View attachment 442756
Homage to Catalonia is
George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations fighting for the
POUM [Party of Marxist Unification] militia of the
Republican army during the
Spanish Civil War. The war was one of the defining events of his political outlook and a significant part of what led him to write in 1946, "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for
Democratic Socialism, as I understand it."
Homage to Catalonia - Wikipedia
Even if you were right you're out of context. First off nobody is perfect & much has changed. Second you're ignoring the elephant in the room, which is Orwell wrote what would become PROGS which was the point of this thread.
Assuming Orwell had this economic/social structure down, what socialist democrat countries are you recommending anyhow?
And how come you're trying to differentiate Democratic Socialism & today's PROGS in light of totalities? How did you conclude today's PROGS don't practice totalitarianism considering what they do and often say conflicts with your feelings?
I
am right and my remarks are
not out of context.
But you are correct times have changed. Orwell was a British citizen who watched the “great” British Empire slowly collapsing, as we are watching a slower and possibly more catastrophic
relative decline of the American empire.
Orwell saw up close the threat of
British fascists like “Sir” Oswald Mosley. Mosley was infinitely more intelligent and a far more competent political operative than Donald Trump. He went from pampered personal privilege as a member of the British aristocracy to activism at the top levels of the Labour Party, before finally breaking with Labour entirely to move step by step to embrace ... fascism.
Trump also spent a lifetime supporting Democrats before joining Republicans and seeking to build his own demagogic cult. Interestingly, both advocated making their countries “great again” through protectionism:
“[Mosley] called for high tariffs to protect British industries from international finance, for state nationalization of main industries and for a programme of public works to solve unemployment.” Soon he was calling for copying the policies Mussolini and Hitler.
My point is that George Orwell rejected all the demagogy and sloganeering of Mosley, who could sound very convincing as a nationalist, who blamed “international finance and Jewry” rather than then almost non-existent British “blacks” for all England’s problems.
I’m sorry but I have no interest in discussing with you all of the different issues you ask me about. That would take a long time and is not really relevant to this discussion of Orwell. You can read my many public comments if interested. I just wanted to correct specific self-serving partisan errors in your — in my opinion — very mistaken categorization of George Orwell.
By the way, I do agree that Orwell would have many criticisms of today’s “double-speak” coming from Democratic Party leaders. He was mostly a Labour Party or Independent Labour Party supporter in the context of British politics then, but he was willing to criticize them whenever he felt they were wrong. Of course he was especially critical of Stalin at the same time.