george orwell

On this day, I give to you George Orwell’s Notes on Nationalism.

Looking back through the last page or two, I see that I have made it appear as though my motives in writing were wholly public-spirited. I don’t want to leave that as the final impression. All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.

Seems especially apt for this political season:

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. - George Orwell

Let those who have ears to hear ... .

Over at Tennesseefree (and also at SayUncle), #9 has his talking points all mixed up:

England is fast becoming the Orwellian nightmare that George Orwell prayed would never happen. It has now pasted France as the one of the worst places for free people to live. In fact France is quickly changing and stepping away from the social democracy of the French past.
In England there are cameras everywhere and never [...]

England is fast becoming the Orwellian nightmare that George Orwell prayed would never happen. It has now passed France as the one of the worst places for free people to live. In fact France is quickly changing and stepping away from the social democracy of the French past.

In England there are cameras everywhere and never a cop in sight. Citizens cannot own a gun or a knife for personal protection but criminals can. The insanity of social democracy has created criminal zones where the