Transmissions

Day by day and almost minute by minute
The past was brought up to date
In this way every prediction could be shown
By documentary evidence to have been correct

Nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion
Which conflicted with the needs of the moment
Ever allowed to remain on record
Scraped clean and re-inscribe

The past had not merely been altered
It had been actually destroyed
For how could you establish even the most obvious fact
When no record existed outside your own memory?

All history scraped clean and re-inscribed
Exactly as often as was necessary
War is peace, freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength

The whole climate of thought will be different
In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now
Orthodoxy means not thinking-not needing to think

Orthodoxy is unconsciousness
Scraped clean and re-inscribed exactly as often as was necessary
Orthodoxy is ignorance
Ignorance is slavery, War is Peace

The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous
The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects
And its object is not victory

But to keep the very structure of society
Intact, scraped clean and re-inscribed
War is peace freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength

They were said to be building a palace in the sky
But nothing changes, everything stays the same
Just wrapped in different plastic, I am too dead for dreaming
We will be remembered for what we destroyed

A world of corpses, a world of corpses
Decay and collapse where we spoke of pain
A rope around my neck but we will make corpses of you all
Time will make us sell it so short in our race down

We think we know things
And are close to mastery yet time passes
We have become gods
Knowing what is good and evil

And so we live with the knowledge of death
Sublime intoxication
Will this destroy me? Rot my body?
Groin to dry, catch my thoughts in rots?
The more I know the more I need to get me through
Sublime intoxication

When did the future become a threat?
The past has been destroyed
The war is not meant to be won
All history turns to plastic

Scraped clean and re-inscribed
Some things are so corrupt
That the only clean act is nihilism
As we slip and disintegrate
Layer by layer

If we don’t build we must burn
Civilization is the infection
Where we revere the sticky spoor of blood
These are brutal times