Predator:Prey :: Oligarchs:People

1984: Fiction or Handbook?

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. . . . Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. . . . The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.

The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. . . . Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. . . .

[I]n the future there will be no wives and no friends. . . . But always — do not forget this, Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — for ever. . . . .

The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. . . . . The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. It will be a world of terror as much as a world of triumph. The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant: the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism. . . . . Every day, at every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon. . . .

He heard himself promising to lie, to steal, to forge, to murder, to encourage drug-taking and prostitution, to disseminate venereal diseases, to throw vitriol in a child’s face. . . . .” (George Orwell, 1984).

Fiction versus Fact

The central difference between George Orwell’s depiction of power and our reality is revealed in the phrase, “Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power.” Our Democrat oligarchs are interested in the wealth, luxury, and prestige that only unmerited power can give them.

Recent Anti-Russian History

From 2016 onward one of the recurring criticisms from the left has been about Russian interference in American politics. Elected and appointed conservative officials were routinely accused of colluding, cooperating, and pandering to Russian interests in order to gain position and power. Vlad was portrayed as the evil progenitor in all the accusations, whose objective was to sway a gullible American electorate to Russia’s benefit.

Unprincipled Dupes or Calculating Oligarchs?

Suddenly, in the wake of the brouhaha over the return from Russia of American political prisoners and the political capital obtained therefrom, the idea that Russia may be attempting election subterfuge is forgotten–the Biden-Harris team (or is it Harris-Harris?) is perceived as Olympic gold medal winners of the foreign affairs match.

There is, however, another alternative. It is that the administration (and its coterie) is precisely aware of its hypocritical position over accusing its political adversaries with Russian collusion and its silence surrounding Russian manipulation in terms of its own electoral aspirations come November, but does not care about apparent hypocrisy or foreign election interference. Just win the election, no matter the optic or ethic.

M, n, o, p

In the final analysis, then, it seems that our future is between one of two alternatives–Accept the oligarchs and their quest for power, wealth, and prestige, or resist by casting a ballot for the unalienable right Constitutionally preserved for a free people to choose a government that is truly “of the people, by the people, for the people” rather than self-serving.