Quote of the Day -- Poignant Version

Seems especially timely and poignant just now.

Stay safe out there, folks. Stay well. Stay home.

Quote of the Day -- On Today's Republican Party

From George Orwell, born June 25, 1903

“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. 

The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. 

We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. 

The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. 

We are not like that. 

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. 

Power is not a means; it is an end. 

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. 

Now you begin to understand me.” 

― George Orwell, "1984"

Quote of the Day -- Prescient Version

This Orwellian Presidency

Did you see this? The latest out of Rudy Giuliani's mouth? And in public? On tape, no less?

Giuliani says 'truth isn't truth' 

I'm telling you, beyond all the rest of the bizarre acts and behaviors and statements from this President and people in his administration, it's clear this is the most Orwellian President and Presidency ever.

Never forget:

Which reminds me of another quote that so predicted and reminds me of this man, this supposed leader, this President, tragically.

God help us.

And if he or she can't help us then forgive.

#vote

Quote of the Day -- On This President

And note it's from a former GOP strategist. And a high-placed, long working one, too. (click on for easier reading).

Quote of the day -- on perpetual war

It's up to us to change it.

Endless War

And the "war on terror" fits perfectly into this since such a war can never really be won.

Like

The United States of Money, uh, America

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not money, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not money, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not money, it profiteth me nothing. Money suffereth long, and is kind; money envieth not; money vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. . . . And now abideth faith, hope, money, these three; but the greatest of these is money. 

I Corinthians xiii (adapted) ” 

― George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Randy Newman - It's Money That Matters (1988) from MTVClassic1 on Vimeo.

Quote of the day

Quote of the day--on where we are and where we're headed

The façade is crumbling. And as more and more people realize that they have been used and robbed, we will move swiftly from Huxley’s “Brave New World” to Orwell’s “1984.” The public, at some point, will have to face some very unpleasant truths. The good-paying jobs are not coming back. The largest deficits in human history mean that we are trapped in a debt peonage system that will be used by the corporate state to eradicate the last vestiges of social protection for citizens, including Social Security. The state has devolved from a capitalist democracy to neo-feudalism. And when these truths become apparent, anger will replace the corporate-imposed cheerful conformity. The bleakness of our post-industrial pockets, where some 40 million Americans live in a state of poverty and tens of millions in a category called “near poverty,” coupled with the lack of credit to save families from foreclosures, bank repossessions and bankruptcy from medical bills, means that inverted totalitarianism will no longer work.

We increasingly live in Orwell’s Oceania, not Huxley’s The World State. 

Read the entire article.  It's that good:

Link:  http://www.truth-out.org/2011-a-brave-new-dystopia66307

Quote of the day--on war

"War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent."   --George Orwell, "1984"

George Orwell