In my seventh grade English class, I got an opportunity to read Animal Farm by George Orwell.

My mom had read it once as a little girl during the brief occupation of Seoul in the Korean War.

“One day Ohma brought home fish for dinner, wrapped in paper. But it was too much paper—everything was scarce. I noticed that the paper was numbered and I put them together and that was the first time I read Animal Farm.”

“Did you know what it was about?”

“Of course! I really liked the part where they said, ‘All animals are equal.” and then it got changed to ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’ 😀 I loved it so much that when the war ended I read Nineteen Eighty-Four, but it didn’t make any sense. 🙁 I didn’t know what a ‘television’ was.”

[Politics after the jump.]

Back to politics

In 2004, the CIA concluded that the Osama Bin Laden “October surprise” was done to tilt the elections in favor of George W. Bush. With or without knowledge of this CIA report, it was shamelessly used, by those with the only access to the analysis, to claim the reverse.

This is the sort of “up is down-right is wrong” logic common in Nineteen Eighty-Four:

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

Question: How do you get to this totalitarian state?
Answer: Animal Farm.

Inch by inch. Rationalization by rationalization. I guess it depends on what your definition of “is” is.

I read today that McCain is saying that Al Quada might attempt attacks to tilt the election against him.

I ask myself: How can someone knowingly lie in this manner about the issue of terrorism? How can someone knowingly support terrorists to abet their winning a political contest? And given his knowledge of these facts, is it is no great accusation to call him on this?

He may call himself a “patriot,” but the world that need apply here is “traitor.”

Read “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell.