Orwell In The News And Blogosphere

I must have missed the memo that one of my favorite 20th Century authors has reached 21st Century prophet status.  Maybe the memo just declared November is national Orwell month.

First I read this Dr. Newquist post that reminds readers

A fundamental premise of Orwell's work is that the meaning of words is determined by their accrued history,  Accumulated human experience is stored in the language.  An emphasis in Orwell's work is that language used honestly, accurately, and skillfully is requisite to a healthy political climate.

Given the Republican debates, this reminder is certainly useful.

Then I stumbled upon this Conor Friedersdorf piece that uses" Shooting an Elephant" to analyze the pepper spraying of a  University of California Occupy Wall Street protester.


Then there's this ABA Journal article that reports that Orwell earned mention in legal arguments in the case of United States v. Jones.

George Orwell’s novel 1984 and its Big Brother society got several mentions as Supreme Court justices considered Tuesday whether police can use a GPS device to track suspects without getting a warrant. . . .

Justice Stephen G. Breyer told Dreeben that if the government wins the case, “then there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day the public movement of every citizen of the United States.” Breyer added that it “sounds like 1984.”

Finally, the BBC reports,

Though perhaps more famous for novels like 1984 and Animal Farm, Orwell was also a superb essayist and journalist.

In an article written for the London Evening Standard in 1946, he produced a detailed description of his ideal watering-hole, The Moon Under Water, which "is only two minutes from a bus stop, but it is on a side-street, and drunks and rowdies never seem to find their way there, even on Saturday nights".

 JD Weatherspoons, a British pub chain is trying to use Orwell's criteria to create a perfect pub.  I'm not an expert in British pubs but I do like one criterion.

Jethro Scotcher-Littlechild, believes he has found the ideal formula. "The quality of the ale's got to be right, I think good food and we like people to be talking in the bar. We don't have any music," he says

"The art of conversation's what you need in a good British pub."

Orwell would have concurred with the ban on music. "In the Moon Under Water it is always quiet enough to talk," he wrote. "The house possesses neither a radio nor a piano, and even on Christmas Eve and such occasions the singing that happens is of a decorous kind."

The Founders And Occupy Wall Street

Writing at The Washington Monthly, Rick Ungar takes a few jabs at views that originalists like Antonin Scalia or John Roberts espouse, especially the view that corporations are people.  Ungar writes,

While we know that the Founders had contempt for these corporate entities and the corruption they produced in Parliament, it appears to have never occurred to them to directly address corporations when they wrote the Constitution. It is not particularly difficult to understand why this would be the case. The Constitution speaks to control of government by the people…for the people…and of the people. Why should it occur to the Founders that a corporation might ever be perceived as one of “the people”?

He goes on to remind readers:

After the nation’s founding, corporations were, as they are today, the result of charters granted by the state. However, unlike today, they were limited in how long they were permitted to exist (typically 20 or 30 years), only permitted to deal in one commodity, not permitted to own shares in other corporations, and their property holdings were expressly limited to what they needed to accomplish their specific, corporate business goals.

Put another way, every single investment bank on Wall Street, as we know it today, would have been illegal in the days of our founding. 

Of course corporations are now legally individuals, so what was illegal is now seen as "good business," especially when one wishes to buy political influence.  Ungar, however, concludes,

Despite the controls placed on corporations in the early days of our nation, as corporations grew larger and their shareholders wealthier, they began to influence the rule making process that governed corporations. Using the money they had accumulated, they began to chip away at corporate restrictions. Eventually, corporations were permitted to go on forever. Where shareholders had once been personally responsible for the actions of the corporation, contemporary corporations shield their owners from personal liability. And, as more money became involved, the politicians who regulated them grew were increasingly seduced by what the wealthy corporations could do for them.

Were they around today, our founders would not only be standing on the front lines of the Occupy Wall Street movement, they would likely be pursuing a far more strident strategy than playing some bongo drums in Zuccotti Park.

 I'm sure the Tea Party folk will be upset at the notion that they don't have sole claim to being on the side of God, angels, and the founders or that Occupy Wall Street has an equal claim to the founders' vision.  Were they a little more aware of the history they claim as their own, they would remember that the original tea party struck against tea owned by corporation sanctioned by crown and parliment.

Tea Party vs. Occupy Wall Street Scorecard

Blogging at The Duck of Minerva, one of the best blog titles ever, Dan Nexon produces this scorecard comparing the Tea Party to Occupy Wall Street.

(HT Andrew Sullivan)

Jon Stewart Showing Republicans To Be Uniters Not Dividers: Hypocrisy Edition

Senator Thune appears briefly in this montage.  I don't remember John Thune worrying about the unity of the nation when Tea Party stalwarts were calling me a fascist because I teach.  This clip is an instant Stewart classic.
                       

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Are The Tea Party And Wall Street Two Sides Of The Same Coin?

Andrew Sullivan points to this James Sinclair post and chart.

Sinclair posits the following:

He concludes,

Yeah, I'm oversimplifying, but only a little. The greatest threat to our economy is neither corporations nor the government. The greatest threat to our economy is both of them working together. There are currently two sizable coalitions of angry citizens that are almost on the same page about that, and they're too busy insulting each other to notice.

Sinclair is probably right in the main; I would offer two small additions.  First, these divisions have been exacerbated by the Republicans' recent actions.  Second, there will be no reconciliation between the Tea Party and the Left until social issues like abortion and generational issues like Social Security can be de-politicized. (I know de-politicized may not be a word, but you get my drift.)

I Summarize My Reading About Wall Street

I get confused easily, so I am going to use this post to think aloud about Wall Street and the Occupy Wall Street movement.

According to Michael Lewis in The Big Short, Wall Street Bankers gambled and engaged in stupid and greedy practices that brought the United States perilously close to ruin.  As a result of surviving these practices, Wall Street Bankers expect huge bonuses for 2011.  Meanwhile, household incomes continue to fall even though the recession is allegedly over.

Now some people are occupying Wall Street to protest that situation.  Republican Eric Cantor claims these people constitute mobs.  The Dakota War College, meanwhile, says they smell bad and are unpatriotic because they don't carry flags.  In addition, the Los Angeles Times reports,

Republican presidential contender Herman Cain amplified his criticism Sunday of the growing Occupy Wall Street movement, calling the protesters “jealous’ Americans who "play the victim card” and want to “take somebody else’s” Cadillac.

In summary, the people who caused the recession are apparently supposed to get bonuses while the people who protest the fact these bankers get bonuses while average household incomes are shrinking unpatriotic, dirty, thieves.  It's a good thing these protesters haven't paraphrased or recited William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold speech.  They'd probably be open to being called unchristian then.