Originally Posted by
ono
Have we decided what your going to do about America yet?
I've written them an angry letter.
I've decided to follow that angry young chaps lead and send Obama very rude emails in the vain hope that I too can be given a lifetime ban from ever visiting America. I think America looks like a country with a lot of wonderful landscapes and an intriguing mix of people, but I would never make it through the airports. Maybe just better to protest via keyboard, get a ban and not bother going. Language all spoken in hearty jest, Lyle!
I was reading Orwell's Down and out in Paris and London today and came across this description of Jews spoken by the character, Boris. Boris tells us 'I will tell you what Jews are like. Once, in the early months of the war, we were on the march, and we had halted at a village for the night. A horrible old Jew, with a red beard like Judas Iscariot, came sneaking up to my billet. I asked him what he wanted. "Your honour", he said, "I have brought a girl for you, a beautiful young girl only seventeen. It will only be fifty francs." "Thank you", I said "you can take her away again. I don't want to catch any diseases." "Diseases!" cried the Jew, "mais, monsieur le capitaine, there's no fear of that. It's my own daughter!". That is the Jewish national character for you.'
Now that's what you call an anti-semite. Even I was reading that thinking 'easy there, Boris, that's a bit much!'. We should always distinguish between criticism of a political system and the outright denigration of a race or particular group of people. There is absolutely nothing wrong with criticising political systems or individual people who do bad. However to take a bad experience with an individual and sum it up as a defect in an entire race of people is outright prejudice. Criticism of a state is just that though and is quite distinct.
Anyway, I am enjoying this book and though that little excerpt was quite apt for this thread.
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