Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

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Tucobenedito
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Re: Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

#46

Post by Tucobenedito » 10 Oct 2018, 22:04

Sid all ye say is true, he is still despised here though. But he was a liberal for trade only, the equivalent of Neo Liberal or Neo Con today. He would say he was anything in quest for power and wealth like a proper Tory. A truly despicable man.
If the women of Dundee had the vote he would never have been elected. In fact, while MP for Dundee he openly opposed suffrage for women. Part of the reason he finished fourth at the next election. So, when elected for Dundee, half the population had no vote, hardly democratic. When given the vote, the majority turfed him oot on his arse at the first opportunity.
Cheers Rich

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Re: Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

#47

Post by StrangerHereMyself » 11 Oct 2018, 02:13

Tucobenedito: ‘he is still despised here though’ Not by everyone in Dundee: the Conservatives won a respectable 18,003 votes in Dundee East and West last year, coming second in Dundee East. And even in losing his seat in 1922, Winston still obtained 20,466 Dundonian votes (17.3%).
Tucobenedito: ‘while MP for Dundee he openly opposed suffrage for women’ So what? So did many other people (e.g. Herbert Asquith and Scottish socialist John Bruce Glasier). Switzerland, interestingly, did not extend the franchise to women until as late as 1971. Some people think female suffrage, or overly-expanded franchises in general, a mistake, and they are entitled to such opinions—what counts is what arguments each side brings to the table (and without indulging in logical fallacies such as petitio principia).
Tucobenedito: ‘hardly democratic’ There is no such thing as a universal franchise: every country restricts it on some basis; so the debate is not over whether the franchise should be restricted or not, but where the restriction should be set. Currently, Western ‘democracies’ restrict the franchise to ‘adults’ with an arbitrarily defined age; some also restrict the franchise to their nationals; others disenfranchise felons, the insane, etc. It is all up for debate. And it is perfectly legitimate to question why someone should be allowed a say in a country’s political direction if they are not expected to risk their life for it.

Incidentally, Dundee saw fit to honour Winston with a plaque in 2008, proving there are indeed sensible people in Dundee.

Perhaps we can now return to the topic of this thread, which was resolved by Aber here. Is there anything left to add now that the quotation has been proven spurious?
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Plain Old Dave
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Re: Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

#48

Post by Plain Old Dave » 11 Oct 2018, 02:56

Well, he wasn't alone. Senator Harry Truman saw little difference between the Soviets and Nazis in the Summer of 1941. Matter of public record.

"If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible. . . ."
-Senator Harry Truman, 1941

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Re: Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

#49

Post by Gorque » 11 Oct 2018, 04:16

Give 'em Hell Harry! A good ole Missourah Democrat

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Re: Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

#50

Post by Sid Guttridge » 11 Oct 2018, 11:11

Hi Attrition,

"Democracy" is something of a movable feast. Every democratic system is different, so presumably only one of them, or none of them (my opinion) could be truly democratic.

In all cases true democracy - everyone voting on every issue regardless of age or expertise - is modified by pragmatism, and almost certainly necessarily so.

Even the original "demos" in Athens consisted only of adult, free-born male Athenians, so perhaps Churchill's election under male only suffrage was actually more democratic in a historic sense than any of the undeniably fairer, but not necessarily as pragmatic, systems of proportional representation and universal adult suffrage.

Cheers,

Sid.

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Andy H
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Re: Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

#51

Post by Andy H » 12 Oct 2018, 13:47

Hi All

Can I please remind you to stay on the thread topic and not stray into waters that will see you waste your time making posts that will be duly removed, be you pro or anti Churchill, Labour, Conservative, Liberal or the Soup Dragon in the Clangers.

Thank you

Andy H

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Re: Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

#52

Post by Dili » 13 Oct 2018, 01:29

Plain Old Dave wrote:
11 Oct 2018, 02:56
Well, he wasn't alone. Senator Harry Truman saw little difference between the Soviets and Nazis in the Summer of 1941. Matter of public record.

"If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible. . . ."
-Senator Harry Truman, 1941
Well Communists supported Nazis in war against Britain/France until 22 June 1941... the narrative is that was an imperialist war for capitalists profit, pacifism was the solution...

For Churchill supposed declarations, they not seem to be typical of Churchill expressions and what made he say it if it really happened?

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Re: Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

#53

Post by Tucobenedito » 13 Oct 2018, 15:56

StrangerHereMyself wrote:
11 Oct 2018, 02:13
Tucobenedito: ‘he is still despised here though’ Not by everyone in Dundee: the Conservatives won a respectable 18,003 votes in Dundee East and West last year, coming second in Dundee East. And even in losing his seat in 1922, Winston still obtained 20,466 Dundonian votes (17.3%).
Tucobenedito: ‘while MP for Dundee he openly opposed suffrage for women’ So what? So did many other people (e.g. Herbert Asquith and Scottish socialist John Bruce Glasier). Switzerland, interestingly, did not extend the franchise to women until as late as 1971. Some people think female suffrage, or overly-expanded franchises in general, a mistake, and they are entitled to such opinions—what counts is what arguments each side brings to the table (and without indulging in logical fallacies such as petitio principia).
Tucobenedito: ‘hardly democratic’ There is no such thing as a universal franchise: every country restricts it on some basis; so the debate is not over whether the franchise should be restricted or not, but where the restriction should be set. Currently, Western ‘democracies’ restrict the franchise to ‘adults’ with an arbitrarily defined age; some also restrict the franchise to their nationals; others disenfranchise felons, the insane, etc. It is all up for debate. And it is perfectly legitimate to question why someone should be allowed a say in a country’s political direction if they are not expected to risk their life for it
Incidentally, Dundee saw fit to honour Winston with a plaque in 2008, proving there are indeed sensible people in Dundee.

Perhaps we can now return to the topic of this thread, which was resolved by Aber here. Is there anything left to add now that the quotation has been proven spurious?
The Queens Hotel put up plaque because Churchill stayed there. Dundee did not give him a plaque. The Queens hotel did hoping to attract to more custom.
It's the last time I will say it, a truly despicable man. I only brought up women's suffer age because a previous poster stated the people of Dundee elected him. Some of the people ( a minority at the time) elected him. A minority!! but that's British democracy for ye.

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Re: Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

#54

Post by StrangerHereMyself » 13 Oct 2018, 22:53

Daniel L wrote:
11 Jan 2006, 20:57
Mr. Richard Langworth of the Churchill Centre has now replied. According to him there were no hits for "Germany's unforgivable crime" or "create her own exchange mechanism" in their 13 million word digital file of Churchill's written and spoken words. He also told me that the "wrong pig" quote also seems like a misquote.
Gulag book search returns the following:
By a strange paradox, a remark attributed to Mr. Churchill at the time of the capitulation is widely quoted as an exoneration of the Nazis : “It is dear to me now that we have slaughtered the wrong pig.”
This seems to be from a letters page from The New Statesman and Nation, Volume 36, 1948, p.373. I write ‘seems’ as I’ve found results before from this facility that at first blush seem to be from an old volume and then reading in the provided results references to far more modern events—this behaviour possibly only applies to multi-volume collections of periodicals. Unfortunately, only snippet view is available so it is difficult to ascertain more details, either of the author or confirm if it is indeed dated 1948.

Is it possible that the highly esteemed Richard Langworth is wrong to dismiss the quotation? Of course ‘attributed’ is not confirmation that he actually said those words, ‘attributed’ often being preceded by ‘wrongly’ when it comes to pithy or controversial lines. Nor can words uttered in passing—divorced of company, context or mood and possibly misheard—have the same weight applied to them as a carefully considered phrase that is included in a speech, newspaper column or book; and one should balance those possibly wrongly attributed words with the speech that Winston made to the Conservative Members’ Committee on Foreign Affairs in March 1936, which he reproduced in his The Gathering Storm, the first volume of his magisterial six-volume The Second World War (1949), pp.186–190, where he describes the longstanding English then British foreign policy (dating back to at least Henry VIII):
For four hundred years the foreign policy of England has been to oppose the strongest, most aggressive, most dominating power on the Continent, and particularly to prevent the Low Countries falling into the hands of such a Power. … Observe that the policy of England takes no account of which nation it is that seeks the overlordship of Europe. The question is not whether it is Spain, or the French Monarchy, or the French Empire, or the German Empire, or the Hitler régime. It has nothing to do with rulers or nations; it is concerned solely with whoever is the strongest or the potentially dominating tyrant. Therefore, we should not be afraid of being accused of being pro-French or anti-German. If the circumstances were reversed, we could equally be pro-German and anti-French.
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histan
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Re: Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

#55

Post by histan » 14 Oct 2018, 00:45

Andy H - not sure how to delete this post so can you - off topic and no longer relevant as previous posts already deleted.

Thanks John
Last edited by histan on 14 Oct 2018, 01:52, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

#56

Post by Andy H » 14 Oct 2018, 01:00

Hi All

Several posts were removed despite my earlier warning.
If you continue to ignore the warning I'll simply lock the thread.
I've not the time to waste on members who feel they can ignore the rules or instructions.

Regards

Andy H

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Re: Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

#57

Post by RWK1974 » 02 Dec 2022, 11:55

Hi,
Although this doesn’t quote what Mr Churchill actually said. Judging from what was written, he must have said something akin to “ We slaughtered the wrong pig”

“I said that frankly, as I had listened to him inveigh so violently against the threat of Soviet domination and the spread of Communism in Europe, and disclose such a lack of confidence in the professions of good faith in Soviet leadership, I had wondered whether he, the Prime Minister, was now willing to declare to the world that he and Britain had made a mistake in not supporting Hitler, for as I understood him, he was now expressing the doctrine which Hitler and Goebbels had been proclaiming and reiterating for the past four years in an effort to break up allied unity and “divide and conquer”. Exactly the same conditions which he described and the same deductions were drawn from them as he now appeared to assert.

I simply could not bring myself to believe that his considered judgment or expressions would ultimately confirm such an interpretation.

He heard me through, and with intentness. He said that he had been under very great pressure, that he had been just thinking out loud, and that the expressions might have been stronger than he had intended to convey. He said that he recognized the gravity of the immediate situation, that perhaps it would fall to a very few men to decide in the next few weeks the kind of life that would confront several generations to come.”

Source: https://history.state.gov/historicaldoc ... linv01/d33

Hope this helps.

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Re: Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

#58

Post by Sheldrake » 02 Dec 2022, 12:39

The source for this quote was something published in the New Statesman, a Left wing journal. Whether it was a genuine quote or something made up we may never know. Churchill did say and write some contradictory things. However, I find it hard to imagine that he would repudiate his big political triumph which was to oppose Hitler at all costs. WSC was happy to be quoted as the source for “If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”

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Re: Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

#59

Post by gebhk » 04 Dec 2022, 15:58

At the end of the day, even if that is precisely what Churchill said (ie we have slaughtered etc), it is a somewhat opaque statement that may have many potential meanings and I have to agree with Sid that there is no convincing evidence to suggest the generally assumed meaning is the correct one. There can be little doubt that before WW2 kicked off, the preferred scenario for the USSR was that Germany and the Western Dewmocracies would fight each other to exhaustion and vice versa. In the case of Britain, she viewed Germany as a counterbalance to Russia (and France), as a significant plank of Britain's foreign policy in Europe; I would suggest, at least a hundred years before Churchill. I can't imagine, therefore, that any experienced British statesman would view the removal of Germany from this equation (ie a slaughter as opposed to a good slapping down to put Germany in 'its place') with complete equinimity. By the same dint, I doubt that (if this is the correct interpretation of the quote), he meant the 'right pig' that should have been slaughtered was Russia.

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Re: Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

#60

Post by OliverPTroy » 20 Jan 2023, 21:12

I heard he said it about the Canadians when the allied forces and under Churchill's suggestion that they find out the resistance of the Germans in Normandy by sending the Canadians in. My source for that information may have been mistaken however.

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