Special Opinion to the Mirror written by Chas Cornweller.
I’d been thinking lately of re-reading, George Orwell’s book, Nineteen Eighty-Four. I had read it once back in High School, after the required reading of Animal Farm. But it was Nineteen Eighty-Four that left me in a mild stage of psychological shock. I was sixteen at time. I am not wholly sure what the catalyst was, but I am pretty sure it was the pre-conditioning of my Vietnam years. The falsehoods of those years from our government and the final stages of the Nixon administration and the eventual lies told to the national press and the American people. Once I grasped the full meaning of Orwell’s masterpiece, it possibly dawned on me. This could happen to America and my world. Ah, the innocence of youth!
Now don’t misunderstand, I was raised a well-adjusted child in a strong middle-class family in a small town in rural America. I went to church most every Sunday. I had plenty of same-aged friends, plus cousins and a family that was close. I also had a paper route during these formative years and a natural inquisitiveness that led me to read those headlines and delve deeper into their portent meanings. So, by the time I was sixteen most of my world-view was shaped by a daily reading of world events coupled with a weekly rendering of current events before my civics class. There was no talk of “fake news” in those days. In fact, historically (and unless someone has altered the entire history of the world since the mid-fifties until the late seventies) I would venture to say almost ninety-five percent of what I saw, read and believed has come to pass as historic fact. Four administrations of presidents DID lie about the objectives and results of a war half-way across the world. ALL of those young college students were correct in deducing that the draft was for naught.
President Nixon was a crooked politician and rightly was well on his way to being impeached. Fortunately for America, he took the honorable route and resigned his presidency. But, in the year nineteen and seventy-two, the issues were not so black and white. And the nation was divided. The war on poverty and the war for social justices were just as bleak and critical then as they are now. But the lie was then, well, we’re winning the war on Social Justice. We’re going to win the war on poverty, as well. Today, these same wars continue. But hindsight being twenty-twenty, we can see all the reasons why they failed, can we not?
America has been wandering in the wilderness since the closing days of World War II. It is interesting to read somewhere…that when Germany and the Soviet Union entered into an uneasy truce (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939) that the collective world held its breath and prayed for peace. But, when Germany invaded Russia in nineteen and forty-one, suddenly the Soviet propaganda was that World War Two was a Capitalist Fraud. It certainly appeared that way to Communists around the world. But, again, in hindsight, we all know it was Hitler’s goal all along to eliminate the Bolsheviks. But what was the true intent of World War Two? Obviously, Japan had a different intent than Nazi Germany. But if you look closely enough, both Germany and Japan had rightful justifications for their intentions. This is the double-sided curse of history. Just as, if you look closely enough at America’s history, you will see a dark and horrendously bloody side to its birth and growth as a super-power nation. But most will not look, nor care too. They can’t handle that truth. Which brings me to our wandering these past seventy-odd years as a megalithic drunken giant welding an oversized and bloody sword. Anyone who dares to cross our path and tries to usurp any amount of power from this giant will face its wrath. To the extent that it sometimes has been to our own detriment. Case in point: Research one OSS member A. Peter Dewey and his relationship with communist aligned troops (Viet Minh) and how America came so very close to resolving closure with the Vietnamese people and the French colonials. Ah, but history is not kind. And America was so fixated on rooting out communism from every nook and crevice, ears were closed along with eyes and imaginations in nineteen forty-five. Peace died the day Dewey was killed accidentally by the Viet Minh and therefore, twenty years later, so had fifty-three thousand of America’s youth. Look it up…research the facts.
So, what does this have to do with the book Nineteen Eighty-four? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Perhaps somewhere in the middle? You see, we’ve been at war nearly twenty years in the Middle East (Disputed Lands in Orwell’s book). We’ve been told we are there to win the hearts and minds (build schools, hospitals, preach Democracy and goodwill) of these people. We set out to bring Afghanistan into the twentieth century. We set out to free the Iraq people from a despot (which, incidentally we helped to prop up as dictator during the Iran-Iraq conflict – historically speaking). So, yes, he was our problem. Nearly twenty years of our military presence has brought us to where? Just this past week, another major attack on our embassy in Bagdad and the killing of Iran’s General Soleimani supposedly to ratchet down the violence in the area.
At what point, how could all of this have been prevented? At which junction, in the drunken ramblings of this fierce and all-powerful giant, did we take a wrong turn? When was peace on the minds of the ones who are responsible for this mess? And just who is responsible? Was it Truman, when he insulted Soviet Minister Molotov at the White House on April 23rd, Nineteen Forty-Five? Perhaps it was Neville Chamberland caving to Adolf Hitler in giving him the western portion of Czechoslovakia in Nineteen and Thirty-Eight? We could go back to the unfortunate and highly ill-advised Treaty of Versailles of Nineteen-Nineteen. One could argue that this treaty set Germany on the course for the Second World War and so on and so forth. Maybe it was France and England carving up the Middle East just prior to the First World War ending. So many crossroads. So many ill-advised decisions. So many empty-headed politicians guiding the multitudes towards oblivion.
Now, of course, I sit at my computer with complete twenty-twenty hindsight on all of these historic and infamous moments, so it’s easy to say what went wrong. But, here’s the rub; I spoke up to anyone who would listen in Two Thousand and Three and warned that it would not go well in Iraq if we invaded a sovereign nation (unconstitutional by the way – Congress or no Congress) without provocation from that nation. Many I spoke with, agreed. Many did not. It is now history.
I have been saying for years, that this nation’s reliance on oil and oil product is much like a drug addict’s desperation and needs. America claims it is protecting its vital interest in this region. The oil does not belong to us! It would be comparably the same if Japan had staked a claim with the Bush family during the nineteen-fifties and then placed a standing army in Texas and Oklahoma to guarantee unlimited access to that oil. The Bushes get mega-rich, while the rest of this country withers. Meanwhile, Japan occupies our sovereign lands. Do you not understand how much this must chafe at the people of Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait? The drunken giant indeed.
So, perpetual war…at least until the wells run dry? Try asking the Ministry of Peace. I am sure we are finally gaining the upper hand within those disputed lands. As long as Eurasia doesn’t interfere. Feeling that generous helping of prosperity and wealth yet? If not, try the Ministry of Plenty. Perhaps you’ll get lucky with one of those many lotteries they like to put in front of us. If you still feel like you aren’t getting the answers you need, or you feel your news feed has let you down. (you know, it’s all fake news) try the Ministry of Propaganda. I am sure you’ll find what you’ll need from them and if not, it’s all soon to be there, in the history books. Fresh from the publications of the Ministry of Truth.
As a sixteen-year kid, I could not understand my anxiety by reading just one book. Little did I know then, what I know now. I was reading the future. It does cut close to the bone. Interesting to me, it was Animal Farm that opened that door. Ironic.
Paul Plante says
An interesting read all the way around with plenty of red meat on the bone to chew on.
I can’t remember when I first read 1984, but for me, it is one of those books that never really gets set down and put away, as I find myself referring to it quite a bit as time passes, and the world depicted in that book has become more and more the reality that we find ourselves more and more immersed into, especially with regard to Doublethink and the Democrat party, to wit:
The keyword here is blackwhite.
Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings.
Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts.
Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this.
But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary.
This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink.
Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
— Part II, Chapter IX – The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism
Ray Otton says
Find a better place to live and GO THERE.
Paul Plante says
The difference between myself and Wayne Creed is that my particular group of students in my rural school right after WWII, when Korea was getting going, was that we were told in detail that what was portrayed in 1984 WAS going to happen here in America in our lifetimes, which was why we were getting taught to not only think for ourselves, but that we had a duty to do so, so that we would not be so foolish as to succumb to the lies and propaganda.
Had we all done that, H.R. McMaster would have been deprived of the opportunity to write his masterpiece historical work, “Dereliction of Duty; Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Viet Nam” where he stated thusly:
Although U.S. advisors were fighting with South Vietnamese units and U.S. pilots were flying combat missions in South Vietnam, Kennedy denied that Americans were involved in combat, and Vietnam attracted little public or congressional attention.
Vietnam was far from front-page news and Americans still believed that their government told them the truth.
end quotes
How naïve we were back then, and I must confess to having been one of them.
MJM says
Well Chas, we must be about the same age, and I too came from a supportive nuclear family and was fortunate enough to have received a solid education ( or so I think) from The Sisters of Charity. I read the same books. I’m not sure if you’re saying the school years were your age of anxiety, or they were shortly thereafter, or they are here now. Personally, Alfred E. Newman is my hero and comically influenced my mindset. What ? Me Worry ?
I got a different read from Orwell than you. I thought he was talking in the present as well as the future and wouldn’t say so due to his own fears of the thought police. The government, the press and big business were all feeding us their crapola to promote their agenda. In feeding it to us they tried to get us to overthink and get into our minds. Due to the fact that I knew I could not affect any outcome, I did not let it get to an anxiety level, and ignored them as best I could. Some of life is a mind game, so that’s how I play.
Our Big Brother government is not the only one watching. So is little sister Alexa, and now we find so is your smart t.v, and of course Twitter and Mr. Zuckerberg. Our minds and our impulses are valuable, and for sale, and controllable if we are what they say we are, and if you believe what they learn and say. How much they learn and affect what we say, depends on how much we let them linger, no ?
Has anything changed ? Are not the government, the press and big business all feeding us their agenda and/or crapola to influence our thoughts ? Or are they all feeding us the same hook, line and sinker just as different marketing agencies with a larger world market field now ?
America has been fumbling through all this since post WW2 ? Naaahh. They are all just getting better at using whichever medium delivers a better message from more places.
Just stick with the basics. Fight the fights you have a chance in. Otherwise turn your eyes and ears to your own positive message and ignore them just like they ignore you.
Paul Plante says
And this is a subject where context is all important as to the why of the existence of the book, at all.
Why would anybody bother to write such a book in the first place?
To cause anxiety in younger generations?
Or as a warning?
For answers to those questions, plus the necessary context, History Today had an article on Orwell himself entitled “George Orwell’s last novel was published on 8 June, 1949” by Richard Cavendish | Published in History Today Volume 49 Issue 6 June 1999, where we have this following background:
George Orwell’s 46th birthday was less than a month off when his last novel was published in London by Secker & Warburg, and five days afterwards by Harcourt Brace in New York.
The socialist author of the 20th century’s most devastating critique of left-wing totalitarianism had less than a year left to live.
end quotes
As we ponder what is going on in the immediate world around us, and here I am referring to the Commonwealth of Virginia, as it slips under the control of the left-wing Democrat party, and the corrupt ****-hole of New York, which is now firmly in the grip of the Democrats, we need to focus on the words “Left-wing totalitarianism,” which sweeps Constitutional government as we once knew it, off the road and firmly into the ditch, never to rise again.
Getting back to Orwell and the origins of 1984, which in actuality, had their roots in the WWII period, we have:
The idea for the book had come to him in 1943 and themes in an early outline included, ‘The system of organized lying on which society is founded, the ways in which this is done (falsification of records, etc), the nightmare feeling caused by the disappearance of objective truth, leader-worship, etc…’.
No one who knew London in the years immediately after 1945 will need to be told where the appalling shabbiness of the book’s setting came from.
The shortages, the bombsites, the regular failure of things to work properly, the prevailing dreariness – were drawn from real life.
end quotes
As to “anxiety,” in 1950, “1984” was banned and burned in communist Russia under Stalin and USSR, ownership meant possible arrest for its anti-communist views.
Then, in 1981, in Jackson County, Florida, the book was challenged for being pro-communist, which I think is a crock, having actually read the book, as opposed to merely hearing about it in a book review or something.
The book is hardly pro-communist; to the contrary, I have always viewed it as a warning of what happens when a totalitarian system is put in place in a nation and Constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms cease to exist, as was the case in Stalin’s Russia, where they never existed in the first place.
Looking back as someone born at the end of WWII, when fascism in Europe had been defeated, but certainly not obliterated, and communism was on the rise, with the IRON CURTAIN of Soviet oppression falling in Europe, and especially Hungary, I would have to say that the backdrop of much of my early education as a young American citizen stemmed from the warnings about the totalitarian system presented in “1984,” because it was made incandescently clear to us young Americans back then, especially with the Korean conflict then in full bloom, that WWII had not really ended anything at all – to the contrary, it was merely the close in a long struggle that goes back and back in time for several thousand years, and that is the struggle for power and what is required to achieve it.
Today, the war we can’t win without the imposition of a virtual dictatorship as was the case during the Second Punic War after the Lake Trasimene debacle when the Roman Senate made Quintus Fabius Maximus dictator is the WAR AGAINST CARBON DIOXIDE, which makes for an ideal enemy far better than the Carthaginian Hannibal Barco, given that this latest enemy is totally invisible.
As to the imposition of a totalitarian form of government to fight this invisible enemy, in the corrupt third-world ****-hole of New York, as a result of Democratic Socialist governor and tyrant Young Andy Cuomo’s Green New Deal, we now have this, to wit:
The Green New Deal will create the State’s first statutory Climate Action Council, comprised of the heads of relevant State agencies and other workforce, environmental justice, and clean energy experts to develop a comprehensive plan to make New York carbon neutral by significantly and cost-effectively reducing emissions from all major sources, including electricity, transportation, buildings, industry, commercial activity, and agriculture.
end quotes
The dictatorship has begun.
Will Virginia be next?
Paul Plante says
And my goodness, dear friend and fellow American patriot Chas Cornweller, I owe both you and Wayne Creed a sincere apology for attributing authorship of this interesting essay to Wayne Creed, when it was from your pen that it flowed forth!
All I can say is that I get the Cape Charles Mirror through home delivery and when I saw this title, I jumped right past the title and author into the body itself, all the time wondering why a “chive-on” surfer dude like Wayne Creed would be feeling any anxiety about anything outside of excessive carbon pollution in the earth’s atmosphere causing the ocean’s waves to go limp, which would certainly raise hell with the surfing conditions, which would be a violation of Wayne Creed’s civil rights if he was under the age of 18 and so, wasn’t able to vote for somebody who would get out there and protect his right to have the waves he wants when he wants them, and where.
Now that I know it is not Wayne Creed who is experiencing the anxiety, but yourself, matters become more clear.
And the best of the new year to you, Chas!
Paul Plante says
Dear friend Chas, reading though your essay on the psychological impact 1984 had on you as a 16-year old child during the VEET NAM period of American history one more time, it comes to me that your education here in the United States of America was vastly different from mine, and with respect to citizenship, perhaps yours was vastly inferior, as we were taught as young Americans the significance of what was presented in 1984, while you were left all alone to have to try and suss it out all by yourself, which you were not apparently equipped to do by your inferior education.
The point you seem to miss, dear friend Chas, is that the book is not about governments making endless war, or lying to people – to the contrary, it is about what life would or could be like in a totalitarian system, such as Joe Stalin had imposed in the Soviet Union and Russia, and the rug-chewing madman Adolph Hitler had imposed in Nazi Germany.
Teaching from 1984 made clear the differences between what our United States Constitution was supposed to guarantee us as American citizens in terms of rights and liberties, versus what would befall us as a nation and as a people if indeed someone were to impose on us a totalitarian system for any reason, this being right after WWII, when one totalitarian system had been defeated, not eliminated, and another, far more dangerous because of its universal appeal, that being world communism, was on the rise.
Consider, Chas, that in 1984, BIG BROTHER exists, and people simply accept that, for the most part, without questioning, because daring to question can be very bad for your health!
That, we were taught as young Americans, was why we were being taught to critically think and to question, not to blindly obey, a teaching that I saw go out the window not all that many years later when the threat of communism made it necessary instead for children like yourself to obey, rather than question.
In other words, to beat the totalitarian system of communism, it was necessary to impose on the children of America a counter-totalitarian system that would stand against communism.
Getting back to 1984, and what I was taught versus yourself, and this is from Wikipedia, in the novel, it is never made clear whether Big Brother is or had been a real person, or is a fictional personification of the Party, similar to Britannia and Uncle Sam.
Big Brother is described as appearing on posters and telescreens as a man in his mid-40s.
In Party propaganda, Big Brother is presented as one of the founders of the Party.
At one point, Winston Smith, the protagonist of Orwell’s novel, tries “to remember in what year he had first heard mention of Big Brother.”
“He thought it must have been at some time in the sixties, but it was impossible to be certain.”
“In the Party histories, Big Brother figured as the leader and guardian of the Revolution since its very earliest days.”
“His exploits had been gradually pushed backwards in time until already they extended into the fabulous world of the forties and the thirties, when the capitalists in their strange cylindrical hats still rode through the streets of London”.
In the book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, read by Winston Smith and purportedly written by Goldstein, Big Brother is referred to as infallible and all-powerful.
No one has ever seen him and there is a reasonable certainty that he will never die.
He is simply “the guise in which the Party chooses to exhibit itself to the world” since the emotions of love, fear and reverence are more easily focused on an individual (if only a face on the hoardings and a voice on the telescreens) than an organisation.
When Winston Smith is later arrested, O’Brien repeats that Big Brother will never die.
When Smith asks if Big Brother exists, O’Brien describes him as “the embodiment of the Party” and says that he will exist as long as the Party exists.
When Winston asks “Does Big Brother exist the same way I do?” (meaning is Big Brother an actual human being), O’Brien replies “You do not exist” (meaning that Smith is now an unperson; an example of doublethink).
end quotes
Does Big Brother exist the same way you do, dear friend Chas?
Or is he the more real of the two of you?
Those are the questions I had to confront as a young American citizen being taught what freedom from totalitarian oppression really means and really requires, starting with not letting some party hack named Big Brother steal our minds and hold them hostage as was the case with the majority in 1984.
Chas Cornweller says
Well Paul, to be confused the writings of Wayne Creed, present editor of the mirror is a high honor I must admit. No apologies are necessary, except perhaps to Wayne as he is the better writer. To be confused with his ideologies is another matter, but we’ll let that lie for the time being. Also, the title is confusing as well, implying that I have high anxiety over the present state of affairs (such as they are). I do not, only concern for my children and my grandchildren. And most of my anxiety passed from subject to subject as I progressively grew older until I found personal redemption in my life by professing my love for Christ. And it was many years later that I truly found peace (by relaxing, understanding that my life was not about control but being aware of my own faults and shortcomings, and by not giving into the impulse to fight every little thing, but to save my energies for the truly important battles). In essence, I am not the anxious sixteen-year-old that I wrote of. So, the title of this piece was misleading. Not the title I would have given it anyway.
That said, I’d like to clarify further my point in writing this editorial. Both MJM both hit the agenda thing squarely on the head. And since the time Orwell wrote this masterpiece, governments around the world have only fine-tuned both their message and their delivery of these messages. And trust me, these messages represent not their agendas, but quite the opposite. (See what I did there – the upside-down world of Nineteen Eighty-Four quite clearly paints this) I wrote this piece so that folks would think about the messages today we are receiving. Folks would look at our leaders and see the world as they represent it. That the people who haven’t read Orwell’s masterpiece, would. And those that did read it a long, long time ago would either re-read it, or at least recall. It’s important. Because both MJM and Paul are correct. We are living a large part of Orwell’s warning. We are being monitored, scanned, data-mined, photo-graphed and watched. Daily. Our data is being sold and re-sold in bundles across the world. Personal privacy is gone. The right to privacy is gone. As M|JM said, they are getting into our minds. They are already in our homes, our places of worship, our phones and our workplace. And as Paul says, Orwell was warning us. But we the populace did not take heed. We all thought this would take place in Russia or China or Eastern Europe. Well, it did. But it takes place here as well. As the song says, I want to know who the men in the shadows are. But, we don’t, and we will never know. But they know you! And this is the warning. Smart phones know your every move. Your location, what you looked at, what you bought on the internet for Christmas. It listens to your conversations and feeds you ads in conjunction to your subject matter. Think I am joking? You think this is normal?
No, this is not about communism or socialism or even democracy. This is way above and beyond politics. This is Big Brother, Government control, but with an agenda. And that is even more frightening than anything Orwell wrote.
And this last line is for Ray Otton…I think I will. I am thinking Cape Charles. How about it, neighbor?
Paul Plante says
Chas, the concept of a government without an agenda is hard to wrap one’s mind around.
Can there ever be a government without an agenda?
Wouldn’t that be a formula for chaos?
And it indeed is NOT about communism or socialism or even democracy, which are mere words denoting nebulous concepts, since democracy and socialism and communism are all inextricably linked, so that a democracy certainly could and have chosen socialism and communism as their political systems.
Consider socialism in the United Kingdom, which is thought to stretch back to the 19th century from roots arising in the aftermath of the English Civil War.
As Wikipedia informs us, although this used to be taught in the eighth grade, if not earlier, notions of socialism in Great Britain have taken many different forms from the utopian philanthropism of Robert Owen through to the reformist electoral project enshrined in the birth of the Labour Party.
Consider, dear friend Chas, and as to Wayne Creed, as I understand his ideology, it is to be there where the waves are if you expect to be able to surf, because if you are over 18, tough luck, dude, you’re on tour own, because the federal government is under no obligation to provide you with the waves you want and expect where you want and expect them, which certainly is a conservative ideology, but a sound one nonetheless, that while the Reformation occurred later in Britain than in most of mainland Europe, nonetheless, as in the rest of Europe, various liberal thinkers such as Thomas More became prominent.
At the same time, however, another important current was the emergence of the radical Puritans who wanted to reform both religion and the nation, which is known as authoritarianism, and as you must remember, dear friend Chas, from your own grade school teachings, the same Puritans and their authoritarian policies play a big, or perhaps even outsized role in our early history as the Puritans were in control of government in New England for some long period of time.
Authoritarianism as the Puritans of New England practiced it and tried to impose on others is a form of government characterized by strong central power and limited political freedoms.
As Wikipedia informs us, political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government. which are separate from the terms democracy, which certainly can be and usually ends up being authoritarian, or sociology or communism, all of which can be anywhere from authoritarian to totalitarian.
Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic in nature, and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military.
In our case in America today, the political specter we are all confronted with as a people and as a nation is the authoritarian rule of Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat party, which is trying to reform our nation, by coercion, if necessary, which takes us to an influential 1964 work wherein the political scientist Juan Linz defined authoritarianism as possessing four qualities:
1. Limited political pluralism, realized with constraints on the legislature, political parties, and interest groups;
2. Political legitimacy based upon appeals to emotion, and identification of the regime as a necessary evil to combat “easily recognizable societal problems, such as underdevelopment, and insurgency”;
3. Minimal political mobilization and suppression of anti-regime activities;
4. Ill-defined executive powers, often vague and shifting, which extends the power of the executive.
end quotes
There’s the roadmap, dear friend and fellow American patriot and future citizen of Cape Charles, Virginia – where do you see our nation on it today?
We in our time today are certainly confronted with the political legitimacy of the Democrat party being based upon appeals to base emotion and mindless passion.
Now, with respect to Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat party, it must be remembered from high school civics that authoritarian states might indeed contain nominally democratic institutions, such as political parties, legislatures and elections, which are managed to entrench authoritarian rule as is the case here today in the corrupt third-world ****-hole of New York State under the iron rule of Democratic Socialist governor Young Andy Cuomo; and thus, dear friend Chas, a dictatorship can feature fraudulent, non-competitive elections, as is the case in the town I live in, where you have several parties to pick from, but only one name for all of them, which is called democracy, since you do have a choice as to what party you vote for, even though there is only the one candidate to choose from.
Now as to totalitarianism, it is a political system or a form of government that prohibits opposition parties, restricts individual opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life.
It is regarded as the most extreme and complete form of authoritarianism.
Did you catch the flow, there, Chas Cornweller?
One day, you wake up, like today, and hey, guess what, there is Big Brother looking over your shoulder!
Mememine69 says
Orwell’s 1984 world is a collectivist, group-think, totalitarian society where free speech is outlawed.
A left-winger’s dream come true.
You have been warned. #Liberty #Freespeech #CivilLiberties #Individualism #FreeWill
Chas Cornweller says
@ Mememine69… (great signature by the way, I see what you did there) Not just a left-winger’s dream come true, but any extremist who comes to power. My question to you…would you call the National Socialist German Workers’ Party a left-wing group or a right-wing group? Clearly what Orwell was basing his “Big Brother” concept of collectivism on was Fascism. And yes, you are correct as it was about “Group Think” and a totalitarian society where free speech (and more importantly, even free thought) was outlawed.
A couple of asides here… (one) I’ve heard the term “groupthink” used in positive terms. I once heard it used to describe the type of mindset the Grateful Dead would enter into whenever they played/jammed together. I have also heard it to describe jazz improvisation. Army units use it as well as sports teams. So, it’s a loose term to describe like mindedness. Secondly, America today is well on its way to becoming a totalitarian state. (ever heard the term, two wings…one bird to describe present day politics?) By definition many of our own governmental practices are dangerously close to totalitarianism. Think Big Government or Eisenhower’s warning of “The Military Industrial Complex.” I think the warning signs are all around us. As far as the left-wingers, they have been shouted down enough by the ardent right to be relegated to the sidelines. Shades of the nineteen thirties, I think. We are more in danger from those who hold the reins of power and control the economy. What Paul writes of above is very close to the truth. Especially with the emergence of the New Puritanism and the fanatical hold evangelist have on our current socio-political situation. As far as agenda is concerned, read the preamble to the Constitution. That is the agenda America should have, could have. See the difference?
Paul Plante says
The preamble to the constitution is declaratory of the purposes of our union, and the assumption of any powers not necessary to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, will be unconstitutional, and endanger the existence of Congress.
– A Citizen of America: An Examination Into the Leading Principles of America, by Noah Webster October 17, 1787
This will be a proper time for making an observation or two on what may be called the preamble to this constitution.
I had occasion, on a former day, to mention that the leading principle in the politics, and that which pervades the American constitutions, is, that the supreme power resides in the people.
This Constitution, Mr. President, opens with a solemn and practical recognition of that principle: “We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, etc., do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
It is announced in their name—it receives its political existence from their authority: they ordain and establish.
– Remarks on the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention, by James Wilson on November 28, 1787
Publius Americanus says
” So, it’s a loose term to describe like mindedness.”
Umm, mindLESSness. FIFY.
Also, a clue….when the name of the party includes the word Socialist, it’s a left wing group.
The Leader of the NSGWP was an occultist/atheist, YUUUUUGE greenie, disarmed his subjects and believed in Government ownership/control of industry.
Yup, lefty all the way.
Chas Cornwell says
At Publius Americanus…please don’t embarrass yourself further. Take a history course (or several) at the local community college. Learn the facts about history, not what you think happened. A clue, for you…even though the Nazi Party had the word socialist in its party name, does not mean they were leftist. As a matter of historic fact, many German socialist were thrown into the concentration camps along with communists, intellectuals, political opponents, etc…Hitler and his cronies were not leftist, by far. Do a bit of research, because, personally, to me, your comment was just plain embarrassing.
Paul Plante says
Speaking of not embarrassing yourself further, dear friend and fellow American patriot Chas Cornweller, and taking a history course (or several) at the local community college to really learn the facts about history, not what you think happened, consider that over the 263 years between 1751 and 2014, the United States produced more than twenty-five percent of global C02 emissions now in the earth’s atmosphere.
Were you aware of that fact, for fact it now is?
If you aren’t aware of that fact, why would that be, do you think, given that this fact is a fact that in the United States of America is very generally commonly known?
If you weren’t taught this fact, Chas Cornweller, why that purposeful hole in your education?
Or was it purposeful?
Could it just be a case of your teachers themselves being ignorant and unaware of this reality?
Can you see what I am talking about, Chas Cornweller?
Can you hear what I am saying?
Because over the 263 years between 1751 and 2014, the United States produced more than twenty-five percent of global C02 emissions in the earth’s atmosphere, Chas Cornweller, we in the United States of America are now in a state of war, where for something to be true, it first must be false, lest the enemy know what we are really thinking, which would shift the balance of power in their favor, not our favor, which is where it should always be.
Hence, lies are now the only truth you will ever hear.
For national security reasons, Chas Cornweller.
How do I know we are not only at war, but in the fight of our lives which requires us to sacrifice our liberty to the cause of social and climate justice?
By goodness, man, how can you possibly not know, when the news is all over town, as follows:
Alicia Barton, President and CEO, NYSERDA, said, “Climate scientists have made frighteningly clear that averting the worst effects of climate change will require bold action, not incremental steps, and Governor Cuomo’s Green New Deal boldly goes where no others have before.”
“His unwavering climate agenda includes the most aggressive clean energy target in U.S. history, the largest commitments to renewable energy and to offshore wind in the nation, a massive mobilization of clean energy jobs and an unprecedented investment in offshore wind port infrastructure.”
“Together these actions make New York the clear national leader in the fight against climate change, and will show the world that New York can and will achieve a clean energy future for the sake of future generations.”
end quotes
That fight, Chas, is because for the 263 years between 1751 and 2014, the United States produced more than twenty-five percent of global CO2 emissions now in the earth’s atmosphere, and all we can say is we must have brought it on ourselves, and hopefully, when the war is finally over, which may well not be in our lifetimes, we will get at least some of our liberty back.
In the meantime, Chas, the imposition of a totalitarian form of government to fight this invisible enemy in the corrupt third-world ****-hole of New York has begun, as a result of Democratic Socialist governor and tyrant Young Andy Cuomo’s Green New Deal, to wit:
The Green New Deal will create the State’s first statutory Climate Action Council, comprised of the heads of relevant State agencies and other workforce, environmental justice, and clean energy experts to develop a comprehensive plan to make New York carbon neutral by significantly and cost-effectively reducing emissions from all major sources, including electricity, transportation, buildings, industry, commercial activity, and agriculture.
end quotes
The dictatorship has begun, Chas.
For something to be true, it must first be a blatant lie, like for the 263 years between 1751 and 2014, the United States produced more than twenty-five percent of global CO2 emissions now in the earth’s atmosphere.
Publius Americanus says
“We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions”
Adolph Hitler 1927
Never breed, Chas.
Ray Otton says
You don’t seriously consider Nazis to be far right wing do you?
That trope has been debunked over and over again by numerous historians but the Lefts paint Nazis as right wingers simply because they need to counterbalance THEIR totalitarianism with something they think is a right wing version.
The fact is, Nazis fought Communists throughout the 20th century not because they had opposing ideologies but because they had the same basic, totalitarian ideology with one major difference.
In communism social justice is the ultimate value, a classless society if you will.
In fascism, the highest value is world dominion by one pure nation-race.
There can be no allies in Nazi ideology thus the conflict between Communism and Nazism.
Interestingly, according to good old Wikipedia, there are 5 main similarities between Nazism and Communism:
1 – An official ideology that is to be followed by all members of society and which promises to serve as a perfect guide towards the ultimate goal of a perfect society. (Hmmmmm)
2 – A single political party, composed of the supporters of the official ideology, representing an elite group within society composed of no more than 10 percent of the population and organized along strictly regimented lines. (Wait for it)
3 – A monopoly control of all means of effective armed combat, in the hands of the party. (Uh, oh, see where I’m going?)
4 – A monopoly held by the party over the mass media and all technological forms of communication.( Oooooo, almost there)
5 – A system of police control that is not only used to defend the regime against real enemies, but also to persecute various groups of people who are suspected of being enemies or who may potentially become enemies in the future.
Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner! TODAY’S DEMOCRAT PARTY. 🙂
Next up, this line had me in stitches – “As far as the left-wingers, they have been shouted down enough by the ardent right to be relegated to the sidelines.”
What are you talking about here? Do you literally live in a cave? The left has an absolute stranglehold on the media. Fortunately, the internet has become a valuable tool in breaking that hold but there are A LOT of sheep out there who still get their daily dose of news from leftist media outlets. Seems like you might be one because your statement is completely divorced from reality.
And then there’s this one – ‘Especially with the emergence of the New Puritanism and the fanatical hold evangelist have on our current socio-political situation.”
You do know the “The Handmaid’s Tale” is fictional, right?
Rhetorical question, of course, since you did declared we are living in a nation dominated by the New Puritanism.
To be clear, New Puritan’s do not have unrestricted abortion, funded by tax dollars.
Nor do new Puritan’s have twitter, or Facebook, or Kim Kardashian’s ass on the cover of People magazine, or about a million other example that put shame to your declaration.
Thinking about it, you should move to CC. The powers-that-be aren’t anymore connected to the real world than you are.
Paul Plante says
Dear friend and fellow American patriot Chas Cornweller, clearly what Orwell was basing his “Big Brother” concept of collectivism on was not fascism at all – it was totalitarianism, which might include fascism as a subset.
As to who “BIG BROTHER” was based on, the theory is that the inspiration for Big Brother was Brendan Bracken, the Minister of Information in England until 1945.
Orwell resented the wartime censorship and need to manipulate information which he felt came from the highest levels of the Minister of Information and from Bracken’s office in particular.
As to the British Ministry of Information (MOI), headed by the Minister of Information, it was a United Kingdom government department created briefly at the end of the First World War and again during the Second World War.
Located in Senate House at the University of London during the 1940s, it was the central government department responsible for publicity and propaganda.
According to commonly-available history, here taken from Wikipedia for conveni8ence sake, the Ministry of Information (MOI) was formed on 4 September 1939, the day after Britain’s declaration of war, and Lord Macmillan was sworn in as its first Minister on 5 September 1939.
The MOI was initially organised in four groups.
A “Press Relations” group was responsible for both the issue of news and censorship.
A “Publicity Users” group (split into “foreign” and “home” sections) was responsible for propaganda policy.
A “Publicity Producers” group (split according to media) was responsible for design and production.
These were overseen by a “Co-ordination and Intelligence” group responsible for administration.
This structure had only been finalised in May–June 1940 and senior officials were often unsure about their responsibilities.
The press reacted negatively to the MOI.
Initial confusion between the MOI and service departments led to accusations that the MOI was delaying access to the news, and a newspaper campaign against censorship was started.
Other commentators pointed to the ministry’s large staff and satirised it as ineffective and out of touch.
The MOI’s first publicity campaign also misfired with a poster bearing the message “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution, Will Bring Us Victory” criticised for appearing class-bound.
These factors led to political scrutiny and resulted in the removal of the Press Relations Group on 9 October 1939 (which became an autonomous Press and Censorship Bureau) and an announcement on 25 October 1939 that the MOI’s staff was to be cut by a third.
Lord Macmillan was replaced as Minister by Sir John Reith on 5 January 1940.
Reith sought to improve the MOI’s governance, expanded its network of Regional Information Offices and introduced a Home intelligence division.
He also sought to secure the reintegration of the Press and Censorship Division in the belief that the decision to separate this function had been “obviously and monstrously ridiculous and wrong”.
These changes were announced by Neville Chamberlain on 24 April 1940 but were not fully operational until June 1940.
end quotes
Said another way, one of the quickest routes to tyranny and totalitarianism is through democracy.
That was what Orwell was warning us about.
Ray Otton says
Fine by me, Chas. I don’t live in Cape Charles.
In fact, I’m glad Rayfield’s is at the edge of town so I don’t have to venture too deep into the place.
Don Green says
Thanks for a too-notch editorial, Mr. Cornweller! Given the plethora of comments, I won’t add anything except to say that it’s worthy of publication in periodicals like The New Criterion or The Hudson Review. Keep up the good work!
don green says
Sorry–I meant to congratulate Mr. CREED for his editorial; of course, Mr. Cornweller’s comments are always thoughtful and pithy, though I disagree with much that he writes. Apologies for any confusion created.
Note: Don, Chas wrote the awesome article!
Paul Plante says
Hitler and the NSDAP, whose members were known as “Nazis”, Chas Cornweller, had risen from being a fringe group in pre-WWII Germany, known as the Weimar Republic, to the second-largest party in the Reichstag. came into power as result of elections by the GOOD GERMANS who preferred Hitler and his crowd of thugs to the Commies.
Two successive federal elections later in 1932 left it as the largest party in the Reichstag and anti Weimar parties in the majority.
It was under that political climate that Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, and upon Hindenburg’s death in 1934 Hitler de facto assumed the presidency, which he combined with the chancellorship to become the Führer und Reichskanzler.
And democracy in Germany in its turn created a rug-chewing monster and for the world, a great big mess, so easy does democracy morph into authoritarianism, and then slips into totalitarianism.
The Germans went fascist, but they just as easily could have gone Commie, and either way, they would likely have ended up with the same totalitarian state.