1984 …

[naomi24]

… by George Orwell. Anyone read it - and if so what were your impressions and is it relevant to what is happening today? The condemnation and destruction of history, the suppression of ideas that oppose the ideals of the ‘woke’, and the insistence in some quarters that two plus two really does equal five - all of that I think we are now witnessing.

Your thoughts?

[naomi24]

Haha! I made an effort to go back in time at 17:17 Tue. Let's hope those interested in talking about the OP will come with me.

[Theland]

Dad was a POW with the Japanese on the Burma railway.
He was a slave for over three years.
Should I therefore be offended by all things we import from Japan?
Do I have the right to be offended?

[jim360]

// ... leads me back to the OP and the extraordinary willingness of the ‘woke’ to embrace that which anyone with an iota of political awareness would have no hesitation in kicking as far into touch as is humanly possible. //

It seems extraordinarily arrogant -- there is no other word for it -- to dismiss support a movement as lacking an "iota of political awareness". We disagree on many things, but we both have thought about our positions beforehand.

There is a clear and obvious case to be made that racism is yet to be fully expunged from society and from some of the people within it. How far you're willing to go towards socialism is another question that ought, in my view, to be separate, and in any case it is, as I pointed out elsewhere, notable how frequently the S-word has been used to try and destroy otherwise reasonable political demands.

[Theland]

Jim, would you be a but more specific about racism?
How is it revealed, where?

[naomi24]

What’s the S word?

[Togo]

Is the s word really a sword? The sword of St Michael? Sorry, the order of St Michael has gotta go. The image of St Michael slaying Satan is racist.... it is reminiscent of the death of George Floyd. How they get away with comparing George Floyd to satan is beyond me.

Auspicium melioris ævi. Indeed.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/06/22/britain-order-st-michael-st-george-satan-george-floyd-christian/

[Peter Pedant]

// Dad was a POW with the Japanese on the Burma railway.//
I am terribly sorry to hear that - they were terribly badly treated

[Peter Pedant]

signs of better times

the augur was a haruspex ( er Latin for augur ) (*)
and Cicero when he was writing on telling the future ( haruspicial law no really ) in de divinatione
or 'concerning divination'
said that whenever he met another haruspex - he was one himself - he could hardly forebear laughing

he was the one who wrote of Julius Cheezer
ne servorum quidem quisquam accederet, quo cruciatu animi vitam acturum fuisse?
in what agony of mind would be have led his life if he had known
( he was gonna be butchered in front of the statue of Pompey )

and doubted if augury existed

Yes I know this is "about" 1984 - but has anyone ead the other posts
Oh no ! this IS about 1984 - someone has asked if it is prophetic

[naomi24]

Jim, //It seems extraordinarily arrogant -- there is no other word for it -- to dismiss support a movement as lacking an "iota of political awareness".//

Arrogant? Why? You surely don’t believe these supporters are aware of what a Marxist society would mean... do you?

I’ll echo Theland’s unanswered question at 18:10 Tue - and ask again what the S word is?