Power is an end | Opinion | dailyitem.com – Sunbury Daily Item

George Orwell died in 1950 but left us important novels and political writing. His understanding of the abuse of power is insightful, as vividly shown in Animal Farm, 1984 and his essays. As if speaking to present events, here are some germane quotes from 1984 using sentences OBrien, of the Inner Party, said to captive Winston Smith:

The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end.

We must constantly defend against concentrations of power of any type whether government, political party or corporate. The Founders well knew that power corrupts, just look around, so they wrote into the Constitution its separation of powers. If we do not, we will have neither a republic nor a democracy.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past, and the most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

We hear the awful and real history of slavery in the Americas, while African slavery starting thousands of years before that is minimized. How often is the thousand year history of Arab slave-trading across the Sahara and from east Africa mentioned? Or the Muslims enslavement of Europeans? Yes, Europeans invaded Native American lands, but so did Native American tribes; they were not peaceful and both owned and sacrificed slaves. How many know the Mongols built mounds of skulls of the people they conquered. Why are the Nazis held as the epitome of murder while Communists killed 10 times as many?

Its a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Thus mothers become birthing persons; higher taxes become revenue enhancement; equality becomes equity; citizenship for anyone, even criminals, becomes comprehensive immigration reform.

Big Brother is watching you. People give more and more personal information to internet companies for the free use of their programs. They want to know everything about our lives, to sell us and help in censoring their opponents.

Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it. This is especially true of many of todays elite, all knowing, unquestioning, intolerant college students.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. Uncomfortable comedians must be silenced and anyone deemed unprogressive, however truthful, must be banned.

Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. For example White House press conferences and much of congressional babbling.

More recently, George Carlin said Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners.

Thomas Modesto lives in Danville.

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Power is an end | Opinion | dailyitem.com - Sunbury Daily Item