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> In a sick twist of irony Operation Mockingbird funded and arranged for the Hollywood production of the book "Animal Farm". How is this ironic? Orwell wrote A

> In a sick twist of irony Operation Mockingbird funded and arranged for the Hollywood production of the book "Animal Farm". How is this ironic? Orwell wrote Animal Farm as a critique of Stalinism.

dmix 12y ago
Maybe because Orwell was principally anti-authoritarian. His critique in Animal Farm was at Stalin (represented as the pig 'Napolean'), not Marx ('Old Major'). So it's ironic that his anti-authoritarian work was used as propaganda by a state. Propaganda tends to be the tool of Stalin-esque dictators.
- Perceval 12y ago
  > Propaganda tends to be the tool of Stalin-esque dictators. Not even close to true. Anti-authoritarian revolutionaries utilize propaganda to further their causes just as much as authoritarians do to solidify their positions. For example, Thomas Paine wrote propaganda for liberalism against British colonialism. There's nothing remotely ironic about the CIA sponsoring an anti-Stalinist work.
  - dmix 12y ago
    Fair enough, maybe the author can explain why it's ironic.
  - blauwbilgorgel 12y ago
    >Not even close to true >There's nothing remotely ironic You seem to have made up your mind on this, but just in case you want to understand my view better: A book with heavy anti-propaganda themes is used for propaganda purposes. That's irony. It's sick if Orwell knew this and yet agreed to his anti-Communist political writings being disguised in a story and used to destabilize the farms on other states. Because that means that all propaganda is equal, but some propaganda is more equal than others. That's sheer egoism, hypocrisy and political pandering. A secret organization that uses propaganda and deception to destabilize other states, using black budgets siphoned off from "economic recovery plans" (which in reality was (motivated as) an anti-Communism plan), that's eerily close to a dangerous totalitarian state. Using popular news media and culture to further government propaganda is eerily close to the organized lying that Orwell so despised. "If the director of CIA wanted to extend a present, say, to someone in Europe—a Labour leader—suppose he just thought, This man can use fifty thousand dollars, he's working well and doing a good job - he could hand it to him and never have to account to anybody... There was simply no limit to the money it could spend and no limit to the people it could hire and no limit to the activities it could decide were necessary to conduct the war—the secret war... It was a multinational. Maybe it was one of the first." --Thomas Braden Orwell regarded propaganda as a feature of all modern governments but especially prominent in totalitarian regimes. His book may have become a Squealer the Pig. Accusing the other party of cheating, then both tabling an ace of spades. You are free BTW to change the word "irony" to any word you like that makes that sentence more agreeable to you (fate/remarkable/without cause etc.). In February 1976, George H. W. Bush, the recently appointed Director of the CIA, announced a new policy: "Effective immediately, the CIA will not enter into any paid or contract relationship with any full-time or part-time news correspondent accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station." He added that the CIA would continue to "welcome" the voluntary, unpaid cooperation of journalists.
    - Perceval 12y ago
      > It's sick if Orwell knew this and yet agreed to his anti-Communist political writings being disguised in a story and used to destabilize the farms on other states. Orwell was not anti-communist, he was anti-Stalinist. Orwell himself was a democratic socialist. Before he died in 1950, Orwell enjoyed a dramatization of Animal Farm broadcast on the BBC. I'm not sure he would have been upset, or found it hypocritical, to have a film version made in 1954. > His book may have become a Squealer Perhaps writing anti-Stalinist propaganda condemning Stalin's use of propaganda is hypocritical. But one would have to ignore the content of the message and focus only on the means of delivery to call Orwell a hypocrite. And why would he not want to see wider dissemination of his message?

> In a sick twist of irony Operation Mockingbird funded and arranged for the Hollywood production of the book "Animal Farm". How is this ironic? Orwell wrote Animal Farm as a critique of Stalinism.

dmix 12y ago

Maybe because Orwell was principally anti-authoritarian. His critique in Animal Farm was at Stalin (represented as the pig 'Napolean'), not Marx ('Old Major'). So it's ironic that his anti-authoritarian work was used as propaganda by a state. Propaganda tends to be the tool of Stalin-esque dictators.

Perceval 12y ago
> Propaganda tends to be the tool of Stalin-esque dictators. Not even close to true. Anti-authoritarian revolutionaries utilize propaganda to further their causes just as much as authoritarians do to solidify their positions. For example, Thomas Paine wrote propaganda for liberalism against British colonialism. There's nothing remotely ironic about the CIA sponsoring an anti-Stalinist work.
- dmix 12y ago
  Fair enough, maybe the author can explain why it's ironic.
- blauwbilgorgel 12y ago
  >Not even close to true >There's nothing remotely ironic You seem to have made up your mind on this, but just in case you want to understand my view better: A book with heavy anti-propaganda themes is used for propaganda purposes. That's irony. It's sick if Orwell knew this and yet agreed to his anti-Communist political writings being disguised in a story and used to destabilize the farms on other states. Because that means that all propaganda is equal, but some propaganda is more equal than others. That's sheer egoism, hypocrisy and political pandering. A secret organization that uses propaganda and deception to destabilize other states, using black budgets siphoned off from "economic recovery plans" (which in reality was (motivated as) an anti-Communism plan), that's eerily close to a dangerous totalitarian state. Using popular news media and culture to further government propaganda is eerily close to the organized lying that Orwell so despised. "If the director of CIA wanted to extend a present, say, to someone in Europe—a Labour leader—suppose he just thought, This man can use fifty thousand dollars, he's working well and doing a good job - he could hand it to him and never have to account to anybody... There was simply no limit to the money it could spend and no limit to the people it could hire and no limit to the activities it could decide were necessary to conduct the war—the secret war... It was a multinational. Maybe it was one of the first." --Thomas Braden Orwell regarded propaganda as a feature of all modern governments but especially prominent in totalitarian regimes. His book may have become a Squealer the Pig. Accusing the other party of cheating, then both tabling an ace of spades. You are free BTW to change the word "irony" to any word you like that makes that sentence more agreeable to you (fate/remarkable/without cause etc.). In February 1976, George H. W. Bush, the recently appointed Director of the CIA, announced a new policy: "Effective immediately, the CIA will not enter into any paid or contract relationship with any full-time or part-time news correspondent accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station." He added that the CIA would continue to "welcome" the voluntary, unpaid cooperation of journalists.
  - Perceval 12y ago
    > It's sick if Orwell knew this and yet agreed to his anti-Communist political writings being disguised in a story and used to destabilize the farms on other states. Orwell was not anti-communist, he was anti-Stalinist. Orwell himself was a democratic socialist. Before he died in 1950, Orwell enjoyed a dramatization of Animal Farm broadcast on the BBC. I'm not sure he would have been upset, or found it hypocritical, to have a film version made in 1954. > His book may have become a Squealer Perhaps writing anti-Stalinist propaganda condemning Stalin's use of propaganda is hypocritical. But one would have to ignore the content of the message and focus only on the means of delivery to call Orwell a hypocrite. And why would he not want to see wider dissemination of his message?