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ORWELL_AT_WAR

                                             December 28, 2010
                                             August   19, 2013

Some George Orwell quotes, from
"Looking back on the Spanish War"           http://orwell.ru/library/essays/Spanish_War/english/esw_1
(1943):                                     http://libcom.org/library/looking-back-on-the-spanish-war-george-orwell

  "...  official war-propaganda, with
  its disgusting hypocrisy and                 The Spanish Civil war:
  self-righteousness, always tends to          1936-1939 (just before WWII);
  make thinking people sympathize with         An attempt at defending a
  the enemy."                                  popularly elected left-wing
                                               government from a military coup.
      COWARDLY_LIONIZED


  "what impressed me then, and has impressed me ever
  since, is that atrocities are believed in or
  disbelieved in solely on grounds of political
  predilection. Everyone believes in the atrocities of
  the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side,
  without ever bothering to examine the
  evidence. Recently I drew up a table of atrocities
  during the period between 1918 and the present;
  there was never a year when atrocities were not
  occurring somewhere or other, and there was hardly a
  single case when the Left and the Right believed in
  the same stories simultaneously. And stranger yet,
  at any moment the situation can suddenly reverse
  itself and yesterday's proved-to-the-hilt atrocity
  story can become a ridiculous lie, merely because
  the political landscape has changed."



                                         "But unfortunately the truth about
                                         atrocities is far worse than that
                                         they are lied about and made into
                                         propaganda. The truth is that they
                                         happen. The fact often adduced as a
                                         reason for scepticism-- that the same
                                         horror stories come up in war after
                                         war-- merely makes it rather more
                                         likely that these stories are
                                         true. Evidently they are widespread
                                         fantasies, and war provides an
                                         opportunity of putting them into
                                         practice."



  "Part of the price we paid for the
  systematic lying of 1914-17 was the
  exaggerated pro-German reaction             PROPAGANDA_AND_EXPECTATIONS
  which followed. During the years
  1918-33 you were hooted at in
  left-wing circles if you suggested
  that Germany bore even a fraction
  of responsibility for the war."


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