The Betrayal Of Dissent - Beyond Orwell, Hitchens and the New American Century

Since his death in 1950, George Orwell has been canonized as England's foremost political writer, the holder of honesty, decency and freedom for the honourable left. Yet only a year before his death, Orwell was passing a list of unreliable persons to British intelligence services. Orwell, far from upholding dissent against the state, has sought to quash such opposition. Orwell has become the icon of those, who in the pose of the contrarian, condemn opponents of American and British foreign policy as appeasers of mass murder. Michael Walzer, David Aaronovitch and Johann Hari have invoked Orwellian honesty and decency to shut down dissent over the war on terror, the war on Afghanistan, the war on Iraq and the wars that are to come. Challenging these intellectuals, Lucas details the American policy of preponderance of power behind the myths and lies of freedom and liberation. Orwell: George the contrarian leads us into support of the American and British States; it is those who protest who are the smelly little orthodoxies which plagued him more than 60 years ago.

Softcover. English. Pluto Press. 2004. ISBN: 9780745321974. 324 pp. Good. Book No: 52350