I was born in Maryland and spent my first thirty years living there, first in the Appalachian Mountains, then on the Eastern Shore, and later in suburban Washington. After a year in South Carolina, I moved to Georgia in 1977. I soon met another park ranger who worked in Florida. She was a wonderful woman who became my best friend. then my wife, and soon the mother of our three children. I spent over eleven years working in the historic city of Savannah, Georgia, and on the moss-draped sea islands nearby before moving to Atlanta.. In 2007, I retired from the National Park Service and a career dedicated to preserving and interpreting resources and themes in the cultural and natural history of the United States. It was a most rewarding experience. Today, I enjoy living in the rolling hills and woods of the Appalachian Piedmont east of Atlanta.
For a prescient and enigmatic 20th century personality it is hard to surpass that of the British social critic and writer, George Orwell. In 1949 he published his most significant work, the novel1984. Can't speak about today but 60 years ago at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union virtually every high school graduate knew of the book and many of them read it or parts of it as required reading.
Orwell experienced the rise of collectivist thinking in Great Britain and other parts of the world including the United States. He was also well aware of the totalitarian collectivism in the Soviet Union. The totalitarianism he rejected outright but not all the elements of collectivist thought At the same time he raised issues with republican and democratic forms of government and the capitalism that sustained them. In other words Orwell was a critic at large whose observation and analysis would have broad appeal and give rise to thought-provoking quotes, including this one from 1949:
The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists, and professional politicians.
Our volatile nation-wide experience over the last five years - our dance with the Covid-19 coronavirus, laptop coverups, the Russian disinformation hoax, and Soviet-style political trials - has brought us face to face with many members of this new aristocracy. The American democratic republic embraced many of these players in the 20th century first with Progressivism, then with Roosevelt's New Deal, but it was Lyndon Johnson who would embedded significant elements of the "new aristocracy" in his Great Society program. It was after all a national government initiative designed to end in a progressive utopia for the American people. I leave an evaluation of the program's success over the last two generations to my readers. Instead I choose to focus on Orwell who as time passes seems to be more and more a visitor from the future who spoke not in terms of political parties but in an exploration of the human condition, universal rights, classical liberalism, and the power of the individual.
George Orwell - Eric Arthur Blair - was born on this day in India in 1903 and educated at Eton College and through self-study and his experiences in Asia and Europe. Wikipedia defines him aptly as "an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and commitment to democratic socialism."
George Orwell Press Photo, 1933
Most of us know him only as the author of 1984 but there is much more to read and appreciate from this man who is consistently described as one of the most influential writers of the last century. If you only know him as a novelist, I suggest you read some of his early essays, especially Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), and Homage to Catalonia (1938). These works explore social justice themes in some of the finest, most vivid, objective, and descriptive writing to be found in modern English. More aspects of Orwell's insight appear in his literary criticisms which are available in several compilations.
For a man who passed away at 46, George Orwell left us an enormous and rich body of work that I am sure will influence social and political thought for a very long time.
Sources:
Photos and Illustrations: public domain, old accreditation for National Branch of Union Journalists, www.netcharles.com
We are now 101 days from November 5, 2024, and the presidential election. Regardless of the outcome it's promising to be a vicious campaign as the Democrats struggle to win the House and retain control of the Senate and install a far left Californian as our president. Another significant ingredient will be the collective anger among tens of millions of voters on the right and left who remain upset with the embattled 2020 election process. And finally there is the issue of Democrats reconciling the fact that their presumed nominee lied not only to her fellow Democrats but also to the American people about the mental health of her boss while he was tottering through almost four years of mid and late stage dementia. It's not our best choice either way as I see it but I'm quite sure the disillusionment and anger will easily translate into plenty of confrontational election tactics.
Around 1513 Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince, a guidebook advising those in power on how to keep it. Four and a half centuries later, Saul Alinsky wrote Rules For Radicals advising those out of power on how to take it from those in charge. It's all about keeping and holding power. We have a huge struggle for that power coming in the next one hundred days. You'll have to read Machiavelli for yourself. It can be a challenge. On the other hand, Alinsky's book is nicely structured, very readable as a playbook, and an aid to the critical thinking you'll need to navigate the campaign battlefield.
In preparation for the desperate and emotional battle that's coming, I thought it would be the perfect time to give readers a booster shot of the political tactics we're likely to encounter from our politicians and their organizations. They won't be new to readers here because they've become the subject of an OTR post in presidential election years. Many of the tactics have been a feature of American elections for well over a century. It took the mind and experience of Saul Alinsky, long recognized as the founding father of community organizing, to best articulated them in his 1971 book. He was after all a Chicago native trained at the University of Chicago and a veteran organizer and political activist in the city's neighborhoods. His experience taught him early that politics was a very dirty game. That's one reason he dedicated the book to Lucifer.
My copy purchased in 1971 during my revolutionary days
Democrats, especially those from the party's "progressive" wing, were well aware of the value of the tactics described herein and used them effectively during their convention in Chicago in 1968. They used them successfully against a naive Republican Party until late in the last century. By then American politics had become a vicious game of win or lose instead of compromise. Eventually GOP campaign strategists recognized political reality required them to fight fire with fire. That said here are the twelve rules or tactics we'll see at work every day until the election and beyond. My condensation of supporting information from the book is in brackets.
1. Power is not only what you have, it's what the enemy thinks you have. [Power is derived from two main sources - money and people.]
2. Never go outside the expertise of your people. [It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.]
3. Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. [Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.]
4. Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. [You can kill them with this because nobody can possibly obey all of their own rules.]
5. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. [There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating.]
6. A good tactic is one your people enjoy.
7. A tactic that drags on too long become a drag. [Don't become old news. Even radical activists get bored.]
8. Keep the pressure on. Never let up. [Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, recover, regroup or re-strategize.]
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. [Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.]
10. If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive. [Violence from the other side can become a positive because the public sympathizes with the underdog.]
11. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. [Never let the enemy score points because you're caught without a solution to the problem. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.]
12. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. [Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people, not institutions, people hurt faster than institutions.]
Look carefully at these words. Any way you look at them, there is rough play, play for keeps. We've read and heard them daily and watched their consequences unfold on our national stage especially since 2008. Time and experience have taught me well and today I see it as an unsettling and potentially dangerous book now that it has become mainstream. I trust readers will benefit from this information as we face what may well be the most significant national election in our time.
Some readers may be curious how I came to own a first edition of Alinsky's Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals [1971]. First, the political events of the 1960's were not good to me. After President Kennedy's murder in 1963, Barry Goldwater's loss to Lyndon Johnson in the presidential election of 1964, and the physical and mental slaughter in Vietnam and the US, I became an anarchist in the classical sense of the word. That's when I encountered Rules for Radicals. My copy's been read many, many times, it's a bit yellow here and there, and the dust jacket has a few small tears and scuffs; otherwise, it's in excellent condition.
As a husband and father, and student of the American experience, I have moved right of center in politics and economics over the years, but always maintained a fiercely liberal position on many social issues. In essence I'm now a Jeffersonian Democrat - somewhat conservative, somewhat libertarian, somewhat classical Republican - and that makes it difficult to place me in context in today's polarized political environment. Regardless, most folks smile and take on a puzzled look, but many of them break out in laughter when they learn I never never once liked Richard Nixon. Not even when I was six years old.
Whilst the last members were signing [the Constitution], Doctor Franklin, looking towards the Presidents chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art, a rising, from a setting, sun. I have, said he, often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising, and not a setting sun.
The Rising Sun chair used by George Washington during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia
That was James Madison quoting Benjamin Franklin in the above quote. They were attending the debates during the Constitutional Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 17, 1787. Eleven years earlier many of those at the Constitutional Convention were also present for the signing of the exceptional American document whose ideals were set in a legal framework in the Constitution. We are, of course, talking about the Declaration of Independence signed on this day 247 years ago. To fully appreciate its meaning I think American should take a few minutes to read and reflect on this extraordinary document on every Independence Day. If you want to understand American exceptionalism, start here:
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
In the spirit of the freedom of the American experiment established on July 4, 1776, our cultural experience continues to reinvent itself every day. We can thank the Founding Fathers for that freedom, but with that comes the awesome responsibility to preserve the system that created and sustains it. In the coming days, I hope you take some time between the burgers, the parades, the fireworks and whatever to think about that responsibility and resolve to keep our federal republic and representative democracy strong for ourselves and our future generations.
Here is some music for the day:
A diverse take on America ...
...a traditional approach from the wartime musical comedy, This Is The Army (1943)...
...and what you compose when you can't stand hearing Kate Smith sing God Bless America anymore.
Have a safe and happy Independence Day, my friends!
Sources
Photos and illustrations: chair photos, Independence National Historical Park
Text:
James Madison quote, Journal of the Federal Convention, ed. E. H. Scott, Chicago, 1893
For a prescient and enigmatic 20th century personality it is hard to surpass that of the British social critic and writer, George Orwell. In 1949 he published his most significant work, the novel 1984. Can't speak about today but 60 years ago at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union virtually every high school graduate knew of the book and many of them read it or parts of it as required reading.
Orwell experienced the rise of collectivist thinking in Great Britain and other parts of the world including the United States. He was also well aware of the totalitarian collectivism in the Soviet Union. The totalitarianism he rejected outright but not all the elements of collectivist thought At the same time he raised issues with republican and democratic forms of government and the capitalism that sustained them. In other words Orwell was a critic at large whose observation and analysis would have broad appeal and give rise to thought-provoking quotes, including this one from 1949:
The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists, and professional politicians.
Our volatile nation-wide experience over the last five years - our dance with the Covid-19 coronavirus, laptop coverups, the Russian disinformation hoax, and Soviet-style political trials - has brought us face to face with many members of this new aristocracy. The American democratic republic embraced many of these players in the 20th century first with Progressivism, then with Roosevelt's New Deal, but it was Lyndon Johnson who would embedded significant elements of the "new aristocracy" in his Great Society program. It was after all a national government initiative designed to end in a progressive utopia for the American people. I leave an evaluation of the program's success over the last two generations to my readers. Instead I choose to focus on Orwell who as time passes seems to be more and more a visitor from the future who spoke not in terms of political parties but in an exploration of the human condition, universal rights, classical liberalism, and the power of the individual.
George Orwell - Eric Arthur Blair - was born on this day in India in 1903 and educated at Eton College and through self-study and his experiences in Asia and Europe. Wikipedia defines him aptly as "an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and commitment to democratic socialism."
George Orwell Press Photo, 1933
Most of us know him only as the author of 1984 but there is much more to read and appreciate from this man who is consistently described as one of the most influential writers of the last century. If you only know him as a novelist, I suggest you read some of his early essays, especially Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), and Homage to Catalonia (1938). These works explore social justice themes in some of the finest, most vivid, objective, and descriptive writing to be found in modern English. More aspects of Orwell's insight appear in his literary criticisms which are available in several compilations.
For a man who passed away at 46, George Orwell left us an enormous and rich body of work that I am sure will influence social and political thought for a very long time.
Sources:
Photos and Illustrations: public domain, old accreditation for National Branch of Union Journalists, www.netcharles.com
We are now fifteen months away from November 2024 and the presidential election. Regardless of the outcome it's promising to be a vicious campaign as the Socialist Democrats struggle to win the House and retain control of the Senate and the future of the Biden presidency. Another significant ingredient will be the collective anger among tens of millions of voters on the right and left who remain upset with an embattled candidate consumed by his 2020 loss and a sitting president tottering through a now rapid descent into late stage dementia. It's not a good choice either way and the chorus for change grows louder week by week. I believe the anger translates easily to motivation and in turn to more confrontational election tactics.
Around 1513 Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince, a guidebook advising those in power on how to keep it. Four and a half centuries later, Saul Alinsky wrote Rules For Radicals advising those out of power on how to take it from those in charge. It's all about keeping and holding power. We have a struggle for that power coming next year. You'll have to read Machiavelli for yourself. It can be a challenge. On the other hand, Alinsky's book is nicely structured, very readable as a playbook, and an aid to the critical thinking you'll need to navigate the campaign battlefield.
In preparation for the desperate and emotional battle that's coming, I thought it would be the perfect time to give readers a booster shot of the political tactics we're likely to encounter from our politicians and their organizations. They won't be new to readers here because they've become the subject of an OTR post in presidential election years. Many of the tactics have been a feature of American elections for well over a century. It took the mind and experience of Saul Alinsky, long recognized as the founding father of community organizing, to best articulated them in his 1971 book. He was after all a Chicago native trained at the University of Chicago and a veteran organizer and political activist in the city's neighborhoods. His experience taught him early that politics was a very dirty game. That's one reason he dedicated the book to Lucifer.
My copy purchased in 1971 during my revolutionary days
Democrats, especially those from the party's "progressive" wing, were well aware of the value of the tactics described herein and used them effectively during their convention in Chicago in 1968. They used them successfully against a naive Republican Party until late in the last century. By then American politics had become a vicious game of win or lose instead of compromise. Eventually GOP campaign strategists recognized political reality required them to fight fire with fire. That said here are the twelve rules or tactics we'll see at work every day until the election and beyond. My condensation of supporting information from the book is in brackets.
1. Power is not only what you have, it's what the enemy thinks you have. [Power is derived from two main sources - money and people.]
2. Never go outside the expertise of your people. [It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.]
3. Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. [Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.]
4. Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. [You can kill them with this because nobody can possibly obey all of their own rules.]
5. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. [There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating.]
6. A good tactic is one your people enjoy.
7. A tactic that drags on too long become a drag. [Don't become old news. Even radical activists get bored.]
8. Keep the pressure on. Never let up. [Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, recover, regroup or re-strategize.]
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. [Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.]
10. If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive. [Violence from the other side can become a positive because the public sympathizes with the underdog.]
11. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. [Never let the enemy score points because you're caught without a solution to the problem. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.]
12. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. [Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people, not institutions, people hurt faster than institutions.]
Look carefully at these words. Any way you look at them, there is rough play, play for keeps. We've read and heard them daily and watched their consequences unfold on our national stage especially since 2008. Time and experience have taught me well and today I see it as an unsettling and potentially dangerous book now that it has become mainstream. I trust readers will benefit from this information as we face what may well be the most significant national election in our time.
In closing, some readers may be curious how I came to own a first edition of Alinsky's Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals [1971]. First, the political events of the 1960's were not good to me. After President Kennedy's murder in 1963 , Barry Goldwater's loss to Lyndon Johnson in the presidential election of 1964, and the physical and mental slaughter in Vietnam and the US, I became an anarchist in the classical sense of the word. That's when I encountered Rules for Radicals. It's been read many, many times, it's a bit yellow here and there, and the dust jacket has a few small tears and scuffs; otherwise, it's in excellent condition.
As a husband and father, and student of the American experience, I moved right of center in politics and economics over the years, but always maintained a fiercely liberal position on many social issues. In essence I'm now a Jeffersonian Democrat and that makes it difficult to place me in context in today's polarized political environment. On the other hand, most folks smile and laugh and many are happy to know I never once liked Richard Nixon. Not even when I was six years old.
Whilst the last members were signing [the Constitution], Doctor Franklin, looking towards the Presidents chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art, a rising, from a setting, sun. I have, said he, often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising, and not a setting sun.
The Rising Sun chair used by George Washington during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia
That was James Madison quoting Benjamin Franklinin the above quote. They were attending the debates during the Constitutional Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 17, 1787. Eleven years earlier many of those at the Constitutional Convention were also present for the signing of the exceptional American document whose ideals were set in a legal framework in the Constitution. We are, of course, talking about the Declaration of Independence signed on this day 247 years ago. To fully appreciate its meaning I think American should take a few minutes to read and reflect on this extraordinary document on every Independence Day. If you want to understand American exceptionalism, start here:
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
In the spirit of the freedom of the American experiment established on July 4, 1776, our cultural experience continues to reinvent itself every day. We can thank the Founding Fathers for that freedom, but with that comes the awesome responsibility to preserve the system that created and sustains it. In the coming days, I hope you take some time between the burgers, the parades, the fireworks and whatever to think about that responsibility and resolve to keep our federal republic and representative democracy strong for ourselves and our future generations.
Here is some music for the day:
A diverse take on America ...
...a traditional approach from the wartime musical comedy, This Is The Army (1943)...
...and what you compose when you can't stand hearing Kate Smith sing God Bless America anymore.
Have a safe and happy Independence Day, my friends!
Sources
Photos and illustrations: chair photos, Independence National Historical Park
Text:
James Madison quote, Journal of the Federal Convention, ed. E. H. Scott, Chicago, 1893
For a prescient and enigmatic 20th century personality it is hard to surpass that of the British social critic and writer, George Orwell. In 1949 he published his most significant work, the novel 1984. Can't speak about today but 60 years ago at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union virtually every high school graduate knew of the book and many of them read it or parts of it as required reading.
Orwell experienced the rise of collectivist thinking in Great Britain and other parts of the world including the United States. He was also well aware of the totalitarian collectivism in the Soviet Union. The totalitarianism he rejected outright but not all the elements of collectivist thought At the same time he raised issues with republican and democratic forms of government and the capitalism that sustained them. In other words Orwell was a critic at large whose observation and analysis would have broad appeal and give rise to thought-provoking quote, including this one:
The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists, and professional politicians.
Our volatile nation-wide experience over the last five years, and particularly our dance with the Covid-19 coronavirus, has brought us face to face with many members of this new aristocracy. The American democratic republic embraced many of these players in the 20th century first with Progressivism, then with Roosevelt's New Deal, but it was Lyndon Johnson who would embedded significant elements of the "new aristocracy" in his Great Society program. It was after all a national government initiative designed to end in a progressive utopia for the American people. I leave an evaluation of the program's success over the last two generations to my readers. Instead I choose to focus on Orwell who as time passes seems to be more and more a visitor from the future who spoke not in terms of political parties but in an exploration of the human condition, universal rights, classical liberalism, and the power of the individual.
George Orwell - Eric Arthur Blair - was born on this day in India in 1903 and educated at Eton College and through self-study and his experiences in Asia and Europe. Wikipedia defines him aptly as "an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and commitment to democratic socialism."
George Orwell Press Photo, 1933
Most of us know him only as the author of 1984 but there is much more to read and appreciate from this man who is consistently described as one of the most influential writers of the last century. If you only know him as a novelist, I suggest you read some of his early essays, especially Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), and Homage to Catalonia (1938). These works explore social justice themes in some of the finest, most vivid, objective, and descriptive writing to be found in modern English. More aspects of Orwell's insight appear in his literary criticisms which are available in several compilations.
For a man who passed away at 46, George Orwell left us an enormous and rich body of work that I am sure will influence social and political thought for a very long time.
Sources:
Photos and Illustrations: public domain, old accreditation for National Branch of Union Journalists, www.netcharles.com
Born on this day in Bombay (Mumbai), India, in 1865, the British writer, Rudyard Kipling, was a product of England and India. He infused his writing with the essence of Victorian times and the adventure of empire in a foreign culture he would come to call his own. Eighty years after his death he remains a popular writer, a beacon of reason and rhetoric, among political centrists and conservatives. His works for children, including the Jungle Books and Just So Stories, have never lost their popularity among young readers. It is so unfortunate that cultural relativism over the last forty years has sadly pushed Kipling into literary obscurity in most of academia. Although he may be out of fashion he still reaches across a century into an age of moral relativism and leftist ideological fantasy to remind us that ancient virtues and wisdom will hold us accountable in the end.
Kipling and his wife spent about five years living at Bliss Cottage near Brattleboro, Vermont, just prior to the height of his career. In was in this setting that he produced some of his most memorable work, including Jungle Books, a short story collection entitled The Day's Work, his novel, Captains Courageous, and a volume of poetry, The Seven Seas.
In 1897 he returned to England where he continued writing and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907. In the political and social turmoil in the first quarter of the century he began to fall out out of favor due to his perceived defense of jingoism, colonialism and imperialism.
Our political and cultural slide to the left in the last few decades has brought Kipling's appreciation of realism to the fore. One of his most quoted poems that speaks to the necessity for reason and the folly of cultural relativism is "The Gods of the Copybook Headings." The title derives from the motivational sayings and watchwords often appearing at the top of pages in a student's copybook or notebook for writing exercises. Many readers have inquired about the poem since it first appeared in this blog some years ago. It's become a tradition of sorts to commemorate Kipling's birthday and the coming of a new year by reposting it each year. I'm pleased to present it once again for the uninitiated and for those in need of a Kipling booster. It is indeed a powerful statement for our time.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place. Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn: But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind, So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace, Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place, But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch, They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch; They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings; So we worshiped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease. But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life (Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife) Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man There are only four things certain since Social Progress began. That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!
For those who found the July 4 holiday weekend a hectic time to read the Declaration of Independence today offers you another opportunity. Why today? On August 2, 1776 most of the delegates signed the document. Others signed at a later date, some because they had not been elected. The only signature required by the Continental Congress was that of its president, John Hancock. Regardless, here is an essential document in US history.
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
When John Hancock signed the document on July 4 it became an official statement by a fledgling government in exile. The collective power of 56 signatures illustrates the serious nature of their endeavor. It is an expression of the statement attributed to Benjamin Franklin made that day that "we must all hang together, or ... we shall all hang separately." Indeed, British forces would go on to destroy the lives and fortunes of many of the signers but their movement would survive to redefine human rights and government around the world.
Sources
Text: National Archives and Records Administration
We are now approaching 100 days away from November 8 and the mid-term elections. Regardless of the outcome it's promising to be a vicious campaign as the Socialist Democrats struggle to retain control of the House and Senate and the future of the Biden presidency. Another significant ingredient will be the collective anger among tens of millions of voters on the right who remain upset with the presidential election process and outcome in 2020. Regardless of the validity of their claims, the anger translates easily to motivation and I think that in turn translates to more confrontational election tactics.
Around 1513 Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince, a guidebook advising those in power on how to keep it. Four and a half centuries later, Saul Alinsky wrote Rules For Radicals advising those out of power on how to take it from those in charge. It's all about keeping and holding power. We have a struggle for that power coming next year. You'll have to read Machiavelli for yourself. It can be a challenge. On the other hand, Alinsky's book is nicely structured, very readable as a playbook, and an aid to the critical thinking you'll need to navigate the campaign battlefield.
In preparation for the desperate and emotional battle that's coming, I thought it would be the perfect time to give readers a booster shot of the political tactics we're likely to encounter from our politicians and their organizations. They won't be new to readers here because they've become the subject of an OTR post in presidential election years. Many of the tactics have been a feature of American elections for well over a century. It took the mind and experience of Saul Alinsky, long recognized as the founding father of community organizing, to best articulated them in his 1971 book. He was after all a Chicago native trained at the University of Chicago and a veteran organizer and political activist in the city's neighborhoods. His experience taught him early that politics was a very dirty game. That's one reason he dedicated the book to Lucifer.
My copy purchased in 1971 during my revolutionary days
Democrats, especially those from the party's left wing, were well aware of the value of the tactics described herein and used them effectively during their convention in Chicago in 1968. They used them successfully against a naive Republican Party until late in the last century. By then American politics had become a vicious game of win or lose instead of compromise. Eventually GOP campaign strategists recognized political reality required them to fight fire with fire. That said here are the twelve rules or tactics we'll see at work every day until the election and beyond. My condensation of supporting information from the book is in brackets.
1. Power is not only what you have, it's what the enemy thinks you have. [Power is derived from two main sources - money and people.]
2. Never go outside the expertise of your people. [It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.]
3. Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. [Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.]
4. Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. [You can kill them with this because nobody can possibly obey all of their own rules.]
5. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. [There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating.]
6. A good tactic is one your people enjoy.
7. A tactic that drags on too long become a drag. [Don't become old news. Even radical activists get bored.]
8. Keep the pressure on. Never let up. [Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, recover, regroup or re-strategize.]
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. [Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.]
10. If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive. [Violence from the other side can become a positive because the public sympathizes with the underdog.]
11. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. [Never let the enemy score points because you're caught without a solution to the problem. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.]
12. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. [Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people, not institutions, people hurt faster than institutions.]
Look carefully at these words. Any way you look at them, there is rough play, play for keeps. We've read and heard them daily and watched their consequences unfold on our national stage especially since 2016. Time and experience have taught me well and today I see it as an unsettling and potentially dangerous book now that it has become mainstream. I trust readers will benefit from this information as we face what may well be the most significant national election in our time.
In closing, some readers may be curious how I came to own a first edition of Alinsky's Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals [1971]. First, the political events of the 1960's were not good to me. After President Kennedy's murder in 1963 , Barry Goldwater's loss to Lyndon Johnson in the presidential election of 1964, and the physical and mental slaughter in Vietnam, I became an anarchist in the classical sense of the word. That's when I encountered Rules for Radicals. It's been read many, many times, it's a bit yellow here and there, and the dust jacket has a few small tears and scuffs; otherwise, it's in excellent condition. As a husband, father, and student of the American experience I've moved right of center in politics and economics but maintain a fiercely liberal position on many social issues. In other words it's hard to define me politically. On the other hand, many of you will be happy to know I never once liked Richard Nixon. Even when I was six years old.
For a prescient and enigmatic 20th century personality it is hard to surpass that of the British social critic and writer, Eric Arthur Blair, much better known by his pen name, George Orwell. In 1949 he published his most significant work, the novel 1984. Can't speak about today but 60 years ago at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union virtually every high school graduate knew of the book and many of them read it or parts of it as required reading. With the recent progressive takeover among our nation's democrat socialists one of the novel's guiding themes, "War is Peace, Freedom is Slacery, Ignrance is Strength," takes onan immediate perspective as the republic slips deeper into doubt and confusion.
Orwell experienced the rise of collectivist thinking in Great Britain and other parts of the world including the United States. He was also well aware of the totalitarian collectivism in the Soviet Union. The totalitarianism he rejected outright but not all the elements of collectivist thought At the same time he raised issues with republican and democratic forms of government and the capitalism that sustained them. In other words Orwell was a critic at large whose observation and analysis would have broad appeal and give rise to thought-provoking quotes, including this one:
The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists, and professional politicians.
Our volatile nation-wide experience over the last five years, and particularly our dance with the Covid-19 and its offspring, has brought us face to face with many members of this new aristocracy. The American democratic republic embraced many of these players in the 20th century first with Progressivism, then with Roosevelt's New Deal, but it was Lyndon Johnson who would embed significant elements of the "new aristocracy" in his Great Society program. It was after all a national government initiative designed to end in a progressive utopia for the American people. I leave an evaluation of the program's success over the last two generations to my readers. Instead I choose to focus on Orwell who as time passes seems to be more and more a visitor from the future who spoke not in terms of political parties but in an exploration of the human condition, universal rights, classical liberalism, and the power of the individual.
George Orwell was born on this day in India in 1903 and educated at Eton College and through self-study and his experiences in Asia and Europe. Wikipedia defines him aptly as "an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and commitment to democratic socialism."
George Orwell Press Photo, 1933
Most of us know him only as the author of 1984 but there is much more to read and appreciate from this man who is consistently described as one of the most influential writers of the last century. If you only know him as a novelist, I suggest you read some of his early essays, especially Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), and Homage to Catalonia (1938). These works explore social justice themes in some of the finest, most vivid, objective, and descriptive writing to be found in modern English. More aspects of Orwell's insight appear in his literary criticisms which are available in several compilations.
For a man who passed away at 46, George Orwell left us an enormous and rich body of work that I am sure will influence social and political thought for a very long time.
Sources:
Photos and Illustrations: public domain, old accreditation for National Branch of Union Journalists, www.netcharles.com
