Sixty Years After the Publication of George Orwell’s Classic, Do We Face a Real “1984”?

Washington,
D.C., June 8, 2009—Sixty years
ago this week, George Orwell’s most important work of political fiction, 1984, was published. Orwell’s novel
warned of the centralization of political power and the lengths that a
totalitarian regime, led by Big Brother, would go to maintain its control over society.

On this anniversary, the Competitive Enterprise Institute
reminds those who value freedom of a more current threat – the crusade for
global governance led by environmental activist groups in the name of combating
global warming. With calls for limits on energy use, new global taxes and the regulation
of individual behavior, the recent development of environmental policy has
tended ever more toward greater government control and less personal freedom.

“Environmental campaigners have long benefitted from the
assumption that they have good intentions,” said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman. “Unfortunately, the
modern environmental movement has focused increasingly on policies that
increase government control over what business can sell, what consumers can buy
and what individuals can do with their lives. Truly harmful emissions have been
successfully restricted for the most part. 
But with the war on carbon dioxide being escalated to extreme levels, as
demonstrated in the new Waxman-Markey bill, we see expanding government control
become a goal unto itself.” 

CEI’s 90-second
video campaign dramatizes this threat. The video follows in the steps of
Apple Computer’s 1984 Super Bowl ad and the 2007 anti-Hillary Clinton “Vote
Different” parody. It shows – in place of Big Brother – Al Gore lecturing a
captive audience on the need to crack down on energy use, economic growth and personal
freedom. 

Mr. Kazman stated: “Orwell’s nightmarish society rested on a
never-ending war fought on constantly shifting battlefronts. Nothing in our
experience comes closer to that war than the current campaign to restrict
humanity’s carbon footprint.” 

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan
public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited
government.  For more information about
CEI, please visit our website at www.cei.org.