George Kennan is another extreme case. He was the American consul in Berlin until the war between Germany and the United States broke out in December 1941. And until then he was writing pretty supportive statements back stressing that we shouldn't be so hard on the Nazis if they were doing something we didn't agree with - basically repeating the idea that they were people we could do business with.

Orwell says straight, look, in England what comes out in a free country is not very different from this totalitarian monster that I'm describing in the book. It's more or less the same. How come in a free country? He has two sentences, which are pretty accurate. One, he says, the press is owned by wealthy men who have every reason not to want certain ideas to be expressed. And second - and I think this is much more important - a good education instills in you the intuitive understanding that there are certain things it just wouldn't do to say.

Farming out atrocities to paramilitaries is standard operating procedure.

The people I find most impressive are generally unknown at the time of their actions and forgotten in history.

To live a life of honesty and integrity is a responsibility of every decent person.

I'm sorry to say it has some historical analogs. It's kind of reminiscent of what happened in Germany in the late Weimar years.

My own feeling is that a corporation has no right to have a political or social influence.