Kurt Vonnegut sums up my sentiments about life these days

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

I posted this in the lounge to a thread about another poster's favorite writer but this interview SO SUMS up how I feel about the war, the Plame incident, Arnold and the current state of life that I describe as a tennis ball machine hurling turds at a pace of a million a minute.

Just thought I would pull this back out and share it. This was an inteview conducted by IN THESE TIMES from last fall- here's my favorite snip:

I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d’etat imaginable. And those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka “Christians,” and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or “PPs.”

To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable medical diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete’s foot. The classic medical text on PPs is The Mask of Sanity by Dr. Hervey Cleckley. Read it! PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts. They have a screw loose!

And what syndrome better describes so many executives at Enron and WorldCom and on and on, who have enriched themselves while ruining their employees and investors and country, and who still feel as pure as the driven snow, no matter what anybody may say to or about them? And so many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick.

What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next. Simply can’t. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody’s telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!

http://inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=38_0_4_0_C

[Forkboy]

1. the day he passes

will be one of the saddest days of my life.He means a lot to me for many reasons.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

3. Yep

He's right up there with Dylan for me in terms of influence in my life and outlook.

I could have used your hockeystick on an earlier thread. :evilgrin:

[Forkboy]

7. "I could have used your hockeystick.."

If I had a nickel for everytime I've heard THAT :evilgrin:

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

8. hehe

*pushes nickel through puter*

[sventvkg]

2. That is THRASH!!!!...And So very true.......

[camero]

4. He's right unfortunately

And besides the fact that the mark of a good leader is that he has doubts and is willing to weigh the consequences before he makes a decision. Which is why I liked Clinton. You know he at least tried to do what he thought was best for the country.

[woofless]

5. I read that interview last week

and was filled with a renewed awe of KV. What a treasure. Free thinkers everywhere should rejoice at his continued presence.

[Mari333]

6. Kurt Vonnegut is a kind man who wrote back to me

a kind letter once, after I wrote him a letter...he is a good man...he made me smile, in his letter, and drew me a picture too...
I will cherish his letter all the rest of my life.
He is truly a good man.

[E_Zapata]

9. "Who will police the Police?"

Of my entire education - high school, college, grad school, life -- that question has remained uppermost in my mind and heart about how and why humans live in a so-called civilized society. It gets to the heart of all hierarchies, whether in an office setting or a community, the federal government or even the relationship between all humankind and the heavenly Spirit.

KV helped frame my perception of humankind - by showing/teaching me the necessity of limits, of accountability, of compassion, of decency and really just the absolute requirement that man must give himself over to our best selves.

I don't like being reminded that we may lose Mr. Vonnegut some day. Esp with the seeming mass exodus of great thinkers and fathers of the last several generations of late.

--- and you know what? All this really bad news for the republicans and the bush administration doesn't make me happy. I am angrier than I was before. It won't be a day of parades for me when we oust the bushfucks from Washington. It will be a day of mourning as we make the assessments of all the damage that has been done to our souls, our schools, our neighbors across borders and oceans, and to this heavenly earth. Our fight to save this country, humanity, the creatures of the earth, and the earth itself will be just beginning. It ires me to think that we haven't even begun to fight to salvage something from this heinous mess. And the evil ones have an entire year to go. How the people of this country and the peoples across the globe can't just rise up against this evil diminishes my hope that we will even oust bush in 2004.

I used to feel bad for the daughters of bush jr. Today I genuinely want to FORCE them to see the sins of their father, as their father will never even be forced to acknowledge, much less see, what he has done.

errrrggghh

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

10. Too true.

The fact that their own hatred is turning in on them isn't a cause for celebration so much as a casue to mourn the fact that the people who put them in power could not recognize that hatred.

[E_Zapata]

13. It just makes it all more REAL

and therefore more soul shattering.

I almost feel like I am wakening up even more when I thought I was already as alert as a person could be. And it 10 times as terrifying to me as each successive 'wake up call' that has come down the pike from this evil regime.

I would have never predicted that there could be any state worse than going to sleep each night for 3 years saying: "unbelievable"

Now I see so clearly how very important it is that folks in our position of conscious recognition of the exact nature of what has been going on reach out to those who are just beginning to stir. Can you imagine waking up to the reality of this regime for the first time like "yesterday" as opposed to riding the wave of reality throughout. I would be in total shock.

We must reach out to our bretheren and help them to cope. I would suspect so.

[Forkboy]

12. What a fantastic post!

thanks for your thoughts.

[E_Zapata]

14. Thanks Forkboy. I think having The Blues on PBS each night

has set the tone of my heart this week . . . .

I have always been a blues fan, but never have I (a middle aged white person) ever FELT the blues as perhaps a soulful black man has.

[frank frankly]

11. that pretty much always goes for me

i love vonnegut

[E_Zapata]

15. Okay - to lighten things up a bit

At the very end of the interview:

That said, do you have any ideas for a really scary reality TV show?

“C students from Yale.” It would stand your hair on end.

What targets would you consider fair game for a satirist today?

Assholes.



-----to hell with the candidate debates; Give me a Twain v. Vonnegut and just see where those two take us. Glorious indeed.

[Tigerlily]

16. Now THAT'S an accurate description of the situation

"They're hurling turds at the rate of a million a minute!" How true.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

17. yep.

Hi nice to see you. :hi: