Do any of these teabaggers quoting George Orwell at every turn

[Clintonista2]

know that he was a proud leftist/socialist for his entire life?

[louis-t]

1. I have yet to hear any teabagger quote Orwell.

[Clintonista2]

4. Here, let me enlighten you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMP-igGmeTU

read the comments. Clearly teabaggers.

[louis-t]

8. Definitely teabaggers, but they're not quoting Orwell.

The video alludes to Orwell, but teabaggers aren't smart enough to put the imagery with the text of 1984. In typical repuke fashion, they are projecting something that they themselves are creating.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. He was a Trotskyite and fought against the likes of the teabaggers in Spain.

[proteus_lives]

13. Never a Trotskyite.

Influenced by it but an actual democratic socialist.

He was very disenchanted with communism and the Russians after Spain.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. He fought in a Trotskyite militia in Spain and was disinchanted with the Stalinists.

Not with Marxism.

[proteus_lives]

15. Still wasn't a Trotskyite.

And I didn't mention Marxism, I wasn't talking about totalitarian communism.

[Hannah Bell]

17. he was never a trot & POUM wasn't precisely trot either.

The POUM or Partido Obrero Unificación Marxista (Workers' Party of Marxist Unification) was a Spanish communist political party formed during the Second Republic and mainly active around the Spanish Civil War.

It was formed by the fusion of the Trotskyist Communist Left of Spain (Izquierda Comunista de España, ICE) and the Workers and Peasants' Bloc (BOC, affiliated with the Right Opposition) against the will of Leon Trotsky, with whom the former broke.

The POUM's independent communist position, including opposition to Stalin, caused huge ruptures with the PCE, which remained fiercely loyal to the Comintern. Moreover, these divisions, which included accusations of Trotskyism (and even Fascism) by the Communists, resulted in actual fighting between their supporters; most notably, in 1937, a primarily-Communist coalition of government forces attacked the POUM during the Barcelona May Days.

While the larger CNT initially supported the POUM, its more militant members—such as Juan García Oliver and the Friends of Durruti—were pushed towards conciliation by the moderate leadership.

This left the POUM, along with the purely Trotskyist Seccion Bolshevik-Leninista, isolated, and both organizations were driven underground. Nin was detained and tortured to death by NKVD agents in Madrid, and his party consistently labeled as provocateur in Stalinist propaganda.

The POUM was a member of the "London Bureau" of socialist parties that rejected both the reformism of the Second International and the pro-Moscow orientation of the Third International.

Other members included the Independent Labour Party in Britain, the PSOP in France, and Poale Zion.

Its youth wing was affiliated to the International Bureau of Revolutionary Youth Organizations, through which it recruited the ILP Contingent in the Civil War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_Party_of_Marxist_Unification

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. From another source.

I have to agree to the extent that Orwell was a kind of mish-mosh of revolutionary left thinking - Anarchist, Revolutionary Marxist, even Liberal, he was heavily influenced by Trot thinking as noted below.

http://www.marxists.de/culture/orwell/chen.htm

Commentators have suggested that Orwell moved away from revolution towards despair or reformist Tribune socialism some time towards the end of 1942, but Newsinger shows him pursuing another route. Certainly, faced with the reality that there would be no revolution in wartime Britain, Orwell reached an accommodation with British Labourism. However, when assessing this period, Newsinger points out, what is often overlooked is the absence of a British equivalent of the American literary journal, Partisan Review, for which Orwell wrote the London Letters series of articles between 1941 and 1946. While the Communist line may have dominated British left politics, it had no such clear run in America. Originally committed to the viewpoint of “the revolutionary working class” and to “defence of the Soviet Union” <28>, the Partisan Review, like Orwell, emerged from the fallout of 1936-1937 with a hostility to Stalinism and a broad sympathy for Trotsky’s ideas. This certainly qualifies Orwell as a “literary Trotskyist”, “a creative writer and commentator broadly influenced by Trotskyist ideas”. Newsinger also lists the catalogue of numerous Trotskyist pamphlets in Orwell’s archive to show that he had more than a passing acquaintance with Trotsky’s politics: “Clearly Orwell had a familiarity with Trotskyist politics that academic commentators on his work have singularly lacked, with the result that they have missed the extent to which much of his own political writing was a debate with the politics of the revolutionary left”.

From 1941 Orwell fought for a “revolutionary patriotic” line in the anti-war Partisan Review against the “revolutionary defeatist” editorial line. <31> For Orwell and many others on the left the fate of the war was inextricably bound up with the success of the revolution and the two were inseparable. The crisis of the war came to a head in the early summer of 1942 when it seemed possible that the left Labour politician Stafford Cripps would provide significant leadership. By the end of the summer the Conservatives had won power and the longed for growth in popular consciousness failed to materialise. In January 1943 Orwell wrote in Partisan Review that the “crisis is over and the forces of reaction have won hands down”. He later apologised in his December 1944 London Letter for his “many mistaken predictions”, and went into a lengthy self critical analysis of his “very great error”. The war had been won but the peace was lost. The survival of the ruling class had ended any hope of socialism:

"Britain is moving towards a planned economy, and class distinctions tend to dwindle, but there has been no real shift of power and no increase in genuine democracy. The same people still own all the property and usurp all the best jobs."

[Rex]

3. Where did you see/hear that? Wouldn't surprise me, they don't have

a clue as to what they are supposedly angry about. :rofl:

[Clintonista2]

7. I constantly hear them say "it's just like 1984!!!"

Search "1984 barack obama" on youtube and there are tons of videos done by/commented on by teabaggers, decrying "socialist obama".

[Rex]

11. Wow, I will look around thanks. I wonder if they even know what 1984

is about or if 'someone they know' told them about it?

[harun]

16. No way they know, some hate radio dude told them to say that.

[Greyhound]

5. Don't know about morans quoting him, but Orwell was warning the world about

TPTB, not any political parties.

Look at what we call "America" today, a "socialist" President that works directly for multi-national corporations, that bankrupts his nation to ensure that the ruling class suffers no consequences for their thievery, but tells ordinary people "tough shit" every day. Orwell was perfectly correct in his prediction that the majority are always going to do what they're told to do by the man with the stick.

[tblue]

6. They have NO idea who he even is. nt

[baldguy]

9. For them, "1984" is a how-to manual.

[pinboy3niner]

10. The real irony lies in their being American exceptionalists

Because, you know, "Some animals are more equal than others." :eyes:

[lunatica]

12. They remind me of Brave New World

Where everything is pre-determined by pre-birth lab genetic manipulation and any effort to fight the status quo is futile. Soma is the elixir that keeps everyone happily passive.