Page 184 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

Chapter 7

Ignorance is Strength:
The Power of Propaganda in Modern Times

Orwell believed that political speech and writing in modem times "are largely
the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in
India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on
Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments that are too brutal for
most people to face.''6 Within the context of the invasions of Afghanistan and
Iraq, rationalizations of American power politics often promoted contradictory
notions that the U.S was fighting simultaneously for democracy and imperial-
ism. Public support for the war could never have been so high without the Bush
administration and media's promotion of the idea that the U.S. is democratizing
Iraq by removing the dictatorship of Saddam through "shock and awe" and pro-
longed occupation. And while Orwellian framing of U.S. actions in Iraq may be
inevitable amongst delusional political elites, such "understandings" of the na-
ture of U.S. foreign policy are not necessarily shared by the general public. This
reality will become more apparent in further discussions of American public
opinion explored at length in Chapter 8.

Notes

1. George Orwell, Animal Farm: A Fairy Story (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995),
171.
2. Orwell, Animal Farm, 163.
3. Orwell, Animal Farm, 162.
4. George Orwell, "Rudyard Kipling," in A Collection of Essays by George Orwell
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1954), 126,129.
5. Orwell, A Collection of Essays by George OrweN, 123-24.
6. Christopher Hitchens, Why OrweN Matters (New York: Basic, 2002), 28.
7. George Orwell, "Shooting an Elephant," in A Collection of Essays by George Or-
weN (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1954), 155.
8. Hitchens, Why OrweN Matters, 28.
9. Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters, 34.
10. Andrew Anthony, ''Orwell: the Observer Years," Observer, 11 May 2003,
(4
http://books.guardian.co.uk~dep~ents/c1assics/sto/0,6000,953217,00.h1 Feb.
2006).
11. Jeffrey Meyers, OrweN: A Wintry Conscience of a Generation (New York: W. W.
Norton, 2000), 245.
12. Nancy Snow, "Opinion Control on the Next War in Iraq," Nancysnow.com, 2006,
(12
http://www.nancysnow.com/infowar~excerpt Jun. 2006).
13. Bernard Crick, George Orwell: A Life (London: Secker and Warburg, 1980), 394.
14. George Orwell, "Why I Write," in A Collection of Essays by George Orwell (Gar-
den City, NY: Doubleday, 1954), 3 18.
15. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, "Letter to Francis A. Henson (Extract)," in The Col-
lected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: 1945-1950, Vol. 4 (New York:
Hancourt, Brace, & World, 1968), 502.
16. Crick, George Orwell: A Life, 395.