I was reading Burmese Days by Orwell, and came across these passage where some colonials are discussing the impending admission of local (Burmese) of rank to the European club. It reminded me strikingly of the kind of complaints I hear nowadays from rightwingers such as Couter, Hanitty (sp?) and Fred and about the decline of society under Liberal influence:
Hmm? Oh, you mean the bit about Condi being a dumb mammy who don’t know nothin’ about aluminum tubes? I thought that cartoon was by a Democrap. Get back to the plantation, Condi; you’re not allowed to think for yourself.
Actually, I think the right wing does a very good job of describing the right wing:
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
– Hermann Goering, Nazi reich marshall
" We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm. " - george orwell
dog, since the end of ww2, the tactics you describe have been most widely employed by communist regimes in russia, north korea, vietnam, cuba, china, and eastern europe. so i guess goering was describing the left??
Absolutely. I haven’t actually revealed my full political views (which are pretty convoluted). If you were thinking that I’m one of these liberal leftist, bleeding heart, save-the-gay-whales types, you’ve got me pegged wrong. I’m fairly centrist - I believe that the extreme right and extreme left have much in common. Hitler and Stalin were more alike than they were different. It’s just that in this point of time, the pendulum is swinging to the right, and rising Fascism is where the greatest danger of totalitarianism now lies. Communism is (almost) dead - may it rest in peace (or burn in hell).
Another relevant Goering quote:
“Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”
cheers,
DB
“I don’t know how we’re going to fight World War III, but I know how we’re going to fight World War IV - with sticks and rocks.”
– Albert Einstein
Vay -
Your quotes from Orwell are all well and good. However you show no corresponding examples of “rightwinger” actions to make your point.
The facts are that the so-called left, or liberal ‘wing’, or Democratic Party has historically been the party of exclusion for the so-called “servants” you may be alluding to. Minorities, or the “servants” have consistently been used as a convienent tool by the Demo party. Trotted out and showcased for votes. Token members selected for favours. Programs established and codified to assure their enslavement to the Gov’t $$'s while a subculture of dependency extends to 2nd & 3rd generations.
The pathways of education, capitalism, entrepeneurship and self accountability are what has worked the best for the “servant” class, as it has for all who follow it. And this has been the course espoused by those you name. Personally I am not a big fan of Hannity, IMO he is a lightweight who may, or may not develop into more political relevance. And I prefer Laura Ingraham, among others, over Coulter. But they are sparking interest and reactions with their messages.
Of course, I am basing this on the assumption that you are referring to the political arena in the USA.
While I enjoy Orwell, and also Graham Greene for his views on “under classes,” to make any relevant comparisons with “rightwingers” I’m afraid a bit more substance is needed.
As a side note, the Ugly American in Greene’s book has always been a role-model for me in my international life. Too bad the term has been corrupted by those who never read the book.
I’m not sure what it was like in the past, but these days it does seem that a fairly central theme in the Democratic philosophy is the idea that uneducated serfs in the red counties really need to have their decisions made for them by their intellectual superiors in government. In any type of “class analyisis” there seems little doubt that the party proposing a model of a benevolent ruling elite is solidly blue.
Cowboy, as one who has not read Greene’s book – how was the Ugly American originally described?
I’m not sure what it was like in the past, but these days it does seem that a fairly central theme in the Democratic philosophy is the idea that uneducated serfs in the red counties really need to have their decisions made for them by their intellectual superiors in government. In any type of “class analyisis” there seems little doubt that the party proposing a model of a benevolent ruling elite is solidly blue.
Cowboy, as one who has not read Greene’s book – how was the Ugly American originally described?[/quote]
Hobbes-
The “Ugly American” was a person with a rural, agricultural, hands on, dirt under his nails AID person. This was in contrast to the stereotypical cocktail party diplomat who toured in an a/c’d vehicle and hob-knobed with the powers that be.
The ‘Ugly American’ drilled wells for water in the villages. Showed how rudimentary santitaional needs could be met and did crop analysis. He showed how to set up a basic forge so tools could be repaired or made.
But to the Diplo corps he was not worthy of their attention. He was…ugly and not of their lofty status.
From the ‘fly-over’ states…outside the beltway.
That in a nut-shell is what the ‘Ugly American’ was in Greene’s novel. However, it has come to be used as a term denoting exactly the opposite.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]The “Ugly American” was a person with a rural, agricultural, hands on, dirt under his nails AID person. This was in contrast to the stereotypical cocktail party diplomat who toured in an a/c’d vehicle and hob-knobed with the powers that be.
The ‘Ugly American’ drilled wells for water in the villages. Showed how rudimentary santitaional needs could be met and did crop analysis. He showed how to set up a basic forge so tools could be repaired or made.
But to the Diplo corps he was not worthy of their attention. He was…ugly and not of their lofty status.
From the ‘fly-over’ states…outside the beltway.
That in a nut-shell is what the ‘Ugly American’ was in Greene’s novel. However, it has come to be used as a term denoting exactly the opposite.[/quote]
I’m not sure what you’re talking about, TC, but if you’re referring to Greene’s novel The Quiet American, that’s not quite how I’d describe Pyle, the title character. He was a CIA operative sent to Vietnam to help subvert the VC. While he had good intentions of trying to support democracy, he was totally naize, believed others had lofty ideals like him, got suckered in by a power-hungry Vietnamese general who did not share such ideals at all, and he participated in a despicable bombing of a public market to promote his goals. He also got murdered eventually for his involvement with the loathsome General and his movement. Pyle was a sympathetic character, but I prefered the journalist Fowler, who was the wiser of the two and recognized the danger in Pyle’s naivety.
I was intrigued enough to look it up. The book TC appears to be referring to is The Ugly American, by Lederer and Burdick, not Greene.
daasgrrl -
I plead Sunday morning brain fart. You are exactly correct.
I humbly apologize for my mistake in the author(s).
While I am also very familiar with Greene’s “Quiet American” it ws indeed the character in “The Ugly American” to which I was referring.
MT - is this explanation simple enough for you to understand?
Hobbes - also my apologies.
compliments of daasgrrl & wikipaedia
[quote]The Ugly American
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Ugly American is the title of a 1956 political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer. It became a bestseller, was influential at the time, and is still in print.
The novel described how the United States was losing the struggle with communism
Perfectly simple, thanks. You refer to Greene three times and insult those “who haven’t read his novel” and lack your superior wisdom, when it turns out you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about and weren’t referring to Greene at all. Like Hobbes, I just wanted to engage in civil discussion and my comment was perfectly courteous. There was no need for your snide remark.
Well, if you want to make parallels betwen literature and the current American right, the above-mentioned Pyle (The Quiet American) is great.
He’s a naive idealist who believes American ideals can solve any international conflict. He is manipulated by those with more material interests into staging a fake terrorist attack, so as to bring the American public into supporting a war they would otherwise not want.
(What am I doing in the IP, forum? Ooops, gotta go).
Brian
Perfectly simple, thanks. You refer to Greene three times and insult those “who haven’t read his novel” and lack your superior wisdom, when it turns out you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about and weren’t referring to Greene at all. Like Hobbes, I just wanted to engage in civil discussion and my comment was perfectly courteous. There was no need for your snide remark.[/quote]
MT -
I admitted my mistake. I make no claim to perfection nor superior knowledge in this area.
It is also clear that I did know what I was talking about in the references to the novel “The Ugly American.”
I did NOT insult anyone who had not read “The Ugly American”, I commented on the evolved mis-use of the term in regards to its actual meaning in the book. (See the wikipedia blurb)
And, based on your record, your ‘civil discussions’ seem to consist of you making smarmy comments and attempting to hijack threads with your political diatribes and personal one ups-manship attempts. If you feel that is an insult, thats your choice. Its what I’ve experienced from you and seen in your posts to others.
I do hope, that this is simple enough for you to understand.
Now back to thread topic…
Yes, that too is simple enough for me to understand. You’re a prick. Now back to the thread topic. . . 
BTW, Bu, I agree, the Quiet American is an especially fitting book for today.
It is a common error, especially these days, to refer to a negative image of an American abroad as an “ugly American,” but this is contrary to the cultural history of the phrase. The basic tenet of The Ugly American was that the American citizen was the best representative of American values, a theory that was behind the founding of the Peace Corps a few years after the book appeared.
The book’s title is deliberately ironic. The “ugly American” is Homer Atkins, a smart, hard-working engineer with no patience for diplomats and other fools. “His hands were laced with prominent veins and spotted with big, liverish freckles. His fingernails were black with grease. His fingers bore nicks and tiny scars of a lifetime of engineering. The palms of his hands were calloused. Homer Atkins was worth three million dollars, every dime of which he had earned by his own efforts…” But who is really ugly here? Atkins is one of the book’s heroes.
In my opinion, the
[quote=“Chewycorns”]These days, I think people on the
FWIW: one of my mentors back in uni. was a retired naval officer and knew burdick and/or levin. the admiral had it from the author that the book THE UGLY AMERICAN wasa written to earn money. it was a story, a fabrication and astonishment was to be found that it was taken as factual/semi-factual all these years later.
Interesting that if one runs a Google search on “Ugly American” and “George Bush” you run across more hits than with “Michael Moore”.
Run a search for “George Bush” and “arrogant” and you’ll get about 166,000 hits on Google and only about 78,100 for Michael Moore. The top MM hits are ones in which he calls the Republicans arrogant or expresses concern about Bush’s arrogance.
Then if you run a search for “Michael Moore” and “nincompoop”, there are more hits than with “George Bush” and “nincompoop”. However, many of the references seem to be to conservative nincompoops. For example, in the MM search, the first two refer to Bill O’Reilly as a “nincompoop” and the No. 3 hit is titled “George Bush is a Dangerous Nincompoop.” Run a search simply for “Bush” and “nincompoop” and the results go up 10-fold (about 9,700) far more than “Moore” and “nincompoop” (about 1,890).
Running a search for “smirking”, “piece of shit” and “Bush” yields about 1,100 hits on Google. Only about 174 hits when the same search is run for Moore – and several appear to be referring to Bush.
[quote=“mofangongren”]Interesting that if one runs a Google search on “Ugly American” and “George Bush” you run across more hits than with “Michael Moore”.
Run a search for “George Bush” and “arrogant” and you’ll get about 166,000 hits on Google and only about 78,100 for Michael Moore…[/quote]
Following up on MFGR’s research, I can confirm that a search of [“George Bush”+“he”] yields 2,210,000 hits vs. only 1,100,000 for [“Michael Moore” + “he”]. Pushing the envelope in this new field further, I discovered that [“George Bush”+“a”] gives 3,630,000 hits, with only 1,990,000 for [“Michael Moore”+“a”].
Thus, early results give some indication that the President may be mentioned more often on the web than Michael Moore is. One must be cautious in drawing conclusions, however. Like any young field of research, this is an area that will require further study and analysis. But one thing is certain – there is a great amount of profound truth and knowledge to be gained from this technique. MFGR and I call on all of our fellow seekers of knowledge on these boards to join us in our important research!