this language. Members of the Leftright Party have been much more creative. They’ve invented not one but several languages that limit the range of thought. And they have gotten people to speak those languages without using force. Thus no one is crippled or blind or deaf anymore, much less a moron. They are all “differently-abled.” And no one even tries to discover the truth because the “lamestream media” is full of “fake news.” Orwell has a Party member say, “Orthodoxy means not thinking.” Members of our Leftright Party aren’t thinking twice as much . “The heresy of heresies was common sense,” thinks Winston Smith. With double the heresies we have half as much sense. In 1984 , the Party teaches that “Sexual intercourse is to be looked on as a slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema.” But now we’ve got both #MeToo and public-school curriculum abstinence education. Orwell described life in the year 1984 as “... decaying, dingy cities where underfed people shuffled to and fro in leaky shoes, in patched- up nineteenth-century houses that smelt always of cabbage...” A fair description of Portland, Oregon, or hip, artisanal Brooklyn. On the other hand, it’s also not too different from the shanties and trailer parks from which the alt-right pours forth. “We make the laws of nature,” the Inner Party interrogator and torturer, O’Brien, tells Winston. That sure sounds to me like both sides of the Leftright climate change debate. Likewise we have doubled our Thought Police
forces, with one squadron apprehending visiting lecturers who fail to address college students in Newspeak and another squad circulating among Republicans in the House of Representatives arresting any notion that they can be reelected without Trumpthink. But what is the goal, what is the objective of the Leftright Party? Why do they oppress and overpower us? (Or, rather, why do they trick us into oppressing and overpowering ourselves?) Orwell goes straight to the point. O’Brien tells Winston, “Power is not a means, it is an end... The object of power is power.” What the Leftright Party wants is power. And what will the Leftright Party do to us with its power? Again, Orwell is clear. O’Brien asks... “How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?” Winston thought. “By making him suffer,” he said. “Exactly. By making him suffer. Unless he is suffering, how can you know that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is inflicting pain and humiliation.” The “Leftright” Party is the party that really rules America. Members of the Leftright Party practice the “doublethink” that Big Brother demands in 1984.
American Consequences 41
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker