Dissident Done Left

[Terrance]

jbor wrote:

 Orwell was pro-democracy. Socialist democracy.

"Ingsoc," English Socialism. Like so many Americans on the left, Orwell
was more concerned with what Russia portended for socialism than with
the actual struggles
of the working class.



"But you are free. We all are. You'll see. Before long. ... Before long
...." 

	--Oberst Enzian to Slothrop, GR.288




>From what I know of the effect of these holidays upon the slave, I
believe them to be among the most effective means in the hands of the
slaveholder in keeping down the spirit of insurrection. Were the
slaveholders at once to abandon this practice, I have not the slightest
doubt it would lead to an immediate insurrection among the slaves. These
holidays serve as conductors, or safety-valves, to carry off the
rebellious spirit of enslaved humanity. But for these, the slave would
be forced up to the wild est desperation; and woe betide the
slaveholder, the day he ventures to remove or hinder the
 operation of those conductors! I warn him that, in such an event, a
spirit will go forth in their midst, more to be dreaded than the most
appalling earthquake. 

  The holidays are part and parcel of the gross fraud, wrong, and
inhumanity of slavery. They are professedly a custom established by the
benevolence of the slaveholders; but I undertake to say, it is the
result of selfishness, and one of the grossest frauds committed upon the
down-trodden slave. They do not give the slaves this time because they
would not like to have their work during its continuance, but because
they know it would be unsafe to deprive them of it. This will be seen by
the fact, that the slaveholders like to have their slaves spend those
days just in such a manner as to make
  them as glad of their ending as of their beginning. Their object seems
to be, to disgust their slaves with freedom, by plunging them into the
lowest depths of dissipation. For instance, the slaveholders not only
like to see the slave drink of his own accord, but will adopt various
plans to make him drunk. One plan is, to make bets on their slaves, as
to who can drink the most whisky without getting drunk; and in this way
they succeed in getting whole multitudes to drink to excess. Thus, when
the
 slave asks for virtuous freedom, the cunning slaveholder, knowing his
ignorance, cheats him with a dose of vicious dissipation, artfully
labelled with the name of liberty. The most of us used to drink it down,
and the result was just what might be supposed; many of us were led to
think that there was little to choose between liberty and slavery. We
felt, and very prop erly too, that we had almost as well be slaves to
man as to rum. So, when the holidays ended, we staggered up from the
filth of our wallowing, took a long breath, and marched to the
field,--feeling, upon the whole, rather glad to go,
from what our master had deceived us into a belief was freedom, back to
the arms of slavery. 

   I have said that this mode of treatment is a part of the whole system
of fraud and inhumanity of  slavery. It is so. The mode here adopted to
disgust the slave with freedom, by allowing him to see only the abuse of
it, is carried out in other things. For instance, a slave loves
molasses; he steals some. His master, in many cases, goes off to town,
and buys a large quantity; he returns, takes his whip, and commands the
slave to eat the molasses, until the poor fellow is made sick at the
very
 mention of it. The same mode is sometimes adopted to make the slaves
refrain from asking for more food than their regular allowance. A slave
runs through his allowance, and applies for more. His master is enraged
at him; but, not willing to send him off with out food, gives him more
than is necessary, and compels him to eat it within a given time. Then,
if he complains that he cannot eat it, he is said to be satisfied
neither full nor fasting, and is whipped for being hard to please! I
have an
 abundance of such illustrations of the same principle, drawn from my
own observation, but think the cases I have cited sufficient. The
practice is a very common one. 

Keep you dope with mindless pleasures 
And  sex & TV
Add you think you're so Orwell and classless and Free
But you're no Frederick Douglass as far as I can see. 

"Who ain't a slave?" 

	--Melville