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A guess – Pasternak?

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Yoh Jack et al, When I was at Uni another student had some russian poetry pasted on his door. Could’ve been Polish I suppose but I think it was russian (well gee that narrows it down Jaq) I can’t remember who it was by or what it was called but it was very old and the most beautiful stuff I’ve ever read. Anyone got any ideas? Any starting point will do. I seem to remember the description of the scenery was used to enhance the mood and feeling of the piece, bit like John Donne does in The Sunne Rising.

Well, don’t suppose I’ll get any replies but it was worth a try, it’s been bugging me for days and who better to ask than the most learned band of bods!

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Points taken.

I certainly do not think either gang of thugs were friends of the people, rather that is how they posed at the beginning.

My reading is that both the Bolsheviks and Nazis started their rises to power by populism. Lenin adopted the simple slogan “bread, peace and land” precisley because it was simple and addressed the concerns of the peasants and workers. Hitler campaigned on the humiliation and betrayal of the German people by the WW1 victors and Jewish capitalists respectively. That in neither case did the reality live up to the myths formulated to get support more or less makes my point about watching out for people who are very keen to take up the case of the underdog, particularly in a grand and sweeping manner. I think I have commented elsewhere that much of the good work in politics is done by people involved in balancing the various claims of interest groups with each other and reality, compromising with their political opponents and so on.

OK I’ll accept your definition of satire. My point about ’satire’ is that a lot of it is not pointing at anything real. Much of Michael Moore’s efforts, for example, have been shown to be based on falsehoods. Because satire is seen to be ‘clever’ then what is called satire often comes to be a (bad) reason for believing something independently of any fact of the matter. Orwell’s satires are examples of what it should be like. At that time many of the intelligentsia were apologists for totalitarianism (no change there then!). In writing his stuff he knew that it would it not go along with the cultural world view. For example Jean Paul Sartre was a disciple of Heidegger and also bemoaned the fact that some people actually dared to point out the truth about the Stalinist gulags. I would quite like to see a satire about the anti war coalition. The SWP stopping debates about gay rights and making their female colleagues wear scarves at demos, the Communists supporting North Korea and moaning about people always banging on about Stalin, the Islamacists all smiles for their atheist colleagues and the poor old BNP not being allowed to join because their particualr brand of fascism is unfashionable rather than because it is fascist. Meanwhile all the somewhat more wholesome supporters, who make up the vast majority, don’t seem to get a look in on the central committee.

I think this is where I came in.

Have a nice weekend, what’s left of it.

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If friendship is sought from one person by another, it is hardly likely that employing bully boy tactics would make friends with any but those of equal or similar overbearing tendencies.
I lived and worked, over a period of a quarter of a century, in Germany and Holland , mainly Germany, I have German family, and, from listening to those who actually lived through the Nazi times,I can categorically say that ” Friends of the people; the Nazi Party were most definitely NOT !”

Fear is hardly a hand tool of friendship, and the Nazis ruled by fear, of that there is no doubt.

In every block there was an extra officious Party official,relishing his sudden elevation to “importance”, reporting on any and every deviation, by the ordinary folk, from the Party line, however miniscule. This could , and often did, lead to a “friendly ” visit from some thug belonging to the Gestapo. (Hardly a people friendly gesture, eh, Jack?)

The Soviet Union was also ruled with such people friendliness,starting with the ‘Cheka’ and metamorphosing via OGPU and NKVD to KGB( and perhaps even beyond), using such people friendly venues as the KGB’s infamous yellow brick bulding “The Lubyanka” as a place to hold their samovar and knuckle sandwich “tea parties”,(and all in the best possible taste),if my reading of history is not completely awry.

Satire , a definition: A literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn. One does not have to look very far for lots of genuine material with which to interest a fan of satire. With this Government?s record, a genuine critique of reality is never far from the front pages. The word “farce” might come to mind, if it were all not so serious.

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Yes, pundits should always be critically evaluated – but I just wanted to finger the ‘friends of the people’ in particular as they are often more dangerous than the government. The Bolsheviks and the Nazis were ‘friends of the people’.

Macarnie

I don’t watch much TV so I don’t know what you watched. However it is important not to confuse satire with a genuine critique of reality. Unlike Animal Farm or 1984 much BBC satire today seems to be based on horrors sucked out of the air. Which is not to say that all is of course.

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I also saw a satirical film last night – quite close to the bone for the Minister, wasn’t it? (not sure if yours was the same) that is why I am wedded to political life: it is never boring, I am convinced.

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