Hah! Orwell was Right!

No, not about 1984.

Back in late October, I attended a get-together of the local Democratic "active" party membership, and got a feel for the whole local party scene. My impression was a sour one, fouled mostly by the presence of anti-vaccination, anti-flouridation, New Age apocalyptic vision crazies who were not only respected activists in the party, but former elected officials themselves.

I was reminded if that encounter while reading George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier, a book about Orwell's experiences among the lower middle class in England. Toward the end of the book, Orwell, a socialist himself, rails against the way the socialist project in England is operating, and gives his reasons for why socialism is such a failure. His section on the adherents of socialism in his country is timeless:

As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.

The first thing that must strike any outside observer is that Socialism, in its developed form is a theory confined entirely to the middle classes. The typical Socialist is not, as tremulous old ladies imagine, a ferocious-looking working man with greasy overalls and a raucous voice. He is either a youthful snob-Bolshevik who in five years' time will quite probably have made a wealthy marriage and been converted to Roman Catholicism; or, still more typically, a prim little man with a white- collar job, usually a secret teetotaller and often with vegetarian leanings, with a history of Nonconformity behind him, and, above all, with a social position which he has no intention of forfeiting. This last type is surprisingly common in Socialist parties of every shade; it has perhaps been taken over en bloc from. the old Liberal Party. In addition to this there is the horrible-- the really disquieting-- prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words 'Socialism' and 'Communism' draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.

And Seattle, apparently.