If you have never faced the academic challenge of understanding the hidden warnings contained in George Orwell’s novels “Animal Farm” or “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (1984) the words of this commentary will have little meaning. However, everyone who has studied literature should be aware of the author’s very insightful messages. If you have read and understood the author, just pause and look around. It may have arrived some years later than the announced date, but you are already living in an Orwellian America.
In what is perhaps the most significant science fiction novel ever written, the work published in 1949 by Orwell tells the story of a future repressive and totalitarian society. The world of 1984 is one of government control, massive surveillance and the denial of personal or human rights. There is unending propaganda, an altering of historical fact and the changing of meaning for historical documents, the amending of news articles, the reduction in standard of living, the diminishing of resources and a war with no end in sight. Most of all, in everything a person does or says, “Big Brother is watching.”
We have already faced the unveiling of this scenario. There is now government control of insurance, the housing market, auto industry, banking, and a rapid advance toward capturing the health care of the nation.
Here is the United States we have been aware of the government’s massive surveillance actions since the fatal attacks on our freedoms that dark morning of September 11, 2001. With The Patriot Act, just about everyone gave up his or her individual and group constitutional rights. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the main stream media of today is nothing more than the propaganda machine depicted by Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” and if you don’t believe our elected officials have altered the meaning of the Constitution, than you must have missed those classes in American Government. Every day this Administration bombards us with its scornful commentary about how much we consume of everything from food to energy. There is also not a single individual in this country that can even hazard a guess of when our War on Terror or Overseas Contingency Operations will end. As in Orwell’s world this war is ill defined by the government and ever changing in scope or objective.
In the 1984 world of Orwell everyone in society is equal. However, there is the Inner Party, the Outer Party and Proles. The Inner Party makes the rules and provides governance. The Outer Party is made up of the “worker bees” or followers and the Proles are everyone else or almost non-people. With the exception of the Inner Party, life is a dank drudgery with little to no joy. There are Inner Party officials examining almost everything and everyone at every hour of the day and night.
It could be said that we already have these Inner Party officials in our own government. The Obama Administration has already appointed the Border Czar, Alan Bersin; the Regulatory Czar, Cass Sunstein, the Guantanamo Closure Czar Daniel Fried; the Urban Czar Aldolfo Carrion, Jr.; the Faith-Based Czar Joshua DuBois; the Non-Proliferation Czar Gary Samore, the Terrorism Czar John Brennan: the White House Weather Czar John Holdren; the Car Czar Dr. Ed Montgomery; the Green Czar Van Jones, the surgeon-general who is usually called the Health Czar Nancy Ann DeParle; the Tech Czar Vivek Kundra; and there are plans to establish a cyber security czar. All of these positions have been appointed and have dodged any examination by Congress or confirmation by the Senate. There is nobody to challenge them, nobody to overrule them and nobody who even knows what they are doing, or to whom they are doing it. Added to all of the unregulated and unchallengeable mandates these “Inner Party” people can bring forth are the inescapable dangers we face by having created a one party power structure in Washington D. C.
But we have failed to mention the messages contained in Orwell’s “Animal Farm”. In this tale about the animals taking control of the farm there is a proclamation that all are now equal. However, the pigs assume the animal leadership role and soon have all the power and privileges. The tale is one that truly displays the hypocrisy of governments that proclaim the absolute equality of all citizens. As the pigs of “Animal Farm announce, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
