocket.
(U.S. 395 was blocked for several hours after the fatal police shooting of occupation spokesman Robert "LaVoy" Finicum. /Dave Killen)
-- Investigators didn’t put up crime scene tape to preserve evidence or set up a log tracking who was coming and going at the roadblock until more than three hours after Finicum was shot.
Testimony from state police and FBI agents showed they were unclear about who was in charge of the scene until investigators from the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office and Tri-County Major Crime Team arrived.
It also took time for investigators to arrive to the remote location. Some state police took a more-than-two-hour detour to avoid potential conflicts on U.S. 395, having been told other militia members might arrive at the scene.
A Deschutes County sheriff’s detective described a 12-car police caravan responding from Bend, hampered by what he described as a mobile command center traveling slowly “like an old bread truck.’’ Investigators arrived on the scene about 1:30 a.m. Jan. 27, 2016. The shooting occurred about 4:34 p.m. on Jan. 26, 2016.
The crime scene log wasn't started until more than four hours after the shooting and the scene wasn't taped off until about five hours later, testimony showed. Before the tape went up, FBI infrared video showed unidentified FBI agents walking through the scene and picking things up, according to court testimony.
(Oregon State Police Superintendent Travis Hampton speaks at the Oregon U.S. attorney's office after the indictment of FBI Agent W. Joseph Astarita was announced./Stephanie Yao Long)
-- Travis Hampton, then a state police major and now head of the agency, communicated via text with Officer 1 in the days leading up to Officer 1’s first interview with detectives investigating the shooting.
A witness to the fatal shooting, state trooper Joey Pollard, was assigned to be Officer 1’s so-called “buddy’’ officer after the shooting. That meant Pollard drove Officer 1 back to Bend that night and continued to communicate with Officer 1 before and after his Jan. 31 interview. Pollard also drove Officer 1 and Officer 2 home after their initial processing at the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office the night of the shooting.
Pollard had been in the tree line on the west side of the highway as Finicum stepped away from his truck in a snowbank. Pollard yelled commands at Finicum, initially aiming a handgun at him, but then switched to a Taser. Officers 1 and 2 both said they worried Pollard was in harm’s way.
Pollard also was present when a state police forensic scientist examined Finicum’s truck and a bullet hole to the roof. Pollard shared what he learned with Officer 1, according to trial testimony.
Most police agencies give gag orders to officers who are either involved in a shooting or witnesses to a shooting, requiring them not to communicate with other officers involved to avoid having them compare or share information that could affect their individual statements.
Officer 1 also wasn’t interviewed about his role in the shooting until five days after it happened.
Portland police require an officer to be interviewed by internal affairs within 48 hours of a shooting.
Los Angeles-based police consultants say the best practice is to interview an officer involved in a shooting the night of the incident. Delaying the interview negatively impacts investigations and undermines public confidence, according to Michael Gennaco, a former federal civil rights prosecutor who now leads The County of Los Angeles' Office of Independent Review, known as the OIR group.
(Law enforcement officials gather in Bend for a March 2016 press conference, where they announced that the fatal Jan. 26, 2016, shooting of refuge occupation spokesman Robert "LaVoy" Finicum/Beth Nakamura)
-- State police went along with unusual demands by the FBI to interview the agents from the Hostage Rescue Team as a group and not record them.
Conducting a group interview of officers -- whether they fired shots or witnessed a shooting -- is unheard of, state police detective Scott Hill testified.
But Hill said he agreed to the ultimatum because he was afraid none of the agents would talk if he didn’t. Hill was part of a state task force, led by the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, investigating the shooting.
The reason given why an FBI supervisor demanded the group interview in February 2016 came out at the end of the trial.
In his closing argument, defense attorney David Angeli told jurors that the agents didn’t have legal representation with them since they were so far from home, FBI headquarters in Quantico, Virginia. They apparently wanted safety in numbers without a lawyer there.
But it’s likely that the Hostage Rescue Team agents consulted with a legal representative from the FBI Agents Association and could have had someone on the phone for any interview or flown out to help them.
“Had I known earlier there was a serious question about who shot and whether HRT agents were implicated, I would have involved the FBI’s Inspection Division for the benefit of all involved,’’ said Bretzing, Oregon’s FBI agent in charge at the time.
Investigators from the FBI’s Inspection Division wouldn’t have agreed to a group interview, he said.
The Hostage Rescue Team is reportedly considering requiring a legal representative travel with the team on its missions.
(The truck refuge occupation spokesman Robert "LaVoy" Finicum was driving on Jan. 26, 2016 when he raced from a police stop and swerved into a snowbank to avoid a police roadblock on U.S. 395/ Deschutes County Sheriff's Office)
-- State police, ordinarily required to wear body cameras, agreed not to wear the cameras during the arrests of the occupation leaders to protect the identities of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team agents.
State police detectives also normally record interviews of officers who might be involved in a shooting.
However, they didn't the night of the shooting when questioning the FBI Hostage Rescue Team members, again at the FBI's request, or during the February interview of the agents.
No one testified why the FBI didn’t want their interviews recorded.
The FBI typically doesn’t record such interviews. If the FBI’s Inspection Division had done the interview, the federal investigator would write up a report of the agent’s statement, the agent could make changes and then swear that it was true, providing a signed sworn statement.
In this case, the Hostage Rescue Team agents had someone who wasn’t at the scene write a “communal’’ FBI report on what they saw or did that day.
(Greg Bretzing, Oregon's FBI special agent in charge, at a March 2016 news conference, announcing the investigation into FBI Hostage Rescue Team agents)
-- Astarita and his colleagues on the Hostage Rescue Team each testified that they did a standard security items check, walking around the shooting scene to look for remnants of flash-bang grenades such as pins and other personal gear after Finicum was killed.
But a former head of the FBI’s training program for new agents -- who also trained Astarita in 2005 -- said nothing should have been moved at the shooting scene. And if it was moved for safety reasons, he said, the shooting investigators should have been told.
The investigators testified that they learned that FBI agents scoured the scene only after the fact by watching video from FBI planes monitoring the operation. Further, other flash-bang grenades and pins remained at the scene after the video caught the suspected agents bending down and picking things up at the scene, according to trial testimony.
Bretzing, Oregon’s head FBI agent at the time, testified that the search was unusual and concerning.
(The bullet strikes to Finicum's truck / Court exhibit)
-- Shooting investigators could find only two shell casings of eight shots fired at the roadblock. And the FBI didn’t turn over their guns for immediate examination.
Both of those things hampered the investigation, prosecutors said.
Had an FBI agent fired his rifle that day, the agent is required to alert a supervisor, who would call out the bureau’s Shooting Incident Response Team to investigate, seize the weapon and conduct a full inquiry into the shooting.
None of the agents’ rifles were immediately examined by the FBI or the shooting investigators because none of the agents said they fired that night.
After the shooting investigators found an unaccounted-for bullet hole in the roof of Finicum’s truck, FBI supervisors again asked all the Hostage Rescue Team agents if they had fired any rounds.
Astarita and his boss who was also at the roadblock, supervisory agent B.M., said they independently examined their own rifles in their 10-person tent at the tactical operations center at Burns airport a day or two after the shooting. They didn't find anything unusual to report, they testified. B.M.'s identity also was shrouded because the FBI said he was on active duty with the Army Reserves, involved in special operations.
Astarita was acquitted on charges that he lied when he denied taking two shots at Finicum’s truck at the roadblock after it crashed into a snowbank. One bullet hit the roof of the truck and the other missed as Finicum got out of the truck with his hands up at the roadblock, investigators said. No one has acknowledged taking the shots.
Officer 1 fired three times at Finicum’s truck as it bore down on the roadblock and then two shots that struck Finicum when he walked away from the truck. Officer 2 fired one bullet that hit Finicum.
(FBI tactical gear/ FBI)
-- FBI supervisory agent Mike Ferrari testified that the FBI recently has standardized how its SWAT operators load their rifle magazines. They now must put in 28 bullets.
Ferrari said the change didn’t stem from this case but because of a number of incidents throughout the FBI. He did not explain what those incidents involved.
- interjection by RTR Truth Media... we have the technology that each bullet an officer loads could be marked by adding nano-dye.
In this case, none of the FBI’s rifles were examined by investigators the night of the shooting.
The number of rounds initially loaded into Officer 1’s rifle became a point of contention during the trial. The defense argued Officer 1 could have taken the two disputed shots; Officer 1 said he loaded his rifle magazine with 29 bullets and 24 were remaining, confirming his account that he fired five shots that day and not the two disputed rounds. The defense countered that Officer 1’s rifle capacity is 31 bullets.
38. “Poverty is spiritual halitosis.” – George Orwell, 
