KURT VONNEGUT SPEAKS OUT

My feeling from talking to readers and friends is that many people are beginning to despair. Do you think that we���ve lost reason to hope?


"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! F**k habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my arse!


inthesetimes.com...

How many "PP"s are there in this world? I know I am surrounded by them here. People who don't care about others so long as they are enriched, maybe its just a side effect of wealth.

XaOs

No, I think it's all about upbringing. Seems to be a genetic disorder.

Oh, well shoot! Kurt thinks its all bullcrap. In that case, I change my mind. I'm now a braindead dunce screaming "PEACE!" while the enemy declares war on us!

not.

Where was Kurt and the rest when our military was being dismantled, our intelligence was being retarded and our national resolve was being displayed as those willing to sell themselves and their secrets out for quick personal cash and our personal problems covered up by the launching of a few cruise missiles?

Our situation, our national strength, was dismantled before this president assumed control, yet everything is blamed on this administration. Pul;l it out of the 5th point of contact and realize that if we don't become a masculine nation again, one with backbone and self-determination, we are going to lose this nation. That'd be fine if only the weak lost out, but guess what? I have a stake in this, too. I have a family that you're gambling with when you want the enemies of this nation to be left alone to attack again, and their rich uncles be left in power to fund, train and arm them.

OBL calls for war, supports Hussein, and we respond by calling him a liar? What, we are going to tell him and Hussein that by ignoring them we will thereby disempower them?
DREAMWORLD!

"if we don't become a masculine nation again, one with backbone and self-determination, we are going to lose this nation."

this must be some strange usage of the word masculine I was previously unaware of because last time I looked backbone and resolve were non gender specific...
or don't you know any strong women.

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne

Oh, well shoot! Kurt thinks its all bullcrap. In that case, I change my mind. I'm now a braindead dunce screaming "PEACE!" while the enemy declares war on us!

Like if your 5 year old son says " I'm gonna beat you up" and you respond by punching him in the mouth full force, right?

Where was Kurt and the rest when our military was being dismantled, our intelligence was being retarded and our national resolve was being displayed as those willing to sell themselves and their secrets out for quick personal cash and our personal problems covered up by the launching of a few cruise missiles?

You mean the military that was succesfully executing that war in Afganistan and has been lauded for being TWO TIMES more efficent in deployment, relative to volume moved and speed, than at the time of the Gulf War, that is larger and deadlier than the next 25 nations combined and, as of 2000, still spent more than all of them? That "dismantled military"!?!?! Where was Kurt!?!? He's 80 years old!!! He fought in the foxholes for the US way of life....I value his opinion 100 times more than Dick Cheneys.

"Intelligence retarded"!?!
Bush:
1) Called off all FBI/CIA Investigations into Saudis & the Bin Laden family
2) Stopped ALL CLINTON ERA anti-terror measures
3) And the most important....IGNORED TERROR RED FLAGS FROM FIELD AGENTS!!!


"covered up by the launching of a few cruise missiles"
And the Bush Crime Family is launching Billion dollar a day unecessary wars to cover up the complete implosion of American domestic strength & prosperity based on their completely inept stewardship.....is it that your blind to the current situation or thought that Clinton was too frugal?

OBL calls for war, supports Hussein, and we respond by calling him a liar? What, we are going to tell him and Hussein that by ignoring them we will thereby disempower them?
DREAMWORLD!

He also called him a stinking socialist commie and a bad Muslim....so what? If these tapes are OBL, which they and previous probably aren't, it's a marginalized opportunist trying to hitch his wagon to a current event, something he's been doing since the first Intefadah. What I find funny is how the Bush Crime Family jumped to promote this tape because it said what they wanted to hear (OBL - Saddam link) after poo-pooing the previous; another absurd and self serving move on their part.

[Edited on 13-2-2003 by Bout Time]