George Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) on the side of the Republican Spanish government that was backed by Stalin’s USSR. He was wounded during the fighting. He witnessed how the Communist wiped out the unions, socialists, international brigades, and anarchists that challenged communist tyranny during the Barcelona uprising. (Homage to Catalonia).
I recently finished rereading Nineteen Eighty-Four. What immediately came to mind was how prescient Orwell was in predicting the rise of a controlling government much like we are experiencing today under the Biden administration.
Today, the current administration is dogged in their pursuit of controlling reality. “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past” (1984, pg. 235). According to Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, Bidenomics is succeeding in making the average American lives more affordable. The truth is that Americans are paying much more for gasoline, food, and health care. These are just three examples of essentials that have exponentially risen in price the last three years under Bidenomics (1984, pgs. 1, 58, 104, 195).
Orwell succinctly described what is happening this very day in America. MSNBC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and the rest of the corporate media parrot the anti-Trump rhetoric repeatedly throughout the news day and night. Their uninterrupted propaganda ambushes the one candidate that can save the country from Marxism—Donald Trump!
Orwell called this form of brain washing Newspeak and double think. “If all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth” (1984, pg. 36).
The corporate news media consistently reminds us that migrants are coming to the US in droves because they are fleeing persecution and tyranny. The reality is that they come looking for work. One set of illegal migrants sends their earnings back to their original countries to support their families, the other set lives on lavish handouts from our current Marxist government. The majority of those coming to the US are men of military age. Unfortunately, big and small business owners on both sides of the aisle, plus Marxists politicians welcome illegal immigration because of the interminable fountain of cheap labor and controlled future of Democrat voters (1984, pgs. 178-179).
Orwell writes about Thoughtcrime. He writes how control obsessed government orders that 2+2=5, when we all know that 2+2=4 (1984, pgs. 237-239). “They don’t shoot you if you haven’t actually done anything—only thoughts, which you can’t help?” (1984, pgs. 199, 220-221, 241). Former President Trump is facing four different indictments because he questioned the fairness of an election. Until recently, in our country, critical thinking was not a crime. However, if you are Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams, it’s OK to harangue about an unfair election and nothing happens to them.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell provides the reader with glimpses of climate change, 15-Minutes Cities, parental control, language control, revisionist history, prohibited books, and unwavering totalitarian Party loyalty. Orwell dedicates Part III of the book to re-indoctrination, an issue we are experiencing in many of the Blue States and cities throughout our United States of America.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Read Homage to Catalonia, Orwell’s growing despair and disillusionment with totalitarian forms of government, themes he would later explore in Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.
- Read or reread the allegorical Animal Farm.
- Read or reread the dystopian Nineteen Eight-Four.
SOURCES
- George Orwell. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Book and Coffee Publications, Istanbul, Turkey. 4 Edition January 2023.
- George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia. Flame Tree 451. 2022.
