Some recent GOP attempts to soften their message while retaining their policies remind one of Orwellian doublespeak.
Essayist Dylan Nice describes how Orwell’s essay “Shooting the Elephant” pulled him out of kneejerk rightwing prejudices.
The Oscar-winning German film “The Lives of Others” speaks to the ability of art to change people’s lives.
Apparently Anders Breivik was very well read and he mentions George Orwell, Franz Kafka, and Ayn Rand. What I find striking about them on the list is that they all articulate high levels of paranoia.
Also posted in Beowulf Poet, Dexter (tv), Kafka (Franz), Rand (Ayn) | Tagged 1984, Anders Breivik, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Terrorism, Trial |
An indication that defenders are not entirely at peace with the practice is their use of a euphemisms. They don’t call waterboarding “torture,” even though the U.S. used to call it torture and it has generally been considered torture since the Spanish Inquisition used it. They instead call it “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Anyone who knows George Orwell’s 1984 recognizes this as classic doublespeak.
Like much of America, I am still in a state of shock over Saturday’s shooting of a Congresswoman, a judge, and 16 others. Like many I wonder if this was an example of a disturbed mind encountering the inflamed political rhetoric that has come to characterize American political discourse. (Add Arizona’s permissive gun laws into [...]
Also posted in Aesop, Barrie (J. M.), Baum (L. Frank), Bradbury (Ray), Bukowski (Charles), Carroll (Lewis), Hemingway (Ernest), Hesse (Hermann), Hitler (Adolph), Homer, Huxley (Aldous), Juster (Norton(, Kesey (Ken), Lee (Harper), Marx (Karl), Plato, Rand (Ayn) | Tagged Adolph Hitler, Aesop, Aldous Huxley, Alice through the Look Glass, Alices Adventures in Wonderland, Arizona killings, Ayn Rand, Brave New World, Charles Bukowski, Communist Manifesto, Ernest Hemingway, Fables, Fahrenheit 451, Gulliver's Travels, Harper Lee, Hermann Hesse, Homer, James Barrie, Jared Lee Loughner, Jonathan Swift, Karl Marx, Ken Kesey, L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll, Mein Kampf, Meno, nimal Farm, Norton Juster Phentom Tollbooth, Odyssey, Old Man and the Sea, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Peter Pan, Plot, Pulp, Ray Bradbury, Reading George Orwell, Republic, Siddhartha, To Kill a Mockingbird, violence, We the Living, Wizard of Oz |
