Posted on 05/14/2011 7:20:03 PM PDT by AustralianConservative
If George Orwell were alive today he’d be censored by today’s Orwellian press-police. As America’s poshest-acting, bisexual neo-conservative, Christopher Hitchens points out in Why Orwell Matters (pages 79-80):
It is true on the face of it that Orwell was one of the founding fathers of anti-Communism; that he had a strong patriotic sense and a very potent instinct for what we might call elementary right and wrong; that he despised government and bureaucracy and was a stout individualist; that he distrusted intellectuals and academics and reposed a faith in popular wisdom; that he upheld a somewhat orthodoxy in sexual matters and moral matters, looked down on homosexuals and abhorred abortion; and that he seems to have been an advocate for private ownership of guns.
But for real hard evidence:
He also preferred the country to the town, and poems that rhymed.
Orwell even had some nice things to say about F.A. Hayek, when he reviewed The Road to Serfdom in the Observer. Therefore, it can’t be stressed enough that he wouldn’t be a Fairfax lead columnist or a celebrated Melbourne University Press author today. The blood running through his veins was just too unapologetically independent.
(Excerpt) Read more at weekendlibertarian.blogspot.com ...
I read a really good article by his Son. He said Orwell loved to go hiking, fishing, and hunting on one of the Socttish Islands where they lived.
The kid said it was just about a perfect world for him until his Father died. Despite reports to the contrary, he said his movie star stepmother was kind to him it was he just missed all the things he and his Dad did together.
He really thought that Island in the Hebrides was paradise.
Hate to burst your bubble, but Orwell was a Socialist until the day he died. As prophetic as his writings were, he remained one of those intellectuals who were convinced the Soviets and the Nazi’s just hadn’t been doing it right.
Barry Soetoro is attempting to implement a socialist/marxist dictatorship not unlike that described in 1984. In order to do this, he needs to destroy or render impotent the U.S. Constitution, which stands in the way of his vision.
He is using Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 (the NBC clause) as a wedge. He and his Dem and RINO allies work tirelessly to push the importance of this clause out of the mainstream, to devalue its meaning in our society. At that point the wedge has been driven in, and the rest of the constitution is at Soetoro and company’s mercy.
This can’t happen. Good moral people need to stand up and stop this.
I’m not surprised by any of this. His endorsement by the New Party revealed everything and there was nothing ambiguous about it, out there plain as day for all to see.
OK . . . since when is Christopher Hitchens “neo-conservative” or anything with the word “conservative” in it?
..and here lies the Degrees of change...Everybody wants to ride the sled down hill...some want it faster...some want it slower....BUT Nobody wants to pull it up the hill....
That sub-headline could have been a little better written. It makes it sound as though Hitch is the posh, bisexual neocon when I think he meant Orwell.
doesn’t that describe Hitchens too??
I have my copy of Hitchen's "Why Orwell Matters" (Basic Books. 2002 Perseus Books Group. New York.) George Orwell detested the orthodox socialist. He knew them for what they were. Persons who saw a political opportunity and took it. There was talk of defunding the so called elite "Public Schools". Here is where the British class system held sway.
Orwell questioned one important socialist on this and the man admitted that what he intended to do was to "send my sons and daughters to a public school". Orwell was disgusted, for they wanted to join the very system they decried to the voters. We snotnoses of that era know full well how some of the socialists then lived it up, just as did the "bloated capitalist".
For the sake of accuracy, following 1945, there were some actual working class (formerly) persons in power. Ernest Bevin had driven a dray horse delivery waggon. Aneurin Bevan had been a Welsh miner. Herbert Morrison was said to have been a dock side "tally clerk". Later Lord Morrison.
Orwell's "Road To Wigan Pier" is worth a read. Also "Coming Up For Air" actually deals with England's destruction of the once pristine countryside. Orwell forecasts WW2 and claimed that they (snotnoses) would fight to defend their little corner of the world. The High Street, the tobacconist shop, the fish and chips shop. Orwell was right.
Once again, he detested the phoney pretenders of the Labour Party. There were many of them. Feathered their own nests, as the saying goes. One could imagine how he would view the Democrat of today, with his/her mansion and wealth, crying out about the "poor" and the cruelty of capitalism.
Yes. Very poorly written. No idea what he is trying to say. Hitchens is a drunk on his death bed. But the neo thing and the bi thing would be news to me. Orwell, I don't know.
It's really poor sentence construction, with a slight wiff of pomposity. The writer hopefully has a day job.
I have done what I should have previously done and looked up the definition of "snotnose". It seems that the official definition is of one who "is snooty and above the normal population".
Somehow, I thought it was the definition of those who could not afford a hankerchief and blew their nose with finger and thumb. I will have to find a more suitable definition for we working class youths, emerging into the new world post 1945.
Yet another book I must order on a Freeper recomendation. I took a look at some of the reviews and I must have it. Thanks!
He “became” a neo-Conservative when he supported the war in Iraq, you see....
Sounds like a good life – the life for me, at least.
Orwell became increasingly rightwing as he matured with age. The truth is most socialists would denounce him today. He was an individual.
Glad you know the book. 1984 is a conservative classic, in my view. Orwell did more for conservatism through truth telling than most of us can dream of. As for Barry, I agree. He is too Big Brother-y for me too.
Read Hitch-22. A neo-conservative can be a social liberal, although Hitchens pretends to be prolife, I’m told too.
Many of his statements are far more conservative than most Republicans for starters (read into that what you will).
But call Hitchens what you like, it doesn’t worry me. The fact that the Left disowned him speaks volumes, however.
Agreed.
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