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July 17, 2013

"All left-wing parties in the highly industrialized countries are at bottom a sham,"

"because they make it their business to fight against something which they do not really wish to destroy.
They have internationalist aims, and at the same time they struggle to keep up a standard of life with which those aims are incompatible. We all live by robbing Asiatic coolies, and those of us who are 'enlightened' all maintain that those coolies ought to be set free; but our standard of living, and hence our 'enlightenment', demands that the robbery shall continue. A humanitarian is always a hypocrite, and Kipling's understanding of this is perhaps the central secret of his power to create telling phrases. It would be difficult to hit off the one-eyed pacifism of the English in fewer words than in the phrase, 'making mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep'. | George Orwell on Rudyard Kipling

Posted by gerardvanderleun at July 17, 2013 11:07 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

We're all still living off the work of coolies, and refuse to do anything about it. All those Chinese people ground to powder under the greed of the oligarchic leftists in charge of their nation, so we can have cheap goodies in the west.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at July 17, 2013 11:25 AM

"all left-wing parties" should be "all parties are left wing" unless of course you want to continue pretending the republicans are somewhere close to being center right.

Posted by: Potsie at July 17, 2013 5:52 PM

From The Essay:

I 'eard the knives be'ind me, but I dursn't face my man,
Nor I don't know where I went to, 'cause I didn't stop to see,
Till I 'eard a beggar squealin' out for quarter as 'e ran,
An' I thought I knew the voice an'–it was me!

Posted by: monkeyfan at July 18, 2013 8:09 AM

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