Photo: commons.wikimedia.org by Mat Tuck licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
It’s a good line. Not mine. That belongs to George Orwell in the 1940s…or perhaps Arthur Ponsonby in 1928…or maybe United States Senator Hiram Johnson in 1918…or probably Samuel Johnson in 1758…or possibly, as with most things, Aeschylus in 500 B.C.
Actually, no one is aware of the origin as even with first documented uses it is referenced as “an ancient proverb”.
Knowns and Unknowns and Know-Nothings
What we do know…at least about Orwell?
He was a British Imperial policeman in Burma (currently Myanmar),
He was opposed to English involvement in a European War and published a pamphlet on the topic, which he later destroyed and to my knowledge is completely lost to posterity,
He was eventually in favor of such a conflagration and fought in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the Republicans (i.e. the Communists slaughtering nuns and priests),
He was a presenter for the BBC and eschewed humanity, eventually residing in desolation, and quite wrongly believing himself to be physically unattractive, which baffled several female colleagues much later interviewed regarding that notion.
In his works one can see a concentric, if elliptical, progression from Animal Farm to Nineteen Eighty-Four to what likely would have resulted had he lived another few decades – to the chagrin of many.
Orwell is a fascinating individual in the sense we have no polemicist; as he was exposed to the nature of Realpolitik he assimilated such experiences into works which defied narrow constraints of civics.
All of which is to say…good writers are cribbed by bad speech-makers.
Trump vs. Momala? Audiences vs. Idiot Rhetoricians!
While most Americans have been paying attention to the “Grand Finale of Democracy” rhetoric, another stealth assault has been the more atrocious oratories coming at us lamented about below.
Except, your Humble Correspondent will – as always – attempt to extricate you.
The most irritating quotation to become quotidian was the following…and because modern “journalists” are the very models of modern major morons…continue reading and you, Sportsfans, will be equipped to embarrass any midwits of Controlled Media you may come across.
Are you ready?
Battle of the Wise Words from Foolish Candidates!
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Quick! – Who said it? Some will likely reply Obama in his 2008 speech on race. Wrong.
(In fairness, Bammy did cite the original writer, even while mucking the two-sentence quote.)
Rather, the originator was none other than William Faulker in his novel Requiem for a Nun, which was the sequel to an earlier novel, Sanctuary.
The work was published in 1950.
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
Fast! – Who said it? Well, actually about everybody. What I mean is who first wrote it? Anyone?
Okay, this is by L.P. Hartley as the opening line of his novel The Go-Between.
There are several stage and screen adaptations, most notably a 1971 film starring Julie Christie (of Dr. Zhivago fame) and a later 2015 movie featuring Joanna Vanderham (of several of my nocturnal fantasies).
The book was published in 1953.
Two Lines and a Million Insufferable Addresses
Of the two, I regard the Faulkner lines better while the Hartley tale is superior.
Either way, they each resonate in the soul and there is no evidence one was influenced by the other.
Such cannot be claimed of the many campaign speeches in which you have likely heard some variation of these during the past months – as they get fitted in via pilfering every election cycle.
All the more depressing when an “edumuhcated” journalist hears them and credits whatever speaker.
It is disheartening when the stanzas are telling a universal truth while the dueling candidates are selling a common lie.
Whatever words they use – each campaigner is identical in different ways.
Orwell – Dying Afore the Deluge
Concluding with our commencement is this letter of February 4, 1944, from Orwell to the Tribune; which is lamentably both true and false in the sense poor George comprehends after around 1930 objective History no longer existed, yet fails to recognize that “totalitarianism” was hardly the cause.
For instance, Orwell writes at least the Allies “tell fewer lies”…*sigh*
Used to be, one might obtain a facsimile edition of the book Twilight Over England at the War College, originally written by William Joyce who was a Brit producing propaganda for Germany and later executed for the same.
Far from being Der Rabid Rechts-Winger, Joyce came to his beliefs as did many decent people – being poor. Agree with him or not, the man was drawn to his politics by watching family upon family being tossed onto the streets completely destitute in the wealthiest nation on Earth at that time.
(Incidentally, the True King Edward VIII likewise regarded such conditions as deplorable…which, aside from the Sexy-Time Nonsense you have been told, is the authentic reason they tossed that genuine gentleman off his rightful throne.)
Georgie passed in 1950, which was before the Windrush Replacement genuinely began and well prior to Enoch Powell explaining meticulously what it was all going to mean for Actual Demographically Displaced Brits in a generation or two – HINT: It is now a generation or two.
Would that Orwell had been amenable to a civil cocktail conversation with Joyce.
On that score much there was more in common than apart.
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org by Mat Tuck licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
