THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

PART III, Chapter III, pages 274-283.

'The rule of the Party is forever. Make that the starting point of your thoughts.'

He [O'Brien] came closer to the bed. 'For ever!' he repeated. 'And now let us get back to the question of "how" and "why". You understand well enough how the Party maintains itself in power. Now tell me why we cling to power. What is out motive? Why should we want power? Go on, speak,' he added as Winston remained silent.

^^^^^^^

Nevertheless Winston did not speak for another moment or two. A feeling of weariness had overwhelmed him. The faint, mad gleam of enthusiasm had come back into O'Brien's face. He knew in advance what O'brien would say. That the Party did not seek power for its own ends, but only for the good of the majority. That it sought power because men in the mass were frail cowardly creatures who could not endure liberty or face truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger than themselves. That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better. That the Party was the eternal guardian of the weak, a dedicated sect doing evil that good might come, sacrificing its own happiness to that of others. The terrible thing, thought Winston, the terrible thing was that when O'brien said this he would believe it. You could see it in his face. O'brien knew everything. A thousand times better than Winston he knew what the world was really like, in what degradation the mass of human beings lived and by what lies and barbarities the Party kept them there. He had understood it all, weighed it all, and it made no difference: all was justified by the ultimate purpose. What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing, and then simply persists in his lunacy?

'You are ruling over us for our own good,' he said feebly. 'You believe that human beings are not fit to govern themselves, and therefore--------'

He started and almost cried out. A pang of pain had shot through his body. O'Brien had pushed the lever of the dial up to thirty-five.

'That was stupid, Winston, stupid!' He said. 'You should know better than to say a thing like that. '

He pulled the lever back and continued: 'Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. 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. All the others, even those who resemble ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. 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 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. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard 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. Now do you begin to understand me?'

^^^^^^^

STANDBY! MORE LATER!

ican711nm wrote:

STANDBY! MORE LATER!

Ican, have you taken it as your mission in life to fill up screen space and bandwidth with lengthy posts of quotations which everyone in their right mind scrolls right by?

i would say that to be fair to everyone , a short excerpt followed by a link would be more appropriate .
i usually scroll right over lenghty exhortations but am more likely to look at or bookmark a link .
hbg

Ican, have you taken it as your mission in life to fill up screen space and bandwidth with lengthy posts of quotations which everyone in their right mind scrolls right by?

Yes

hamburger wrote:

i would say that to be fair to everyone , a short excerpt followed by a link would be more appropriate .
i usually scroll right over lenghty exhortations but am more likely to look at or bookmark a link .
hbg

Sorry, hamburger, I do not know a link to George Orwell's NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR. I am in the process of transcribing part of page 274, pages 275 through 282, and part of page 283. I have posted the first of those pages already. I'll wait until I finish transcribing all the rest then I'll post them all together. I think they are esecially pertinent to our discussion in this forum.

In an effort to save Ican the trouble I went to the trouble of attempting a google search. I am not that good at it and perhaps others can find better links but

click here

and perhaps here

PART III, Chapter III, pages 274-283.
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79n/chap20.html

[O'Brien said,] [B...[/B]
beginning of ican's intended excerpt
'There is no way in which the Party can be overthrown. The rule of the Party is for ever. Make that the starting point of your thoughts.'

He came closer to the bed. 'For ever!' he repeated. 'And now let us get back to the question of "how" and "why". You understand well enough how the Party maintains itself in power. Now tell me why we cling to power. What is out motive? Why should we want power? Go on, speak,' he added as Winston remained silent.

...

'And do you consider yourself a man?'

'Yes.'

'If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand that you are alone? You are outside history, you are non-existent.' His manner changed and he said more harshly: 'And you consider yourself morally superior to us, with our lies and our cruelty?'

'Yes, I consider myself superior.'
end of ican's intended excerpt
...

The itm 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. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. 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 round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that.

'The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.' He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: 'How does one man assert his power over another, Winston'

Winston thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said.

'Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. It is to be a world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. 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. Everything else we shall destroy -- everything.

You appparently missed the point of providing the links. To make it plain for you: anyone can find access to the material you have been providing these many pages now in only a few seconds on google. There is no need to keep at it unless your aim all along has been to simply troll the thread.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki visited the southern oil port of Basra on Wednesday and declared a month-long state of emergency. Iraq's second-largest city and the key to its remaining petroleum revenues has been roiled by violence between party militias, by Shiite on Sunni violence, and by tribal feuds among Marsh Arabs and between them and the militias. Basra is controlled by the Fadhila or Virtue Party, an offshoot of the movement founded by Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, but one that does not recognize Sadiq's son Muqtada as his legitimate successor. Virtue has been at odds with the ruling Dawa Party and the Supreme Council, and was not given, as it wanted, the post of petroleum minister. In turn, it has declared a work slow-down in the petroleum industry in the city, a significant proportion of which it controls. Governor Muhammad al-Wa'ili has attempted to fire his police chief and the local Iraqi army commander and has feuded with clerical representatives of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

President Jalal Talabani has suggested that the federal government could just remove some local officials from power. For all Basra's problems, this approach would be extremely unfortunate. Al-Wa'ili and his supporters won the local elections in Basra on Jan. 30, 2005, gaining 21 seats to the 20 of the Supreme Council. For the federal government to remove an elected, sitting governor is a slippery slope. Does it beomce a precedent? This kind of high-handedness in India under Indira Gandhi seems to me to have helped produced massive turmoil in Kashmir and Panjab, and it did not help things in Maharashtra or elsewhere that she intrigued to get out a non-Congress governor and get a Congress one in. It would be like allowing Bush to fire Governor Granholm in Michigan because security is so bad in Detroit. This kind of thing can lead to a one-party state.

Two ironies here: The Kurds would take up arms at the very mention of the possibility that Maliki might dismiss any officials in Kurdistan. And, from a Virtue Party point of view, Maliki's tough rhetoric just sounds like Dawa and the Supreme Council are trying to win by federal intervention what they lost at the ballot box, and marginalize an elected party.

Anyway, I don't find it plausible that Maliki can restore order to Basra any time soon, and if he intervenes with too heavy a hand, he could easily make things much worse (e.g. pushing the Virtue Party into becoming a guerrilla resistance.)