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ORWELL'S RIGHT ON THE MONEY
"The coin's reverse features a large eye
with the words BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU encircling the iris.
Orwell's name is inscribed underneath.
On its edge is the quote
THERE WAS TRUTH AND THERE WAS UNTRUTH
The coin features Charles III on the obverse"
~ The Royal Mint
Greetings Orwell Today Readers,
It was big excitement in the Orwell world -- in my world -- when it was announced mid-January that England's Royal Mint was issuing a new coin honouring George Orwell on the 75th anniversary of his death. See also ORWELL & LENIN DIED & HISS JAILED
GEORGE ORWELL GETS HIS OWN 2-POUND COIN
FEATURING AN ALL-SEEING EYE
Smithsonian Magazine, January 15, 2025
...The 2-pound (roughly $2.45) piece pays homage to Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell's famous dystopian novel exploring themes like totalitarianism, propaganda, surveillance and freedom. "He was a writer concerned with poverty, class and power. We will never know how George Orwell would feel about being commemorated on a coin. With phones and cameras being everywhere in your house, and being listened to by advertisers on your phone, you are really aware of how you're being surveyed -- and that's what Nineteen Eighty-Four is all about... The eye in the coin is like a camera lens staring at you all the time, unblinking".
The novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949, follows Winston Smith, a worker at the Ministry of Truth, as he secretly rebels against a totalitarian government and its leader, Big Brother. Orwell died at age 46 on January 21, 1950 -- just a few months after Nineteen Eighty-Four's publication... "The works of George Orwell have influenced generations, and his most famous works are still being studied today -- decades on from their first publication. The Royal Mint is delighted to share this unique design with collectors and fans of Orwell's work, paying tribute to one of the most world-renowned authors of the 20th century".
As a birthday gift to myself (born 20 days after Orwell's death) I ordered this piece of Orwell memorabilia and excitedly awaited its arrival -- which happened amazingly fast by Royal Mail delivery.
I took the coin out of its package and snapped photos. On the head side is the official effigy of CHARLES III inscribed *D*G*REX*F*D* which, from Latin, means: "by the Grace of God, King, Defender of the Faith". On the tail side of the coin is a large eye with the most famous words from 1984 -- BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU -- encircling the iris with 2 tiny cameras placed inside the pupil and, inscribed beneath, the author's name -- GEORGE ORWELL.
I was thinking of the passage in 1984 where Winston pulls a coin out from inside his pocket and melancholically soliloquies on his aloneness and fear for the future. I pulled the book down from the shelf and looked it up:
...On coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters and on the wrapping of a cigarette packet -- everywhere. Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed -- no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull...
He took a twenty-five cent piece out of his pocket.
There in tiny clear lettering, the three slogans were inscribed,
WAR IS PEACE -- FREEDOM IS SLAVERY -- IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
and on the other face of the coin
the head of Big Brother.
Even from the coin the eyes pursued you.
Above is that passage in Orwell's own handwriting scanned from my copy of the 1984 manuscript found in Orwell's bedroom in the Barnhill house on Jura a few weeks after his death in London. See VISITING ORWELL'S BARNHILL
I love the design of the Royal Mint coin -- the All-Seeing-Eye -- because it symbolically encapsulates Orwell's hidden meaning in 1984. That's the reason I chose it for the logo of my website way back in the year 2000. Godcidently, ORWELL TODAY was born -- went live on the world-wide-web -- on June 8, 2000 -- exactly 51 years after Orwell's 1984 book was published -- on June 8, 1949. I placed the logo symbolically atop a recent political cartoon:
At the apex
of the pyramid
comes BIG BROTHER.
Below BIG BROTHER comes the Inner Party
(the High), its numbers limited to six millions
or something less than 2% of the population of Oceania (the brain).
Below the Inner Party
comes the Outer Party (the Middle) which may be justly likened to (the hands).
Below that come the Dumb Masses
(the Low), who are habitually referred to as
'the proles', numbering perhaps 85 percent of the population (the body).
The slave populaton of the equatorial lands,
who pass constantly from conqueror to conqueror, are not a permanent or necessary part of the structure.
My webmaster scanned the All-Seeing-Eye directly off the capstone of the pyramid on the back of the American One Dollar Bill then enlarged and coloured it in.
Godcidently, the eye on the Royal Mint coin fits exactly over the eye on the pyramid of an enlargement of the ORWELL TODAY logo -- which I've now made into a display -- and 4 other coin creations -- to prop on shelves of Orwell books.
As previously mentioned, the symbolism of the All-Seeing-Eye on the Orwell coin brilliantly encapsulates the meaning of 1984 -- with its terrifying theme of nowhere-to-hide surveillance. Also on the coin -- surrounding the pupil containing the cameras -- are the words BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU -- literally symbolizing the essence of 1984. Orwell writes those very words on the very first page:
...The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features... On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.
Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures... The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely.... See VISITING WINSTON'S VICTORY MANSIONS FLAT
Reading Orwell's description of the face of BIG BROTHER there can be no doubt it's the face of Stalin -- front man after the Communist take-over of Russia by Marx, Lenin and Trotsky in 1917. But, as in ANIMAL FARM, Orwell had to write 1984 in code when exposing life in the Soviet Union under "boot stamping on human face" tyranny. See GOLDSTEIN'S THEORY & PRACTICE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM aka PROTOCOLS OF ELDERS OF ZION*
I tried to scan the coin on its edge, but it wouldn't stand up. I wanted to see if the words THERE WAS TRUTH AND THERE WAS UNTRUTH were really there because it seemed like a very long phrase to fit. I took the magnifying glass to it and followed the words all around the coin and yes, they're etched there in their entirety.
This made the coin even more precious because that's my favourite quote from 1984 -- and, as in their other choice of phrase and images for the coin, the Royal Mint captured Orwell's message -- his most important of all. It's reminiscent of Shakespeare's "This above all -- to thine own self be true".
The creator at the Royal Mint said, "We will never know how George Orwell would feel about being commemorated on a coin". But I think I know that Orwell would be monumentally amazed and pleased and happy that his 1984 message got through. Orwell did not spend his life in vain. Orwell was -- and forever will be -- "right on the money".
Orwell being "right on the money" has more than one meaning beyond being a colloquial expression for "exact or correct" which is why the Royal Mint put Orwell on the coin. The powers-that-be are acknowledging that Orwell was right about an all-seeing evil government -- BIG BROTHER -- in 1984.
The other meaning is that Orwell is "on the right money". In the display I created of Winston's coin spread across the American one dollar bill, it's the one made by the USA Government Treasury -- backed by silver -- not by the private Federal Reserve bank.
Above left is a one-dollar SILVER CERTIFICATE and on the right a FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE. Five months before he died JFK signed an Executive Order which explains the difference:
"On June 4, 1963, a virtually unknown Presidential decree, Executive Order 11110, was signed with the authority to basically strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the United States Federal Government at interest. With the stroke of a pen, President Kennedy declared that the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank would soon be out of business. President Kennedy's Executive Order 11110 gave the Treasury Department the explicit authority: to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the treasury. Go to JFK DOLLAR VS FED RESERVE BANK & JFK'S REAL AMERICAN DOLLARS & JFK DEFENDED DOLLAR FROM IMF
"Perhaps the assassination of JFK was a warning to all future presidents not to interfere with the private Federal Reserve's control over the creation of money".
The issuance of the new Orwell coin has symbolically and literally increased the value of Orwell's contribution to the truth about the BIG BROTHER BROTHERHOOD behind the money.
All the best,
Jackie Jura, January 2025
PS -- King Charles III ascended the British Throne in September 2022 following the death of his 96-year-old mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who reigned for 70 years. On the occasion of Charles' 75th birthday in November 2022 the Royal Canadian Mint issued coins with the new monarch's effigy.
PPS - The other day -- specifically on April 19 -- the day "the first shot was fired" bringing on the War of Independence 250 years ago -- I was taking my JFK-PT-109 GI-JOE off the shelf to show a friend and a coin dropped out and fell to the floor. Upon picking it up it was the JFK silver half-dollar coin a son had given me many years ago, which I'd forgotten about -- and have now scanned below.
THE KENNEDY HALF DOLLAR
is a fifty-cent coin first issued in 1964 by the United States Mint.
Intended as a memorial to the assassinated 35th president of the United States
it was authorized by Congress just over a month after his death.
Before the bicentennial years of 1975 and 1976,
the Kennedy Half Dollar featured the Presidential Seal on the reverse
while the obverse featured President John F Kennedy's Profile.
The reverse design was later altered during the bicentennial years
to create the 1776-1976 Bicentennial Kennedy Half Dollar.
The new design featured a revamped reverse side
with a centered image of the Independence Hall located in Philadelphia
-- this is where the Declaration of Independence was debated and adopted.
PPPS -- Godcidently finding the JFK coin made by the USA Mint reminded me that the Solomon Islands had also made a JFK coin -- and it features JFK and PT-109.
JFK 100TH BIRTHDAY SOLOMONS $1 COIN
The Royal Australian Mint proudly offer this superb coin honoring
the 100th anniversary of the birth of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963)
- the 35th President of the United States.
The design of this splendid coin pays tribute to the act of
heroism, endurance, and leadership shown by Lieutenant John F Kennedy in 1943
during WWII in the Pacific, specifically the Solomon Islands.
PPPPS - When I told my son the story about finding the JFK coin he'd given me and showing it on the website, he said he had a JFK coin too but it was issued in 1964. He shined it up and texted a pic which I developed and scanned below.
Godcidently, the original 1964 coin is a personification of JFK in the flesh -- at the podium above the Presidential Seal -- as seen on the cover of my 50th Anniversary Commemorative Collection of videos and images highlighting the life and career of JFK.
George Orwell estate accused of censorship after putting trigger warning at start of Nineteen Eighty-Four, June 7, 2025
The preface of the the 75th anniversary edition suggests Orwell's protagonist Winston Smith is 'problematic' and that readers may find his views on women 'despicable'. The introductory essay was written by USA novelist Dolen Perkins-Valdez and critics claim it risks undermining the revolutionary novel's warning against state control of thought. Orwell's dystopian hyperbolic future is set under an authoritarian regime, where citizens are punished by the 'Thought Police' for subversive thoughts. It follows Winston Smith, a minor bureaucrat who secretly rebels against the regime with Julia, a fellow party member. The novel has been hailed as one of the most influential pieces of literature of all time. Now, the author's estate has been accused of ideological policing. US writer Walter Kirn said on the podcast America this Week: 'We're getting someone to actually convict George Orwell himself of thought crime. We're not yet in a world where books and classic books are being excised or eliminated. The Orwell estate-approved edition of 1984 has been published with an apology for itself. The book already had a foreword written by American novelist Thomas Pynchon, leading Mr Kirn to question why a second was needed. 'These people felt they needed an introduction before the old white man's introduction. So this version of 1984 has a trigger warning!'. He called it 'the most 1984-ish thing I've ever f***ing read'. Ms Perkins-Valdez wrote she was enjoying the novel until Winston reveals himself to be a 'problematic' character who "disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones" and added that the novel doesn't address race and as a black woman she found it difficult to connect with the characters. See BOOK WIFEDOM ORWELLIAN PROLEFEED & ME-TOO JULIA SAY ORWELL MISOGYNIST
CO2 NET-ZERO 1984 REALITY CONTROL
...Musk is one of the world's most influential figures, best known as the co-founder and chief executive of electric vehicle carmaker Tesla. Musk has also founded a neurotechnology firm Neurolink, a tunnel construction service The Boring Company, a space exploration company SpaceX, and the artificial intelligence (AI) startup xAI. Cryptocurrency is yet another industry that Musk is closely associated with... While there have been rumors about Musk holding various meme coins, he has only confirmed owning three cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Dogecoin (DOGE). Musk has been Dogecoin's biggest supporter...He said Dogecoin has become "the people's coin" as many workers without financial knowledge own it... Bitcoin works through the collaboration of computers... It's mostly seen as an investment and has been described by some scholars as an economic bubble. As bitcoin is pseudonymous [using a false name], its use by criminals* has attracted the attention of regulators, leading to its ban by several countries... Under Trump's presidency, Musk has reportedly initiated discussions on integrating blockchain technology within the newly established DOGE -- Department of Government Efficiency -- as part of the new administration's push to advance the digital asset industry... Musk, who leads the DOGE effort, has explored using blockchain for cost-cutting measures in government operations, including tracking federal spending, securing data, making payments, and managing buildings... Musk sent shockwaves through social media when he expressed his view that fiat currencies, such as the US dollar and euro are essentially "scams"...
EDWARD VIII STAMPS/POSTBOX/ABDICATION
ORWELL & LENIN DIED & HISS JAILED (...It turns out that Alger Hiss -- one of USA President Roosevelt's closest advisors and the first Secretary General of the United Nations -- was found guilty of being a Communist spy and thrown into prison on the same day Orwell died, January 21, 1950. Symbolically, this is also the day in 1924 that Vladimir Lenin died -- leader of the Communist overthrow of Russia in 1917...)
...As we walked away from the hospital toward our next destination we passed a bookstore on the corner. There, on a pedestal in the front window, was a biography of Vladimir Lenin, with a picture of his face on the front cover. More symbolism. Where freedom dies, slavery thrives....I realized later that January 21, the day Orwell died in 1950, was the same day Lenin died in 1924...
...In the above photo I'm standing in front of the building below the windows of Orwell's top floor flat. The windows are for the small bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and Orwell's study/workshop. Notice the round blue Orwell commemorative plaque up high to the left of me designating this an historic house... Next I'm standing on top-of-the-stairs landing in front of the open door of Orwell's flat. (The flat next door is open too as they were in the middle of re-organizing). It was a thrilling experience to be retracing Orwell's footsteps up the six-flights of stairs I'd read so much about. "It was not easy for a tubercular invalid who often had to carry groceries, coal buckets and a heavy infant... Friends noticed that "Orwell was wheezing and gasping for breath by the time he reached the door". In 1984 Winston always 'went slowly, resting several times on the way'...
...Turning right at the end of the entrance hall is a long hallway. The rooms opening off the right side look out over Canonbury Square. The rooms opening off the left side look out over the walled back garden. Orwell's study/workshop is at the very end of the hallway. I'm standing in front of its open door but all you can see are my glasses glittering in my hand. The framed photographs on the wall to the right of Orwell's bedroom - and just outside his study/workshop - are a permanent memorial to George Orwell and must stay with the flat forever. Whoever lives in the flat must never remove them (except to paint or wallpaper, after which they must go back up). I took the photo while standing inside Orwell's study/workshop. There are eight altogether. They are the most famous of all the photos of Orwell and duplicates of them appear in most of the biographies. They were taken by his friend from the Freedom Defense League, Vernon Richards. Most of them depict Orwell in different poses, alone or with Richard, inside and outside Canonbury Square... ~jj
VISITING ORWELL'S BARNHILL (...I thought of Orwell's words about a window pane. In an essay written not long before he died he said that "prose should be as clear as a window pane" so that people would understand what the author was trying to tell them. He said he'd tried all his life to become as good a writer as he could be. The spotless Barnhill window above, with Orwell's typewriter reflected in its glass, is symbolic of him achieving that goal beyond even his imagination...)
ORWELL'S MANUSCRIPT OF 1984 & ORWELL DESCRIBED INTERNET IN 1984
CORPORATE-COMMUNIST CONSPIRACY IN 1984 (..."Big Brother Is Watching You" -- the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features....")
*
The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, published by Henry Ford, Dearborn Independent, from May 1920 to January 1922 (series printed off internet and spiral bound into 4 booklets by Jackie Jura)
2.Big Brother & 3.Surveillance & 5.Big Brother Pyramidal New World Order & 10.The Rulers & 16.Ministry of Truth (Lies) & 20.Thought Police & Snitches
Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~
email: orwelltoday@gmail.com
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