Exponentializing Orwell

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
Our Inner Party is rather more clever and possessed also of rather more technological options than Oceania's Inner Party was. Though not very good qua novel, Orwell's conceptual apparatus strikes me more and more as an indispensable element of political education. Of course that evil and incompetent faggot, Hoover, commenced this subterranean war against the American citizenry back in the 20s. And to this day the FBI is far better at tracking down petty domestic threats than guarding against real threats, like the espionage programs run by major powers. The Farewell Dossier, hand delivered to Reagan via a top Soviet KGB agent in 1981, demonstrated that the Soviets had such a vast and comprehensive spy program in the West--especially in America--that the technology thus acquired had kept their economy and military afloat throughout the Cold War. Of course, before the Cold War we had simply given them our technological riches. In other words, their entire economy and most of their military was founded on exogenous innovation. Outside of modest contributions to pure science and a few military advances, there was no innovation in the Soviet bloc. It was a gigantic, truculent parasite. But, the FBI had detected virtually none of this activity. Apparently catching bank robbers and destroying the John Birch Society was more important in their provincial minds. Now the Chinese are the principal threat, yet no signs of savvy FBI countermeasures appear. Though their economy is more efficiently organized than the Soviet's was, they've yet to demonstrate a capacity for innovation. They are quite good at technology theft though. The FBI's primary role is to manufacture consent domestically. I suspect the DIA/NSA/CIA/NGA/NRO/OICI/TFI/INR/etc. nexus does little more than manufacture consent abroad. The "democracy" part of our polity is strictly for purposes of public entertainment, like the circuses, indeed very like the circuses, in old Rome. Whether this odd configuration of national defense can last one wonders. Against the Soviets, some success may be claimed. But, then, their economic system was so outrageously inefficient, it made us look good in comparison. Their capacity to utilize all the tech their spies stole was badly constrained by their economic system. The Chinese have a better--probably a much better--set up. And, their demographics look much more formidable numerically, and somewhat better qualitatively. Confining American espionage to manufacturing consent at home and abroad will next be measured by its effects on the two remaining great powers. Which will suffer more damage from the firehose of egalitarian propaganda issuing from NYC, LA, and DC?