The Government And George Orwell...!

Sometimes what we find out about folks we thought we knew is a shock. That's the case with Orwell!

Who would have guessed that the person responsible for the book 1984 could willingly work for the government? Certainly not me! Here is the story from none other than Listverse.

George Orwell Was A Government Informer

Although he was officially a socialist, most people probably associate Orwell with antiauthoritarianism. His most famous novels, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, are dire warnings about state intrusion in our lives, and his terrifying Thought Police satirized government informers in the creepiest way possible. Yet outside his fiction, Orwell wasn’t totally opposed to state interference. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, he even helped the British government spy on its own citizens.

In 1949, a frail Orwell volunteered to draw up a list of suspected communists and Russia-sympathizers for the UK’s Foreign Office. Included among the 135 names on Orwell’s list were left-wing government figures, playwrights, poets, the mayor of New York, and Charlie Chaplin. Alongside each one, Orwell scrawled personal information, ranging from comments like “v. stupid” to assumptions about their political leanings and racial background. The annotations were so specific that journalist Alexander Cockburn later claimed they showed a deep mistrust of Jews, black people, and homosexuals.

Although there’s no evidence Orwell’s list was ever used to persecute anyone, it still caused many commentators to question why a man so dedicated to ideas of personal liberty would deliberately spy on his political bedfellows.

Wonder just what Orwell's thinking was on this action. Hard for me to figure it out, I'll tell ya!

Coffee in the kitchen this morning. Weather is acting all crazy and stuff.