"Who controls the present, controls the past; who controls the past, controls the future."  This is the theme that I feel is most relevant to our world.  We are often told things about the past, and what we are told is used to justify what is being done in the present.  Or we are told things about the past that simply aren't true, but we have no way of knowing, so we just have to "believe" what we are told.  For instance, we have recently been told that if we didn't spend trillions of dollars on the recovery program, we would suffer the same fate as Japan who took 10 years to recover from their economic decisions.  But do we know that this is true?  Do we know what actually caused Japan's problems?  And do we know that what we are being told is the solution actually will solve the problem?  The previous government (Republican) is being blamed for almost everything that's gone wrong since the Garden of Eden.  Is that true?  Wasn't there a Democrat Congress for the last 2 years of the Bush administration?  Who was responsible?  For what?  If everything they did was bad, does that mean that everything the present administration is doing is good?

Jefferson noted that Democracy can only work with an informed/educated electorate.  We need to be that electorate, especially about history, in a world where it seems that a "new" past can be created whenever it is needed.

'There is no place for the individual in a totalitarian society.'

Indeed this is the case of Winston, then Julia, who for a moment kicked against the system before being absorbed back into it again. When the book states that Winston "loved" Big Brother it is clear to the reader that all of his individuality has been perfectly effaced - through both brainwashing and betrayal.

The same idea reformulated:

'Government should be at the service of the individual and not the other way around.'