To watch the Sex Pistols singing "Anarchy in the UK" in Airstrip One during the summer of 1975 was a shocking, profoundly shocking experience. In particular, the contorting rage of John Lydon's face, and the very definition of dysfunctionality in his dance was an open challenge to the norm of Ingsoc - civilised Oceanic society. A time traveller from 1917 would be appalled, would demand an explanation of what had happened in Britain? To Britain. And yet the profound changes that were bubbling under British society were on naked display even in 1917. The French lesson that Alduous Huxley delivered to Eric Arthur Blair and his colleagues at Eton showed all of the tell tales signs of a society in meltdown. Both men would describe the dystopian futures in "Brave New World" and "Nineteen Eighty-Four". That was before they were edited by the Ministry of Truth, of course. The lyrics are available at at Lyricsfreak | |
~ quotation by Steve Payne |
Harry Truman | "As President of the United States, I proclaim Sunday, September the second, 1945, to be V-J Day -- the day of formal surrender of Japan. It is not yet the day for the formal proclamation of the end of the war nor of the cessation of hostilities. But it is a day which we Americans shall always remember as a day of retribution -- as we remember that other day, the day of infamy." ~ Harry S Truman, 34th Vice President and 33rd President of the United States |
President |
Speaking on 1st September 1945. By refusing to announce the end of the war, Truman dropped a large hint regarding the forthcoming war with the Soviet Union which was to follow a few short months later. The full text of the speech is available at American Rhetoric | |
~ quotation by Steve Payne |
In 1975, in Panama, Robert Neville had been bitten by a vampire bat. After the war, he guessed that his immunity was due to his body's unique defence system. What other explanation could there be? |
~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.
Seymour Hersh | In 1998, Seymour M Hersh published the controversial “Light Side of Gomorrah” based on his investigations into the presidency of John F Kennedy. Hugely sympathetic to the impeached and discredited playboy, the cover jacket reads “If the Kennedys are America's royal family, then John F. Kennedy was the nation's crown prince. Magnetic, handsome, and charismatic, his perfectly coiffed image overshadowed the successes and failures of his presidency, and his impeachment cemented his near-demoniacal status in American culture and politics. |
Struck down by Congress in his prime, he represented the best and the brightest of America's future, and when he died, part of the nation's promise and innocence went with him. That, at least, is the true version of the story. | |
~ entry by Steve Payne |
In 2127/2003, a dramatic scene is played out in a deep cell of Paddington Green Police Station. Being interviewed are twenty-second century fugitive Brent and first Asian QC Kim Hollis. Urgent investigations are being pursued in relation to the apparent suicide of the Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith. | Paddington Green |
To a disbelieving audience, Brent says the world of 2127 is most definitely not a Newt Gingrich pipe dream. The UN has been reconstructed and is run by first nations. Indigenous control has been re assumed of the Turtle Island (America), the Dreamtime (Australia) and Eurasians have returned to semi-barbarism, starving in the unlit and unheated city slums. | |
~ entry by Steve Payne |
Sopot Incident | In 1939, the opening strike of the Second Great War occurred on this day as German soldiers destroyed Polish border checkpoint in Sopot. Molotov's failure to agree a neutrality pact with the Russian Government ensured that Sopot was viewed as an act of war, provoking the Red Army into entering Eastern Poland to preserve the buffer state. The Wehrmatch had to face the brilliance of Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Tukhachevsky. |
Appointed by Trotsky to the Bolshevik Defence Commissar, Leon Trotsky gave Tukhachevsky command of the 5th Army in 1919, and he led the campaign to capture Siberia from the White forces of Aleksandr Kolchak. He also helped defeat General Anton Denikin in the Crimea in 1920. Both the Kronstadt rebellion and the Tambov peasant revolt were crushed by forces under Tukhachevsky's command. And by early 1940, he would enter Berlin at the Head of the Red Army crushing the Third Reich. | |
~ entry by Steve Payne |
In 1939, in Harry Turtledove counter-history masterpiece, the Guns of the East the Border Defence Corps is supplied with AK-47's by early-21st century Polish time-travellers. In this far-fetched alternative history, Polish Forces repulse the initial Wehrmacht attack, but face a two front war with both the Russians and Germans, ending in their ultimate defeat. | Rydz-Śmigly |
~ entry by Steve Payne |
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