Friday, July 28, 2006
Krugman on Orwell and Bush
I found this on Atrios. The Krugman link is to Times Select website, which I don't subscribe to, so you'll just have to settle on this for a while.
The evidence just keeps piling up, doesn’t it? Torture, lies about history, ignoring the Constitution, rampant corruption that has destroyed political opposition, domestic spying without constraints. It ain’t good, folks! And, you might wonder if Krugman is overlooking a very basic fact about today's America: it is more totalitarian than not.
http://www.atrios.blogspot.com/
YEEEEAAAARGH
Krugman:
Whatever the reason, the fact is that the Bush administration continues to be remarkably successful at rewriting history. For example, Mr. Bush has repeatedly suggested that the United States had to invade Iraq because Saddam wouldn’t let U.N. inspectors in. His most recent statement to that effect was only a few weeks ago. And he gets away with it. If there have been reports by major news organizations pointing out that that’s not at all what happened, I’ve missed them.
It’s all very Orwellian, of course. But when Orwell wrote of “a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past,” he was thinking of totalitarian states. Who would have imagined that history would prove so easy to rewrite in a democratic nation with a free press?
The evidence just keeps piling up, doesn’t it? Torture, lies about history, ignoring the Constitution, rampant corruption that has destroyed political opposition, domestic spying without constraints. It ain’t good, folks! And, you might wonder if Krugman is overlooking a very basic fact about today's America: it is more totalitarian than not.
http://www.atrios.blogspot.com/
YEEEEAAAARGH
Krugman:
Whatever the reason, the fact is that the Bush administration continues to be remarkably successful at rewriting history. For example, Mr. Bush has repeatedly suggested that the United States had to invade Iraq because Saddam wouldn’t let U.N. inspectors in. His most recent statement to that effect was only a few weeks ago. And he gets away with it. If there have been reports by major news organizations pointing out that that’s not at all what happened, I’ve missed them.
It’s all very Orwellian, of course. But when Orwell wrote of “a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past,” he was thinking of totalitarian states. Who would have imagined that history would prove so easy to rewrite in a democratic nation with a free press?
