"Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops."
"How nice--to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive."
- Kurt Vonnegut
"Thought works by conditioning. It has to get conditioned. You need conditioning to learn a language, to learn how to write, or to do all sorts of things. When the conditioning gets too rigid, though, it won't change when it should." - David Bohm
Posts: 1211 | Location: Southern California | Registered: 16 August 2002
In case you haven't noticed, as the result of a shamelessly rigged election in Florida, in which thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily disenfranchised, we now present ourselves to the rest of the world as proud, grinning, jut-jawed, pitiless war-lovers with appalling powerful weaponry-who stand unopposed. In case you haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazis once were. And with good reason. In case you haven't noticed, our unelected leaders have dehumanized millions and millions of human beings simply because of their religion and race. We wound 'em and kill 'em and torture 'em and imprison 'em all we want. Piece of cake. In case you haven't noticed, we also dehumanize our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class. Send 'em anywhere. Make 'em do anything. Piece of cake. The O'reilly Factor. So I am a man without a country, except for the librarians and a Chicago paper called In These Times. Before we attacked Iraq, the majestic New York Times guaranteed that there were weapons of mass destruction there...... Our President is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler. What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations, and made it all their own?
Kurt Vonnegut, A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY, p.87-88
"The moon that I love clears a path through the pines And guides a stream right to the bamboo gate."Poems by Zen Master Hsu Yun: Series I
Posts: 795 | Location: western slope, northern sierra | Registered: 18 April 2003
On TuesdayJanuary 20,2004, I sent Joel Bleifuss, my editor at In These Times, this fax: ON ORANGE ALERT HERE. ECONOMIC TERRORIST ATTACK EXPECTED AT 8 PM EST. KV Worried, he called, asking what was up. I said I would tell him when I had more complete information on the bombs George Bush was set to deliver in his State of the Union address. That night I got a call from my friend, the out-of-print-science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout. He asked me,"Did you watch the State of the Union address?" "yes, and it certainly helped to remember what the great British socialist playwright George Bernard Shaw said about this planet." "Which was?" "He said, I don't know if there are men on the moon, but if there are, they must be using the earth as their lunatic asylum.' And he wasn't talking about the germs or the elephants. He ment we the people." "Okay." "you don't think this is the Lunatic Asylum of the Universe?" "Kurt, I don't think I expressed an opinion one way or the other." "We are killing this planet as a life-support system with the poison from all the thermodynamic whoopee we're making with atomic energy and fossil fuels, and everybody knows it, and practically nobody cares. This is how crazy we are. I think the planet's immune system is trying to get rid of us with AIDS and new strains of flu and tuberculosis, and so on. I think the planet should get rid of us. We're really awful animals. I mean, that dumb Barbra Streisand song, 'People who need people are the luckiest people in the world'-She's talking about cannibals. Lots to eat. Yes, the planet is trying to get rid of us, but I think it's to late. And I said good-bye to my friend, hung up the phone, sat down and wrote this epitapth: "The good Earth-we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy."
KV, A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY
"The moon that I love clears a path through the pines And guides a stream right to the bamboo gate."Poems by Zen Master Hsu Yun: Series I
Posts: 795 | Location: western slope, northern sierra | Registered: 18 April 2003
It's kind of like Nero playing the fiddle while Rome burned. Except everyone has a fiddle and everyone is playing with as much wild-eyed fervor as they can muster...setting off sparks as they play.
Nature has always eliminated species that have damaged their environment to the point of unsustainability for that particular life form. We shouldn't be so arrogant as to think we are the exception.
There will be life on the earth, adaptable, until the sun goes into its death throes...about the same time as our neighboring galaxy will be colliding with our own. I doubt this species will be here to see that. It would be nice to know it will reach the next millenium.
It has or had such promise; as the case may finally be.
Retired Monk "Ideology is a disease"
Posts: 3412 | Location: denver co | Registered: 17 April 2007
Individuals are legally responsible for their views. Messages or parts of messages may be quoted or read on the radio, or reprinted in Thom's books and other materials.
Read-Only Topic
