Orwell's Children

[The silenced majority]

Orwell's Children American Thinker: Orwell's Children

It has been sixty years since George Orwell wrote his chilling dystopian classic, 1984, and it has been thirty years since we saw the creepiest example of educated and free people willingly walking into a living dystopia. November 18, 1978, three decades ago, 918 people drank Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. Jim Jones, the communist leader of Jonestown, Guyana, had become "Big Brother." Soviet and Communist Chinese propaganda films and condemnations of capitalist and imperialist America blared continually to the subjects of this island of Leftist Hell.


Jonestown ended in mass suicide, but the real horror was that ordinary people, Americans like you and I, had become so decoupled from reality and morality that they could be led to surrender everything, even their lives, intoxicated only with the venom of modern Leftism. These were Orwell's Children.


We are drifting into the sort of horrific future he described. Too many of us for comfort or solace have become just like the denizens of Jonestown: Orwell's children -- a new generation of creature enraged into constant militancy against eternal enemies, oblivious to the notion of a Blessed Creator, melded into the consciousness of the party hive, divorced from history, hypnotized by images, inoculated against reason, stripped of family, and existing only to serve the cause.


Orwell did not write his book in a vacuum. 1984 describes the Soviet Union (the book describes Stalinist Russia so well so that subjects of that evil empire wondered when Orwell had lived there, though he had just described what he saw from the outside.) 1984 also describes Nazism and every other odious totalitarianism, which its secret police and propaganda machine and atomized subjects. But Orwell was very much also writing about the democratic western nations. His book was a warning of what could happen here. Oceania, the only totalitarian superstate actually descried in 1984, was largely America and the British Empire.


There were specific elements necessary for nations with a heritage of freedom to slide into the most absolute and abject slavery. These elements existed in Nazi Germany, they existed in Soviet Russia, and they exist in our free democracies today. What are the characteristics of the Orwellian state?


Start with God. He must go. The great Russian novelists knew this: "Without God, everything is permitted." In Oceania, God simply does not exist. The Nazis bragged that they would raise a generation "...without ever having heard of the Sermon on the Mount or the Golden Rule, to say nothing of the Ten Commandments." The Soviet persecuted anyone who followed the God of Jews and Christians. God is hounded in our world today. A generation of Orwell's Children are growing up without thinking about God at all or thinking that God is a silly idea cherished by sillier old fogies.


Truth must go too. Nazis embraced the "Big Lie." Soviets denied that honesty, per se, mattered. In Orwell's Oceania, the Inner Party members learn to even lie to themselves and to hold utterly contradictory beliefs at the same time. Truth and honesty have little meaning to Orwell's Children in our world. All truth is relative, all honesty a sham.


Language must be brought to heel. The Nazis did this by inventing meaningless words like "Aryan science." Marxism foisted upon us words like "capitalism," which means nothing at all but which has so infected our minds that we reflexively use this silly nonsense word instead of freedom. Politically correct language is rampant. We come to view words like "discriminate" as inherently evil, and other words like "viable fetal mass" have replaced the reality of murdered babies.


Image and symbols replace words. Hitler, whose disciples seldom recalled what Hitler said, always recalled the raw imagery of their leader. Stalin's portrait was as inescapable in the Soviet Union as the portrait of Big Brother in Oceania. We live in a word of symbols and images. Conservatives succeed in books and talk radio, media that deal in words. Orwell's Children live in the realm of symbols and images.


The books of the Nazis and Soviets were unreadable tomes like Mein Kampf, The Myth of the Twentieth Century (the two Nazi "masterpieces") or vast empty volumes of Marxist-Leninism. Is it an accident that the giant who most resisted this evil, Solzhenitsyn, was a devout Christian who mastered the written word better than any stooge of Hitler or the Politburo ever could?


Immutable oppressors are the final nasty element in dystopia. Hitler blamed Jews for everything. Stalin blamed kulaks and his enemies in the party for everything. Subjects of Orwell's Oceania saw Emmanuel Goldstein as the eternal, immutable enemy of the party. Today there is a drearily predictable list of oppressors. Christians, men, white people, the "rich" (whatever that is supposed to mean), America, and Israel are oppressors and nothing can ever change that.


Orwell even told us, by name, the professionals who would lead us into the nightmare of 1984: "sociologists," "teachers," "bureaucrats," "journalists," "professional politicians," "scientists," "trade union organizers," "publicity experts," and "technicians." (The term "community organizer" was unknown to him.) Those who enslave were those who taught students, who created the news, who sat in the halls of government power, and who defined official "truth" (at least truth de jour.)


Orwell's Children live among us now, not in tiny numbers in weird Marxist cults like Jim Jones' People Temple, but as leaders of Congress, as the establishment of academia, as the producers of news and entertainment, as the administrators of public schools, as the "experts" in a thousand myriad and odd fields of putative "expertise." They infatuate our bored children with the only reality and the only diversion that many can find. They wait for the rest of us to grow older and to die.


Will these children inherit the earth? History, not theology, has shown a single defense against the spreading contagion of Orwell's Children. Solzhenitsyn found God in the godless Gulag. Michael Power in early 1939 wrote: "In the Christianity of the German people, the National Socialist has found the one enemy it could not vanquish" - and Christians in Germany, alone, chose to voluntarily seek death before selling their souls to Nazism.


The Jewish refusniks proved indigestible to the brutal Soviet police state. When all else failed the Jewish people under the Nazis, devout Jews like my wife's mother clung to the Blessed Creator and survived the Holocaust. God can touch us all. God can protect us all from evil (not from harm - we all suffer and we all die - but from the much greater danger of the sort of evil Orwell described.)


Education, science, technological gadgetry, good medical care - all of this can not stop us from sliding into a massive Jonestown, a realized Oceania, a place marked by Dante's grim caution "Abandon hope, all you who enter here." We are all anchored in belief, but it is what we believe that matters. We can believe in the lies of Big Brother, which change each day with the needs of the party or we can believe in the truth of a living God. We can become the children of Orwell or the special creatures of God. Everything -- our nation, our world, our families, our communities -- flows from that choice.​

Opinion: Not all those who object to the reckless removal of any links to our country's Christian heritage (public or otherwise) are not "theocrats" and in fact have history as a guide compelling them to do so.

 

[niftydrifty]

yet another corny alarmist attempt to link state socialism with democratic socialism. they're vastly different. you're going to have a very hard time convincing democratic socialists to give government ownership of production or industry. it would be the end of corporate power. both parties are currently drunk on that kool aid. just have a look sometime at what members of corporate boards have ties to government. it's not going to go away any time soon.

poor Bruce is reaching, and has much to learn. except about connecting buzzwords and making tenuous connections. he excels at that.

 

[winston53660]

yet another corny alarmist attempt to link state socialism with democratic socialism. they're vastly different. you're going to have a very hard time convincing democratic socialists to give government ownership of production or industry. it would be the end of corporate power. both parties are currently drunk on that kool aid. just have a look sometime at what members of corporate boards have ties to government. it's not going to go away any time soon.

poor Bruce is reaching, and has much to learn. except about connecting buzzwords and making tenuous connections. he excels at that.

And the editorial neglected to mention that Jones was a Methodist Minister. Last I checked ardent Communist were staunchly against religion.

 

[niftydrifty]

And the editorial neglected to mention that Jones was a Methodist Minister. Last I checked ardent Communist were staunchly against religion.

sure, but Jones really was a Communist. what the editorial neglected to mention was that Jones travelled around the US trying to get his movement going, but met staunch opposition EVERYWHERE. Jones was charismatic enough to attract hundreds of followers. but this was hardly the kind of "leftist" insurrection which could transform this country, like he fears. he had to leave the US to get it going.

Leo Ryan, the concerned Congressman who went to Jonestown on a fact-finding mission, and was killed by a follower of Jones, was a godless liberal Democrat from San Francisco. :doh

 

[GOP Socialist Soldier]

poor Bruce is reaching, and has much to learn. except about connecting buzzwords and making tenuous connections. he excels at that.

So give me an education on Socialism in America.

 

[niftydrifty]

So give me an education on Socialism in America.

on State Socialism? sure. there isn't any.

 

[winston53660]

sure, but Jones really was a Communist. what the editorial neglected to mention was that Jones travelled around the US trying to get his movement going, but met staunch opposition EVERYWHERE. Jones was charismatic enough to attract hundreds of followers. but this was hardly the kind of "leftist" insurrection which could transform this country, like he fears. he had to leave the US to get it going.

Leo Ryan, the concerned Congressman who went to Jonestown on a fact-finding mission, and was killed by a follower of Jones, was a godless liberal Democrat from San Francisco. :doh

Yes there was alot that was neglected in the article.

 

[niftydrifty]

Yes there was alot that was neglected in the article.

If you want to get a true sense of some aspects of our political and social landscape, just read anything written by Bruce Walker and imagine the exact opposite of what he is saying.

American Thinker: Sarah Works

 

[The silenced majority]

yet another corny alarmist attempt to link state socialism with democratic socialism.

Illustrate the differences or stop being corny.

they're vastly different.

+

Please don't tell me that you're one of those: "Marxism has never truly been practiced on a State level" hacks.

you're going to have a very hard time convincing democratic socialists to give government ownership of production or industry.

No, they'll just put up so many regulations and taxes in the way of industry that nobody will be willing to bother to go in to business; thus all economic matters, people's livelihoods falls nicely into the hands of Government.

it would be the end of corporate power. both parties are currently drunk on that kool aid. just have a look sometime at what members of corporate boards have ties to government. it's not going to go away any time soon.

Corporations = bad. Sure you aren't one of Orwell's children? lol.

poor Bruce is reaching, and has much to learn. except about connecting buzzwords and making tenuous connections. he excels at that.

This post is a pathetic attempt to smear the messenger and say nothing of the message.

True to liberal form.

 

[The silenced majority]

And the editorial neglected to mention that Jones was a Methodist Minister. Last I checked ardent Communist were staunchly against religion.

What? You had better take a close look at the 20th century melding of Marxist Orthodoxy & the Church.

Here's a comment from a founding member of the Communist-front ACLU who happened to be a Methodist minister:

"the Constitution of the United States is outmoded, outdated, and impotent."

The Truth About The American Civil Liberties Union

 

[niftydrifty]

Illustrate the differences or stop being corny.

I must convince you that state socialism and democratic socialism are different? it's the difference between ownership and regulation.

Please don't tell me that you're one of those: "Marxism has never truly been practiced on a State level" hacks.

Who said anything about Marx? Now you're realllllly getting overly general.

No, they'll just put up so many regulations and taxes in the way of industry that nobody will be willing to bother to go in to business; thus all economic matters, people's livelihoods falls nicely into the hands of Government.

"Nobody will be willing to bother to go in to business." If anyone is reluctant to go into business, it's the small business owner who must compete against the corporation.

Corporations = bad. Sure you aren't one of Orwell's children? lol.

Did I say privately owned corporations are bad? Or did I say that they have too much power for the situation in this country to resemble anything like state socialism?

This post is a pathetic attempt to smear the messenger and say nothing of the message.

The "message" was refuted when I pointed out that:

• state socialism and democratic socialism are very different
• Jones met staunch opposition in the US
• Jones had to leave the USA in order to conduct his experiment
• a godless liberal Democrat was the one that took the initiative to do something about Jones' crimes, and lost his life for it

all you've done is misrepresent my statements, generalize, and talk about me.

there is no argument here. If you believe these conditions exist, you're going to have to come up with much better examples, and explanations, than poor Bruce has. the "Liberals are like Hitler" movement is out of gas. it's just going to continue to be a loser. do I really have to explain why?

 

[Red_Dave]

Illustrate the differences or stop being corny.

Well Orwell said that he considered everthing he wrote as being against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism. Im sure this article will make him turn in his grave

 

[GOP Socialist Soldier]

state socialism and democratic socialism are very different

How does the Communist Manifesto that fits the US Model compare to the state vs. Democratic factor?

In 1848, Carl Marx, at the age of 30, entered a competition sponsored by the International Socialist Union of Paris, France. His submission was the 10 Planks of the Communist Manifesto, which won. The rest, as they say, is history.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. Property tax paid annually prevents the outright ownership of property, because if property can be confiscated for taxes owed, it can never truly be owned. The application of our rents of land (property taxes) are used for public purposes as envisioned by Karl Marx.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. The income tax was imposed upon the people briefly after the War Between The Southern States and The dictatorial Federal Government. In 1895, The US Supreme Court abolished it with the words, "The income tax is indeed a direct tax and therefore unconstitutional". The Court understood that, "No capitation, or other direct Tax shall be laid,..." Art. 1, Sec. 9, of the US Constitution, means exactly what it says. However, in 1913 there were enough socialist in Congress to again foist the income tax upon the people with the 16th Amendment to the Constitution. The income tax is not designed just to raise taxes, which could be accomplished very easily with a national sales tax. Instead, its goal is to punish achievement, invade privacy, and control the people through fear and intimidation from the most Gestapo-like arm of our government, the I.R.S.

3. Abolition of all right of inheritance. Our inheritance tax puts all rights of inheritance in jeopardy. Property tax, income tax, and inheritance tax, should be abolished because they are all direct taxes and they all violate our God-given property rights. They could be replaced with indirect taxes like sales tax, tobacco tax, alcohol tax, or gasoline tax. Some advantages of indirect taxes are:

continued on: http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils in%...m/manifesto.htm

 

[Wessexman]

Well Orwell said that he considered everthing he wrote as being against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism. Im sure this article will make him turn in his grave

It certainly true that Orwell was a democratic or libertarian socialist after 1936. He would object to attacks on "leftism" certainly. His point was definitely not to attack all socialism, communism or Marxism but Marxist-Leninism and Stalinism.

 

[Red_Dave]

It certainly true that Orwell was a democratic or libertarian socialist after 1936. He would object to attacks on "leftism" certainly. His point was definitely not to attack all socialism, communism or Marxism but Marxist-Leninism and Stalinism.

Well he fought in a socialist militia during the spannish civil war [albiet not very well by all acounts] so i think that counts as a pretty stong endorsement.

 

[Rick]

One of the ideas from 1984 that clearly describes some things happening currently is "doublethink". The definition, from the novel:

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.

Best example - the libs' "affirmative action". Libs believe in "affirmative action", but at the same they have to deny that it exists. Although that particular cancer has metastasized throughout the academy and corporations, no black person who achieves prominence, say obama, can be admitted to have benefitted from it. The times when libs have to "draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed" is when eg the occasional case involving it appears at the USSC, during which they line up in droves to file amicus briefs and fight for it like tigers, then afterwards its existence is doublethinked away.

 

[Wessexman]

Well he fought in a socialist militia during the spannish civil war [albiet not very well by all acounts] so i think that counts as a pretty stong endorsement.

Oh Homage to Catalonia is a wonderful book. Have you read it? He gives quite a sympathetic account of the Anarchists.

 

[Wessexman]

One of the ideas from 1984 that clearly describes some things happening currently is "doublethink". The definition, from the novel:



Best example - the libs' "affirmative action". Libs believe in "affirmative action", but at the same they have to deny that it exists. Although that particular cancer has metastasized throughout the academy and corporations, no black person who achieves prominence, say obama, can be admitted to have benefitted from it. The times when libs have to "draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed" is when eg the occasional case involving it appears at the USSC, during which they line up in droves to file amicus briefs and fight for it like tigers, then afterwards its existence is doublethinked away.

Of course people on the right never suffer from Doublethink.

 

[Red_Dave]

Oh Homage to Catalonia is a wonderful book. Have you read it? He gives quite a sympathetic account of the Anarchists.

I got through about five chapters before i left it on a bus but what i read was pretty good. Though i thought Catalonia was more under the control of the P.O.U.M then the anarcists? [if you,ll forgive the oxymoron:lol:]