The Betrayal of Dissent: Beyond Orwell, Hitchens and the New American Century
Scott Lucas
Language: English
Pages: 336
ISBN: 0745321976
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Since his death in 1950, George Orwell has been canonised as England's foremost political writer, and the standard-bearer of honesty and decency for the honourable 'Left'. In this controversial polemic, Scott Lucas argues that the exaltation of Orwell, far from upholding dissent against the State, has sought to quash such opposition. Indeed, Orwell has become the icon of those who, in the pose of the contrarian, try to silence public opposition to US and U K foreign policy in the 'War on Terror'. Lucas's lively and readable critique of public intellectuals including Christopher Hitchens, Michael Walzer, David Aaronovitch, and Johann Hari - who have all invoked Orwellian honesty and decency to shut down dissent - will appeal to anyone disillusioned with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Lucas contends that these leading journalists and commentators have used Orwell to justify their own political transition from radicals to upholders of the establishment. All of them play influential roles in supporting the UK and US governments' charge that opponents of war -- and those who question the motives behind American foreign policy and its implementation -- should be condemned as 'appeasers of mass murder'. This controversial book shows how Orwell has been used since 9/11 to justify, in the guise of independent thought, the suppression of dissent. We must rescue ourselves from Orwell and from those who take on his guise so, as Lucas puts it, our 'silencing is. . . vital to a "manufacture of consent" for the wars which are supposedly being fought in our name and for our good'.
Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution
Figure passing with detached honesty and without rancour across the mudbanks of corruption’,11 while George Woodcock elevated his former adversary with the words of Homage to Catalonia, enshrining Orwell as ‘The Crystal Spirit’.12 Yet, however exalted the tributes, they could not escape the context of the US confrontation with Soviet Communism. Tom Hopkinson’s clever obituary linked literature and politics: ‘I know only two present-day works of fiction before which the critic abdicates; one is.
Transgression is still unclear.8 No, the significance of ‘The List’ is not what it says about the 38, but what it offers us about Orwell. The second list was compiled more than 50 years later in another time of crisis. Unlike Orwell’s, this rogues’ gallery was offered not to the British Intelligence Services or even to a love interest, but to all of us. It has emerged over a period of months. Indeed, additions are still being made today. From 19 September 2001, eight days after the attacks on the.
The editorial writers at American Lucas 02 chap06 7/1/04 13:36 Page 135 OUR FRIENDS IN AMERICA 135 Prospect also warned, ‘If the fighting turns ugly and there are large numbers of civilian casualties – if we have to level the very cities we say we are liberating – American legitimacy in the eyes of the world and of the Iraqis will be shot’, and put forth an argument paralleling the ‘nutcase’ allegations of Cynthia McKinney about Bush’s use of 9–11: ‘The suspicion will not die that the.
Company, which won a multi-million dollar contract to rebuild Iraqi oil wells after a war.)53 Still the sceptics gathered, not only in ‘the coalition of the unwilling’, but within the Anglo-American camp. Tony Blair, facing the challenge of his backbenchers, was confronted not only by his Intelligence Services complaining ‘that they [were] being forced to sacrifice their integrity for short-term political gain’, but also by a military establishment ‘feeling that in order to attack there has to be.
Elevation. Indeed, his service with the militia of POUM, the ‘independent’ Marxist party, had come from circumstance rather than choice: he initially tried to join the International Brigades but was turned down. Furthermore, until spring 1937 he had accepted the Republican Government’s case that groups such as POUM were undermining the war effort with their insistence on more radical economic and social changes. Only atop POUM’s headquarters in Barcelona in May 1937 would Orwell set his political.