Yup. Just like the story my dad told me. He was in a refugee treck, fleeing from the russians, when he first heard and then saw bombers overhead. Having served in a flak unit, he knew they were russian. And being a physics nerd, he immediately recognized that bombs would hit the street he was standing on if the crews had already released their load. Feeling a bit ridiculous, because it must have been obvious even from the air that this was only a horde of civilian moving west, he jumped through a nearby house gate and threw the door shut. Exactly in this instant, bombs started exploding outside, making the door collapse on him. The poor folks out in the street were all dead.

Stories like these make you realize what war means to civilians. Kind of different if you hear this from your own father instead of ‘consuming’ it on TV.

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

“It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever gets near a front-line trench, except on the briefest of propaganda tours.”

I guess it is the same in all wars, certainly reminds me of this one. I think I’ll read Homage to Catalonia. The quotes remind me things my mother told me sometimes. I remember walking through a beautiful park in Madrid with my mother when she suddenly stopped and told me “This is where they used to bring the bodies. Your grandmother would come here every few days to see if they had killed grandpa”. Kind of chilling to hear about war in those terms.

“Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.�

Gee that’s sounds awfully familiar. Hmmmmm were have we seen that done recently? I can’t remember…

Btw, here’s another good one:
“Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.”

In the last few years I’ve been re-reading his short essay “Politics and the English Language” fairly often.

You are correct, sir!

Heh.

What’s your favorite work by Orwell if I may ask?

Angliss, great qutoe indeed.

You are correct, sir!

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”