2024

by Ted Rall

Book Overview

Move forward two decades and see the world where giant media moguls and software corporations have become our big brothers. They want the best for us. They know what's best for us. And what is best for us we have chosen ourselves, to be a consumer heaven with no questions asked. A terrifying future where the past doesn't matter and no one cares. Ted Rall updates and spoofs 1984 in a scathing look at where we could be heading. His best and most chillingly...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1561632791
• ISBN13: 9781561632794
• Release Date: May 2001
• Publisher: Nantier Beall Minoustchine Publishing
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.5" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

A history of being right: Ted Rall, best political pundit around

Where all the Brooks, Safires, Krauthammers, all the talking heads on tv, all the bloviators on radio, all the local newspaper know-it-alls fooled us, Ted Rall was one of the rare voices who was right all along. Iraq was about oil and power, Bush was a phony, his posse a gang. So buy this thing, enjoy it, and know that you are in the company of a truly intelligent, truly brave good guy. Beside which, you get to laugh your fanny off, all the while nodding and mumbling: "he's right, by Jove, he KNOWS what's up!", until friends and family are convinced you've finally gone off the deep end.

Five Full Stars of Insight into Orwell and Our Times

This outstanding book brings out a forgotten side of the Orwellian nightmare, that is how it is not so much state terror or surveillance that gives us irrational and vicious governments as the unthinking and narrow time horizon of the captives. At bottom the citizens of idiotic systems allow the rulers to rule. The Orwellian slogans of this book are ASSUMPTIONS PERMIT IMAGINATION, KNOWLEDGE IS IMPOSSIBLE, and EXPLOITATION IS BENEVOLENCE. These mind-killing notions all flow from Orwell's notion that "2+2=4. Once that is granted all else must follow", meaning that liberty and good living depend upon an honest and general commitment to reality. Rall then has the guts to point to the biggest threat of totalitarianism in the world today: POSTMODERN PHILOSOPHY. Rall playfully calls it "Neo-post-modernism", and then shows in serious detail how it can rob working stiffs of certainty, language, and purpose. With foundations of knowledge cut out from underneath us, we are all ripe for media manipulation by unscrupulous leaders. Rall out-Orwells Orwell by cutting out reference to physical police state torture and "tortures" the protagonist Winston through non-thrilling entertainment. In short this is a perfect rendition of the vain, stupid dot.com corporate culture of our upper middle class and mass media. It is smart people without knowledge, culture without content, money without wealth or productivity, a libertine lifestyle without freedom, and directed, meaningless passions.

Quick and Depressing

I dont' care what the other reviewers claim, this comic is depressing. I can't drink my starbucks coffee the same way anymore. :) Rall does his thing, were he keeps nailing shocking concepts into your head. You'd be reeling from the last page, before he hits you again with something else just as shocking. Overall a quick and very enjoyable book. If you take out the 1984 satire stuff, the book is funny, intriguing, insightful, and downright scary. It left me a couple of nights thinking about how screwed up Western Society really is. Buy it!

Read 1984 first

This graphic novel is basically just a satire of "1984". The storyline is kind of erratic, but if you have read "1984" you will completely understand what is going on. "2024" is a humorous prediction from Ted Rall on what the future will be like. Instead of Big Brother watching, it is us who are watching each other, and it is scary look at what the future will be like. Of course since it is Ted Rall, this sad look at the future of society is completely hilarious. If you've read "1984" and are a fan of Ted Rall or just curious, then by all means purchase this book. The only downfall of this book is that it is sort of short but it is still a funny read.

Perfect Satire

Ted Rall parodies Orwell's 1984 while satirizing the consumer-oriented lifestyle of the 1990s/2000s and he hits the nail on the head. Funnier than anything else I've read this year, you'll probably wince a few times, recognizing yourself or someone you know. Plotline: A Gen-X consumer in the year 2024 spends all day playing video games and buying crap online. When the chance is presented to have an affair with a higher class worker, he goes for it, until both are arrested by one of the large corporations for being selfish and hurting profits. Unlike Orwell's Winston, we never see a change in any of the characters... they're happily stupid and want to stay that way... but there's still an uncomfortable feeling when we see how close society's heading down this path.