Why Doesn't the Left Quote Orwell?

George Orwell was a self-proclaimed socialist.  [Note: Larry Gonick, who knows a whole lot of stuff, just informed us that he considered himself an anarchist, not a socialist.] He even fought on the communist side on the Spanish Civil War.  So you'd think the left would be quoting him all the time, wouldn't you.  Well,  the nutcase Trotskyite neocon Christopher Hitchens has written a book about him that I haven't read, but for the most part, the left prefers to quote Nelson Mandela or Bobby Kennedy or MLK, because, frankly, Orwell said very little that a true leftist wants to quote.  They'd rather just forget about it.  They don't read 1984 any more, because it's critical of communists.  Same goes for Animal Farm. They prefer to read Philip Roth or Toni Morrison.  I once knew a liberal who read a whole book by Tony Hillerman by mistake, and complained that there weren't any oppressed Blacks in it.  Just kidding.  The only Orwell-quoting I hear these days is from conservatives and libertarians.

Today's left is committed to perpetual war, of course, walking in tandem with their sister neocons.  Oh, they make anti-war noises now and then, but when push comes to shove, they get right in there and vote to invade Afghanistan or Somalia or anywhere they're coaxed into.  Their anti-war rhetoric always turns out to be just antimilitary or antiRepubican, because when the wars are turned over to the Obama types, they suddenly become wonderful and glorious and oh, so necessary.  Here's what Orwell said about war.  He was right.

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking of the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labor power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Flying Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labor that would build several hundred cargo ships. Ultimately, it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labors another Flying Fortress is built. In principle, the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population...

    It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist. -- George Orwell, 1984