I bet that's also roughly the time that some higher ups in that party realized it must never be allowed to happen.

It means let the fuckers know they can retreat from their extreme or misguided political stance and come back to a more reasonable point of view without consequences. It's a variation of Sun Tzu's "Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across”: if you don't, they'll fight you to the death because they have no other option.

My problem is, however reasonably the idea, that's a bit too rich for me to apply to imbeciles who turn their country into a fascist hellhole.

Hilary [...] considered distinctly weak

Not by the same proto blumaga libs who insisted Biden and Harris were strong candidates. If you pointed out people were suffering and her policies and messaging was "get a high paying job lmao", you got bombarded with "sHE iS ThE mOsT qUaLiFiEd cAnDiDAtE iN hIsToRy".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_Days

Set in British Burma during the waning days of empire, when Burma was ruled from Delhi as part of British India, the novel serves as "a portrait of the dark side of the British Raj." At the centre of the novel is John Flory, "the lone and lacking individual trapped within a bigger system that is undermining the better side of human nature."[1] The novel describes "both indigenous corruption and imperial bigotry" in a society where, "after all, natives were natives—interesting, no doubt, but finally...an inferior people".[2]

To be clear, that last bit of that last sentence is meant to be read as hideously haughty and privileged... it is dripping with irony, a self-cariacature, as the novel showcases the craven nature of characters in all kinds of social positions, from all kinds of ethnic backgrounds.

The whole thing is meant as an unflinching critique of how colonialism ruins everyone involved.

I guess we could also maybe ask Orwell what he was doing in Spain in the 1930s, but at the time, he would again have difficulty telling you.

Turns out that when you join an internationalist anti fascist militia to go personally shoot fascists yourself, well, sometimes they shoot back, and sometimes they hit you in the neck.

... thankfully, writing exists.

I find it absolutely incredible that George Orwell, a man who has likely personally shot more fascists than probably anyone you'll find on the internet... somehow doesn't clear the ideological purity test these days.

And that is because Orwell, while literally shooting at fascists in Spain, also found himself as the target of a pro-Soviet, pro-Stalin smear campaign, which tried to paint him and his outfit as Trotskyists and also as fascists.

Apparently, this smear campaign remains quite influential, to this day.

I didn't mean to insinuate that anybody should not be held accountable for their actions. Just the opposite is how I feel, really. But I also believe that many of them can do and learn better if provided with the right care and resources. That's not to say I know how to make that work, but that there is always, always, always a better path forward if enough qualified and caring people put their heads together and make it happen.

Very few of us are truly and entirely irredeemable. Some just take a lot more resources and time to be redeemed than others, is how I see it. I believe it is worth it, for the sake of all of our futures as well as those of people yet to be born, to try and see to it that paths like this are taken and doubled down on as soon as is possible.

Despite being a fan of Orwell's and, more often than not, in agreement with the views he shared, I took his wording to be a bit too absolutist for my tastes on this quote. Understandably, given what we know of his lived experience, but still. There is always a better way as long as there are still people trying to find it. I don't believe in all of us, but I do believe in the capital 'u' Us, you know?

And I'm not familiar with the term "catspaws". Feel like teaching a stranger something new?