Continuing with our weekly collection of quotes, today’s piece is dedicated to one writer only: George Orwell
Over the years, many ordinary people have said that the media and politicians seem to have taken Orwell’s “1984” as manual, not as warning.
George Orwell died in 1950, one year after publishing “1984”. His thoughts are as valid today as they were then, so here is a collection of his quotes which are not as prominent as they deserve to be, and which describes the place we ordinary people find ourselves in:
In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.
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Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
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Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
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So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.
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There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.
It has become a tedious exercise to point out the propaganda machinery those in power wield against us, the people, day in day out, in the MSM. Orwell said:
Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.
It isn’t only that the MSM no longer report facts but also tell us what they mean and how to think by not separating factual reports from opinion pieces – it’s that those whose opinions differ are silenced by not mentioning them or smearing them as being ‘politically uncorrect’. Orwell remarked:
Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
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The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.
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In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.
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Political chaos is connected with the decay of language… one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.
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Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.
Even worse: now that technology allows those who beg to differ to address the public directly, by-passing the ‘normal’ media, TPTB are doing their utmost to silence them, by making and using ‘laws’ criminalising ‘hate speech’, by screaming ‘fake news’ when in fact their news are thoroughly fake while insisting that their ‘true facts’ are true when in reality they are not:
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
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Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
Here’s what Orwell wrote on specific topics:
Those who ‘abjure’ violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf.
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We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.
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Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.
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When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.
On war:
War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.
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War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.
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Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.
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All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
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The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.
Isn’t it interesting what Orwell said on jokes (‘permanently offended, take note!):
The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.
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Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie… a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.
To those politicians and ‘gurus’ who keep telling us that “love” is all we need, Orwell said:
To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others.
Let’s conclude with something extremely un-PC:
At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.
Yes – we all can name some prominent ‘faces’ for whom that sentence was coined!
Pam, if you could transfer your trenchant talents from assiduous analysis to rigorous remedy for a change I’m sure we’d all benefit!
‘Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.’
Sixty seven years after Orwell’s death, I would omit the word ‘usually’ and change ‘hatred’ to ‘divisions’ in the main clause of that sentence. Class differences haven’t disappeared, but the lines are smudged and create bemusement rather than hatred in today’s Britain.
Cultural Marxism has done its best to degrade and eliminate patriotism, but I think it exists in the minds of most people of every class to a greater or lesser degree – not paraded, as in America, but sincerely felt nevertheless.
The only group that lacks patriotic feeling are the Hard Leftards, the internationalists who care no more for their own country and its people than they do for anyone anywhere in the world; indeed, they care much more for foreigners judging by their determination to cram immigrants into Britain to the detriment of the Britons whose home this is. They also determinedly ignore the protests of the British and add insult to injury by calling them tedious, cliched names, a form of virtue-signalling that is as hypocritical as it is ludicrous. These traitor Remainers would rather see us ruled by a despotic foreign power than have the freedom to make our own laws and save our country.
What really shocked them when Leave won was that there were enough wise patriots to win the Referendum. What shocked me was that there were so many stupid and unpatriotic people who voted Remain.
But in the end, I agree with George Orwell: patriotism is stronger than class differences and stronger than Leftard internationalists. The latter have had a run of 70+ years and they have failed to rub out national feeling.
But not strong enough to win general elections for patriotic parties, Pamelia. That’s the problem, at least here and in the rest of western Europe.
It needs to be coaxed out by the right policies.
@ Q
Many people believe, or used to believe, that they had voted for the ‘patriotic party’ when they elected the Conservatives. Some Tories are, undoubtedly, patriots and we saw them campaigning for Leave in defiance of their leaders. Unfortunately, the concern shown by the Conservative party for the interests of big, corporate business dilutes their patriotism to an unacceptable level, and we see this in action during the interminable argy-bargy over Brexit.
It is impossible to trust Remainers with Brexit or immigration, and I think fewer and fewer people continue to identify the Conservative party with real patriotism. Sadly, they do not see UKIP as a viable alternative since we imploded after the Referendum, even though we are currently the only truly patriotic party – well, the members are, anyway, not sure about the hierarchy.
Referring to your earlier comment about my suggesting ‘rigorous remedy for a change’: as I’ve stated many times, it’s the election of AMW as leader of UKIP. Perhaps she can convince the electorate that the only way to prevent future conflict and the disappearance of Britain as we know it is to implement her manifesto.
PS: and that includes the economic policies in AMW’s manifesto.
Exactly, Pam, thank you!
Our task now should be to concentrate on those economic policies.
It is said that the class system was eradicated after the 1st world war, that is not so. The class system has been replaced by the elite who control the money
Viv you are indispensable to the debate within UKIP and also to a much greater field. How brilliant and original and uncompromising George Orwell was; he even had the good sense to change his name from Blair!
His collected works are a testament to at the end a good life led with honour; imperfect like us all but challenging the status quo to the end. In 1949 many if not the majority in the labour and trade union movement in the UK hero worshipped massmurderer Stalin and refused to accept the truth about the millions butchered like animals for being enemies of the state. Some elements of the metropolitan elites including at the bbc* actually thought it was necessary if not good that ordinary Christian priests, nuns, landowners,antisocialist academics,small factory owners, and “former people”(official name of the Nobility and Aristocracy – two categories)were taken to cellars stripped naked – men women and children – casually tortured including eye gouging, hot pokers and worse – killed by firing squad at dead of night and their bodies by the tens and hundreds of thousands taken and thrown in shallow unmarked forestgrove pits outside every single town in Russia.
* source Michael Wharton(aka Peter Simple) “The Missing Will” (1984)
Great quotes.
Of particular note however:
“Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.”
That’s essentially what my articles have been about.
The operative word though is ‘usually’, because a strong case can be made that in the half-century-plus since Orwell the statement hasn’t been true in the West, which is still in long-term reaction to the ultra-nationalism of the Second World War.
Our task in UKIP is to appeal to the positive nationalism latent in our country, when the evidence points to class still being the deciding factor in general elections – and, more to the point, the economic and social policies on offer which reflect that truth.
My message is that our only chance of saving our country is to lead on nationalist economics, because only that will attract a sufficient patriotic alliance to win – and the arithmetic dictates that must include large numbers of the working class of our country.
And to attract them we have to pitch our policies accordingly.
There is no hope of any electoral success for any ‘far right’ party in our country. Posters on here who claim otherwise are living in a fool’s paradise and doing UKIP no service.
It might come as a surprise to some that Orwell was actually a man of the Left, who believed strongly in bettering the lot of the common people.
And I’m pretty sure he’d say that I’m right.
Quercus, the political spectrum is actually two dimensional rather than being linear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart
The term “right wing” is being applied to those who are unhappy with Islam. It is a false label in my opinion.
I am sure that there are plenty who want to see a fair and decent society, concern for those who fall on hard times, and who also oppose all the negative aspects of Islam. The terminology needs to be clarified, and the false terminology must be rejected.
Feminists siding with Islam is happening, and it is baffling. Have they not read the Koran? This video was taken at a “pussy grabs back” protest in Berlin, only a few weeks after the Islamic truck attack at a Christmas market:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHFj8o2DGKQ
If they would go and protest outside Mosques about FGM and the unequal treatment of women in Sharia law then they would be following in the honourable tradition of the Suffragettes. But they do not.
Hugo, few of us disagree with you.
The question is not what, but how.
“The question is not what, but how.”
AMW is from the left wing of the political spectrum. Would it be so bad if UKIP moved leftwards, with her as leader?
Labour has become effectively the pro-Islam party. There must be many voters who want a decent and fair society, but who are appalled at the way Labour is pandering to Islam.
I know you do not like the emphasis on Islam, however dealing with it is the next major challenge beyond Brexit. If UKIP is to be relevant then it has to tackle the tough challenges head on.
Hugo
I support AMW, not only because of her stance on culture and demographics but because she is the only candidate who really understands the vital importance of economic and social policy in building the patriotic alliance we need.
It’s no good on the one hand talking about nothing but islamisation, or on the other plugging Thatcherite economics and grammar schools.
If we have to talk in left and right terms, then yes left on the economy (but nationalistically so) and also on issues of equality. On everything else, right.
‘Tackling head-on’ will not succeed. The way to win is through economic policy, because that is what most affects people’s lives.
Hugo, the only comforts I derive from watching that video are the following: there weren’t many of them; they were self-hating Germans who need counselling; they were young, naive, impressionable and stupid; they were show-offs, especially the one that warbled allahu akhbar to impress the rest; they were ridiculous in their use of the word ‘pussy’ – as ridiculous as black people when they call themselves ‘niggers’ in tedious rap songs; they were racist in their poster attacks on whites.
To sum up, all one can do is laugh at them as dafter-than-usual Leftard idiots and hope that if the muslim molesters are going to pick on anyone, it will be them instead of sane, decent German women.
“In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.”
We hear after the Islamic terrorist attacks from politicians “this is nothing to do with Islam”. I am sick of this lie. It plainly is something to do with Islam because the terrorists shout “Allahu akbar”.
I have made a start reading the “Satanic Verses”. It is free to download from here:
http://infojur.ufsc.br/aires/arquivos/RushdieSalmanSatanicVerses.pdf
On page 121:
“Have you thought upon Lat and Uzza, and Manat, the third, the other?” — After the first verse, Hind gets to her feet; the Grandee of Jahilia is already standing very straight. And Mahound, with silenced eyes, recites: “They are the exalted birds, and their intercession is desired indeed.”
The root of the problem is that Mohammed acknowledged, briefly these three goddesses, the companions of Allah. Supposedly the verses, subsequently removed from the Koran, were inspired by Satan.
It begs the question: how many other verses in the Koran were inspired by Satan but which have not been removed subsequently?