Page 1 of 1 pages
It’s true that Americans are hated in some parts of the world for the reasons Vonnegut mentions. But this is not why they are hated in the Middle East. There, they are hated primarily for their support of Israel. You can’t seriously contemplate the origins of the 9-11 attacks without understanding that.
Posted by James Paterson on Mar 3, 2003 at 2:39 AM
While serving in the military in the far east, I learned what “westernizing” meant. Simply put, its enriching the haves at the expense of the have nots. Little thought is given to depleting natural resources and damage to our enviornment. All in the name of God.
Posted by Marvin Wagner on Mar 3, 2003 at 2:19 PM
hi- a pro-war friend of mine (i am anti-the war). Sent me this email in our exchange over Iraq. Now mind you he is a great human being. He has a daughter who is blessed to have him as a father. But it saddens me that he would write this….
“There seems to me that there is an awful lot of trust and or sympathy toward Saddam, (as well as his links to Osama/Al-Queda), These guys are too smart,cunning and ruthless to let themselves be linked together in any way, try to keep something else in mind they ALL share one thing in common = they all HATE US, see how he treats his own people, and what they are teaching thier children :that Americans are the devil, (which wont change whether we act or not) Saddam is playing the U.N. like a fiddle, this is a chess game to him, he is a mastermind, and a madman, dont lose sight of that.”
Posted by Paul on Mar 3, 2003 at 3:11 PM
As usual Kurt hit many heads on the same nail.
As aptly noted, we haven’t been “loved” or
respected in this world for a long time.
The idea of integrity is lost and raped by
the profit takers, who’s only Mantra is
“The business of Amerika is business” Thanks Kurt.
Posted by J. W. Cook on Mar 3, 2003 at 3:20 PM
Well, I tried that. It didn’t help.
In fact it just attracted a lot more Christian chicken hawks who flocked around trying to figure out what I was doing, why I was doing it and would I teach them how?
Why, I couldn’t have laid a bigger egg if I tired. In fact, I did try, and it cracked open and out popped a twenty-three piece marching band with flags flying and twirlers twirling, playing the Star Spangled Banner and God Save the queen.
I guess that’s just the way it is these days. With such a Christian in the Oval, we can’t expect too much, even without axes on our crosses. Maybe we can call back all those missionaries again, as Samuel Clemens once suggested, and convert all the heathens lying about here at home.
It couldn’t hurt.
Posted by Michael Lewis on Mar 3, 2003 at 4:59 PM
Kurt,
Thanks for Eliot Rosewater,whose boyancy gave me the strength to survive the 70’s. Things have gotten worse and the old karass is getting smaller. So wonderful to hear from you again my dear old friend.
Economic power, and political stability, and the willingness to end political corruption, and end chronic judicial malfeasance, along with
ending predatory police misconduct
are the core components of being a positive power. When US citizens are willing to face these problems head on then there is a chance of regaining our role as a major player in the process of constructive world stewardship.
The core unresolvable deadend difficulty in Capitalism is that competition breeds an enormous waste of human, natural, and industrial resources. In order to compete triumphantly a corporate entity must expand exponentially to achieve monopolistic dominance. When the victory has been won then Capitalism dies and Plutocracy takes over. The US has reached that point recently, and because of its enormous success, the US is poised to take the whole planet down with it due to the sheer weight of the enormously poor choices it has made since 1917.
The Capitalists want to continue fortify themselves behind a great wall of illusion called “democracy”.
“Democracy” is a trojan horse and although possibly promising in theory is not comfortable mediating between Capitalism and Plutocracy.
This banter of some supporting the destruction of countries which are half children and wasting oil in the process is a ruse perpetrated by the cabal of Capitalist cutthroats to make the US military buy more oil, use more oil; buy more bullets and bombs, use more bullets and bombs.
The Capitalists are selling arms to both sides in this as usual
and a mature competent analysis of the issues at hand bear this out. The only thing that Capitalists care about in this war mongering is the appreciation of their stock portfolios. They are very lazy and would much rather pick up their gun and shoot a meal rather than plant and plan for the harvest. This oil is food for the Capitalists and they are going out to kill children in Iraq and Palestine which stand in their way. Just like Buffalo Bill Cody after slaughtering thousands of bison they will see the error of their ways but it will be too late.
...and so it goes…
Posted by Mike Jordan on Mar 3, 2003 at 10:37 PM
(imagine…)
a prison system run by private ($) enterprise.
a billion-dollar industry in
HUMAN CAPTIVITY.
their only product is the cell.
their only customer is the criminal.
paid off lawmakers make more stringent laws against crime (3 strikes).
a media bent on terrorizing the citizenry into higher ($) ratings makes
“tough on crime” look good.
taxpayers acquiesce to building more prisons, afraid to walk at night.
and once they get you, prisons do anything to keep you ($).
there’s no ($) in rehabilitation or education…and
an ever-growing percentage of our population is put away,
no vote
slave labor
and prison guards make more than teachers.
(imagine…)
an armed force that consists almost
solely
of a country’s poor
while the rich build in protections for their children.
the poor are forced into the military often
due to lack of employment or educational opportunity.
and the ($) old, white that run this country have
no problem sending
the poor
the dark
the non-voice
to do their economic bidding.
To kill or be…
(imagine…)
the most affluent country on the planet won’t
blink an eye at spending
a BILLION dollars to
develop a missile to
exterminate the transgressor
…and people starve in our streets.
oh, what one missile could do…
If we can imagine these things, we must be able to imagine something better.
When we can’t, we’ve lost.
FREE to do what we’re told.
FREE to enjoy their programming.
Totalitarianism wears a cloak of cowardice.
They will soon define FREEDOM out of existence.
read, write, learn, think…FIGHT!
Posted by Troy Payne on Mar 4, 2003 at 3:00 PM
When Vonnegut learns the facts, we can have this discussion.
Posted by Leonard Myers on Mar 4, 2003 at 6:34 PM
My older brother introduced me to Kurt Vonnegut’s books when I was a little girl. I immediately fell in love with his wit and caustic humor. It was all too good to be true. But I digress. I want to say that Kurt’s feelings and mine once again mesh. I’ve felt the same way about it all, and there aren’t enough words in the English language to describe what gwbush is doing to the world. I wonder about God’s plan everytime that feeble-minded freak opens his mouth. I’ve wondered about the complacency of the American people where his mind-numbingly stupid actions are concerned. I have fought him in the only ways I can, and I know that it does make a difference. On the other hand, I’ve wondered if they spike the water pitchers in congressional and senate meetings. It wouldn’t be anything new. They used G.I.s as lab rats without their knowledge in “experiments” with LSD. I would put nothing past bush.
Sincerely,
Sue Westmoreland
Posted by Sue Westmoreland on Mar 4, 2003 at 10:45 PM
My older brother introduced me to Kurt Vonnegut’s books when I was a little girl. I immediately fell in love with his wit and caustic humor. It was all too good to be true. But I digress. I want to say that Kurt’s feelings and mine once again mesh. I’ve felt the same way about it all, and there aren’t enough words in the English language to describe what gwbush is doing to the world. I wonder about God’s plan everytime that feeble-minded freak opens his mouth. I’ve wondered about the complacency of the American people where his mind-numbingly stupid actions are concerned. I have fought him in the only ways I can, and I know that it does make a difference. On the other hand, I’ve wondered if they spike the water pitchers in congressional and senate meetings. It wouldn’t be anything new. They used G.I.s as lab rats without their knowledge in “experiments” with LSD. I would put nothing past bush.
Sincerely,
Sue Westmoreland
Posted by Sue Westmoreland on Mar 4, 2003 at 10:46 PM
Wonderful. Keep this coming. Somebody needs to be calling it like it is. Mr. Vonnegut is a natural. Thank you
Posted by Jerre Miller on Mar 6, 2003 at 6:38 AM
So yet another laudable figure is emboldened by his status to pontificate about matters in which he is so evidently a neophyte. His diagnosis, like that of so many analysts, begins to approach the truth before imploding. The answer to the conundrum of why “they” hate us (whoever is meant by “they”) just isn’t “that simple”, as Vonnegut ignorantly postulates. But our government has over time committed to policies of embarassing irrationality and barbaric atrocity. This is almost undeniable. The cyclical action and inaction of our government is greatly to blame, as facts suggest. To blame corporate expansion, however, is to both demonstrate a lack of familiarity with basic information and realities, however, and to draw a complicit parallel between the motivations of politics (enshrined in government) and the market (corporations). Vonnegut’s assertion that terrorism is borne out of the machinations of American corporations, who he says have “been the principal delivers and imposers of new technologies and economic schemes that have wrecked the self-respect”, is pitiable. This platitude-ridden screed should, like most others of its kind, be discarded reflexively.
Posted by Jon on Mar 6, 2003 at 1:10 PM
I read and kept the original article, and everything he writes or has written, and am delighted that you host such comments. Reading the other comments I can see that he is getting the message through, even to those who are so blind they cannot think. To them I would say this. The United States is not the whole world folks! There are lots of the rest of us out here, even if that doesn’t interest your sort. Keep it up and you’ll convert us all into terrorists and some pretty sophisticated ones at that (remember the 4th of July was a British colonist led event).
I have nothing but admirtation for the American ideal and the people, their best traits are thos that we would like to import. What gets up our noses is the brass-bound arrogance and hubris of the pirates who now run your system. Their total disregard for anything and anyone other than the select few who are grabbing all the goodies, and where possible only the American few at that.
Gloalisation shouldn’t mean exporting all the shitty bits to “them” and importing all the profits to us few. This is not a policy for the future of the world, commercially or militarily. What is staggering to us “Old Europeans: is the incredible and blatant cycicism of those that are presently running your country at the expense of all its ideals. Don’t these people have children and can they really believe that they’re offering them a future if they do? Another great writer, William Golding, pictured that very well in Lord of the Flies.
If the sainted one will forgive me, I have taken to csalling the Bushies the Stainless Steel Rats (with apologies to Harry Harrison) Over here we have our own Woolly mammoth (or is it mouse) in the form of Baby Blair and boy what a corner he has backed himself and us into. But get this. His spin factory has today, in searching for an escape hatch, started to put it about that Blair’s only objective has been to contain Dubya! Who believes in fairy stories then? Any ideas for a title for this cowardly farce?
So it goes, as he would say himself. But how to stop all this idiocy when they’ve corrupted even the minor form of democracy we’ve rejoiced in previously? Whatever. Keep it up, give more dissenting voices a chance. and I’ll do my bit by circulating everything to like minded people with a serious interest in change. Thanks.
Bob Hope
Posted by Bob Hope on Mar 7, 2003 at 6:23 AM
Dang it, Jon, you use lots of fancy words, thanks for your support! You really drove home the point that Vonnegut is a obviuscerly very dopey.
Posted by George Bush on Mar 7, 2003 at 9:51 AM
Why do we care what happens to the societies that treat women as third class citizens ? The ‘innocents’ who will die in this war are better off dead than in that hellish place. The majority of the middle east is backward and uncivilized.
Posted by Dhani on Mar 7, 2003 at 12:40 PM
Dhani, your vision of the Middle-East is quite innacurate. The vision of these people you have is nothing but the one that your medias often like to show you. In fact, Irak was a very prosperous and advanced country before the golf war and the islamic religion shows a great respect toward women. You should sincerely stop thinking that one human life out there is meaningless. Humans are humans. It is even sad how sometimes some people seem to think their dog’s life is more precious than the of a little irakie boy.
Posted by Arthe on Mar 8, 2003 at 8:18 PM
Dhani, do you remember this song from Sting about the Russian that love their kids too? Well think about it before opening your mouth.
Posted by joe on Mar 9, 2003 at 6:33 AM
We seem now to have a predominance of elected officials in Washington who do not share traditional, historical values of our society. Some of them, such as Bush, seems to be ignorant of these values.
Posted by Sam Marshall on Mar 9, 2003 at 2:33 PM
Father Abraham should have kept it to one religion. He was among the first to speak of one God, but he blew it by having two sons and tossing one out. The Crusades of the 11th through the 13th Centuries were military expeditions undertaken by Christian powers and peoples to win back the Holy Land from the Muslims. How is what we are doing today differ from our history? The descendants of Ishmail and Isack have been going at it to covet this wasteland for so long, we present-day followers have forgot the REAL reason for the dispute…we both want the same piece of ground all to ourselves.
Of course, the money machine loves this scenerio cause “war is good business…invest your children.” If you sell arms or own an oil tanker or two, this is the place to do business. Its difficult to sell tanks in Texas or to float oil out of North Dakota.
Maybe the money people that have alternates for us to consider could work the old religion angle and bring all of us that believe in ONE TRUE GOD back together. If wars over religion and religious ideals would stop, wars would pretty much stop. Christians fighting Jews. Jews fighting Muslims. Muslims fighting Hindus. Hindus fighting Shintus and Shintus fighting Christians; now there is a quick history of every major war ever fought. All of the minor wars were fought over land, land whose occupants would receive the proper religion from the conquerors.
Its time to bring this cycle to an end. We have to do it one country at a time, and some country has to be first. Who better than that country that embraces all others and their faiths? Who better than that country that can get by without cheap oil? We do not need a war to spend us back into economic recovery. All we need is to focus on the future, invest in it, and share the results with our community.
Posted by Garhard Leonard on Mar 10, 2003 at 10:58 AM
It’s disheartening to repeatedly go to the trough of our best thinker-writers, find the sawdust of accurate analysis, and go hungry for any scheme of change sustenance. When the best thinker-writers make destructive analysis complete and ignore the other half of the logical pair, construtive analysis, what happens to the majority who need help to think of right reason solutions? Until thinker-writers of Vonnegut’s high quality begin to meld history with the majority’s current needs to uncover reasonable solutions, we’re all doomed to the sawdust trough.
Posted by Stephen Neitzke on Mar 11, 2003 at 8:01 AM
There have been no wars fought OVER religion, religion has been USED as a tool by governments to rally popular support for their economical and political domination over other people who happen to have different views of “god” and spirituality. What else but religion has such a mass of people under it’s umbrella and can motivate so many to do so much harm? Would anybody willingly kill or be killed because their government wants more resources, more power, more subservient labor to feed their greed while those that go to battle have as their only reward the horrid memories of war? Even the cold war was portrayed as a struggle between the “godless communists” and god fearing democracy. If there is a god, I think he’d be beyond displeased that the warmongers are destroying his creations under his name.
Posted by solrey eastwind on Mar 11, 2003 at 3:10 PM
There have been no wars fought OVER religion, religion has been USED as a tool by governments to rally popular support for their economical and political domination over other people who happen to have different views of “god” and spirituality. What else but religion has such a mass of people under it’s umbrella and can motivate so many to do so much harm? Would anybody willingly kill or be killed because their government wants more resources, more power, more subservient labor to feed their greed while those that go to battle have as their only reward the horrid memories of war? Even the cold war was portrayed as a struggle between the “godless communists” and god fearing democracy. If there is a god, I think he/she would be beyond displeased that the warmongers are destroying his/her creations under his/her name.
Posted by solrey eastwind on Mar 11, 2003 at 3:11 PM
Well written and to the point..I refer to GWB as ” Saint George the Dragon Slayer ” off to fulfill all the messages he receives from God. In the never ending changes of the agenda of the Bush Court ” Saint George ” deems it his moral duty to free all the Iraqi’s from that “Dragon Saddam”...regardless as to how many lives will be lost of those he is out to free….and how does he deem the USA morally right when they are the ones that armed Saddam with all the weapons of mass destruction in the first place…I’m sure that the High Court of Saint George are convinced that we are all idiots…..bill
Posted by BILL EWERTZ on Mar 11, 2003 at 6:45 PM
When I first read Mr. Vonnegut’s interview, I thought he sounded angry and unfocused (although I agreed with everything he said). I would not have published his letter in the NYT either.
I thought the reply “Posted by: Jon on 3.6.03 | 2:10 pm from Washington, DC” was more interesting.
“to pontificate about matters in which he is so evidently a neophyte.”
That’s name-calling, Jon.
“His diagnosis ... begins to approach the truth before imploding.”
That’s better feedback, giving Mr. Vonnegut some credit for truth-telling, even though he didn’t pursuade you.
“...(whoever is meant by “they”) just isn’t “that simple”, as Vonnegut ignorantly postulates.”
You’re right. Nothing is ever that simple, since reality is always much richer than our words and concepts can convey. But simplifying and generalizing allows us to understand complex situations. By understanding them, we are better able to solve them.
“...our government has over time committed to policies of embarassing irrationality and barbaric atrocity. This is almost undeniable.”
Again, common ground.
“The cyclical action and inaction of our government is greatly to blame, as facts suggest.”
Which facts?
“To blame corporate expansion, however, is to both demonstrate a lack of familiarity with basic information and realities, however, and to draw a complicit parallel between the motivations of politics (enshrined in government) and the market (corporations).”
What basic info and reality? If you want to persuade people (or, better, lead us to a clearer understanding of “that which is”), please don’t do the same thing you accuse Vonnegut of doing. You clearly have a pro-corporate capitalism bias, as he has one against. Calling him ignorant and pitiable doesn’t make your case any stronger.
Whether Vonnegut wrote a “platitude-ridden screed” or not, NOTHING in the public domain should “be discarded reflexively.” Why? Because a human created it. And disrespect for humans, individually and as groups (Blacks, Muslims, poor people, unschooled folk, Communists), is the reason there’s so much suffering on this planet.
Thanks for reading (this really is meant for folks like Jon).
Posted by Chris Keenan, MD on Mar 12, 2003 at 8:20 AM
What a wonderful and witty response by the incomperable Kurt. I agree with his points re the basic perniciousness of the Bush cabal and the ovewhelmning threat they pose to both our nation and our planet. Another anti Christ has appeared and stalks the land. Just how much innocent life will he devour before the Messiah of the Jews encounters him? What fascinating times we all live in.
Posted by Don Paulus on Mar 12, 2003 at 2:59 PM
A friend emailed this story to me and I found your web site. I will visit often. Great Article. Thank you.
Posted by Eldene Fletcher on Mar 12, 2003 at 9:48 PM
You lift my spirit with both pieces. Kurt, my prayers are with you. You are a prophet of the times. You speak the truth. Keep on speaking and writing!!
Posted by Jeremy Tobin on Mar 13, 2003 at 1:51 PM
Dear Mr. Vonnegut,
I understand that you pride yourself as an intellectual as being far above those who may read your opinion. Until I started reading it I had a fair amount of respect for you but now I realize you are a complete chowder-head. I understand that you don
Posted by Larry on Mar 13, 2003 at 3:26 PM
Dear Mr. Vonnegut,
I always felt that your books all contained the theme that we should not
dehumanize and demonize others by making of them simplistic caricatures. I
always thought your satire was directed at people and groups who did that,
and by so doing answered the question “What the hell are people for?” this
way: “To be used by me to get what I want.”
I rarely seek to learn anything about writers I admire as their biography is
not as important to me as their work. Yet, in your case, I did, becoming a
part of the newsgroup alt.books.kurt-vonnegut started by your friend Bob Wilde who kept us up to date on your life and work and his own work regarding you.
I know you think we’re all ghost on the Internet who need to get on our
Harley’s instead, but I enjoyed that group. As a Christian I prayed for you
when your house caught fire, something I learned in real time by reading that
group.
I left that group some time ago. It was once a vibrant and thriving
discussion group filled with diverse people, like the Afghani student who
wrote an “Open Letter to the Northern Resistance.”
Sadly, many left the group because a couple of others came into the group and kept saying those of us who were politically conservative or Christian could
not be real Vonnegut fans. They compared us to Hitler and called us evil.
They said things like this:
“And what remains the best-kept secret from the Second World War, because it
is so embarrassing, is that Hitler was a Christian, and that his swastika was
a Christian cross made of axes, an apt symbol of a political party for
Christians of the working class.
And like this:
“One wishes that those who have taken over our federal government, and hence
the world, by means of a Mickey Mouse coup d’etat
How can you say that Hitler was a Christian when the very last sentence you wrote prior to that was “The devil can site Scripture for his purposes?”
You seem to think Hitler was a real Christian but Bush isn’t. You also think a
decision by the US Supreme Court amounts to a coup d’etat in an election
where roughly 50% of the people who voted, voted for the current president.
My question, then, is why do you of all people dehumanize others with such
simplistic caricatures? How could you forget what people are for and become,
instead, the thing you pretend to be, something you once warned us against?
Posted by Bo Grimes on Mar 20, 2003 at 10:07 AM
Bravo on this well wrtten piece on the monster residing in the white house! thank you!
Posted by Laurie L Ware on Mar 31, 2003 at 11:15 AM
Bravo on this well wrtten piece on the monster residing in the white house! thank you!
Posted by Laurie L Ware on Mar 31, 2003 at 11:15 AM
Bless You Mr. Vonnegut
I’m a “baby-boomer” and I have never seen such a mess in the leadership of this country. Wouldn’t you think that we should “get our house in order” before we try to dictate morals for the rest of the world?
Posted by Steven Taylor on Jun 4, 2003 at 12:16 PM
I have long respected Mr. Vonnegut for his honest appraisals of American injustice. I am at a loss to understand how the American public have allowed this to go on. Surely the answer must be that the government has systematicly taught the American people that they are seperate from the government and powerless to do anything more damaging than change the channel.
Posted by tina carson on Jul 9, 2003 at 8:08 PM
there seems to be a great deal, we as americans take for granted. we wake up everyday and we are free to go to work, or to stay home, to play, to travel. we are free to do anything we please so long as it doesn’t infringe on the freedoms of those who surround us. we must be respectfully of every man, woman and child’s right to these freedoms.
our government may not be liked by foreigners and some americans alike, and may be responsible for miseries and corruptions. but because of our government, we are able to live as we do. everything we as americans are able to experience, all the opportunities that we have, all the possibilities that lie in wait for our futures, are all made possible by our government. without this system in place we might find ourselves, all of us, oppressed under a dictator. without rights, with no say. constantly aware of the thumb that could snub us out, and the ears that listen for any ill spoken word.
when people threaten our right to our freedom, established for us by our government, then we must make a stand, and we must react. this is what we did. i lost friends on 9.11 too many friends. too many friends of family, and friends of friends. in a matter of minutes 2000+ americans lost their freedoms for ever. and while, my religious background has taught me to turn the other cheek to my enemy and extend my hand in acceptance of those with whom i disagree, we have been attacked in an act of war. we have been attacked as we went about living our free lives. this i will not stand for, and by all means nescassary, i say wipe out the problem. wipe theses individuals, osama, sadaam, al qaeda, their supporters, their allies, their sympathizers, from their positons of influence. we have the right to preserve our way of life. and from this we cannot back down.
Posted by brad on Jul 29, 2003 at 7:06 AM
AMEN
Posted by Dan Wakefield on Aug 8, 2003 at 2:21 PM
Anti war? Hell no Im anti-glacier
Posted by James Conniff on Oct 1, 2003 at 8:44 PM
GOD BLESS YOU, MR. VONNEGUT!
Posted by Patricia Hval on Nov 12, 2003 at 6:55 PM
Page 1 of 1 pages
SAVE 53% OFFTHE NEWSSTAND PRICE!
Reader Comments
It’s true that Americans are hated in some parts of the world for the reasons Vonnegut mentions. But this is not why they are hated in the Middle East. There, they are hated primarily for their support of Israel. You can’t seriously contemplate the origins of the 9-11 attacks without understanding that.
While serving in the military in the far east, I learned what “westernizing” meant. Simply put, its enriching the haves at the expense of the have nots. Little thought is given to depleting natural resources and damage to our enviornment. All in the name of God.
hi- a pro-war friend of mine (i am anti-the war). Sent me this email in our exchange over Iraq. Now mind you he is a great human being. He has a daughter who is blessed to have him as a father. But it saddens me that he would write this….
“There seems to me that there is an awful lot of trust and or sympathy toward Saddam, (as well as his links to Osama/Al-Queda), These guys are too smart,cunning and ruthless to let themselves be linked together in any way, try to keep something else in mind they ALL share one thing in common = they all HATE US, see how he treats his own people, and what they are teaching thier children :that Americans are the devil, (which wont change whether we act or not) Saddam is playing the U.N. like a fiddle, this is a chess game to him, he is a mastermind, and a madman, dont lose sight of that.”
As usual Kurt hit many heads on the same nail.
As aptly noted, we haven’t been “loved” or
respected in this world for a long time.
The idea of integrity is lost and raped by
the profit takers, who’s only Mantra is
“The business of Amerika is business” Thanks Kurt.
Well, I tried that. It didn’t help.
In fact it just attracted a lot more Christian chicken hawks who flocked around trying to figure out what I was doing, why I was doing it and would I teach them how?
Why, I couldn’t have laid a bigger egg if I tired. In fact, I did try, and it cracked open and out popped a twenty-three piece marching band with flags flying and twirlers twirling, playing the Star Spangled Banner and God Save the queen.
I guess that’s just the way it is these days. With such a Christian in the Oval, we can’t expect too much, even without axes on our crosses. Maybe we can call back all those missionaries again, as Samuel Clemens once suggested, and convert all the heathens lying about here at home.
It couldn’t hurt.
Kurt,
Thanks for Eliot Rosewater,whose boyancy gave me the strength to survive the 70’s. Things have gotten worse and the old karass is getting smaller. So wonderful to hear from you again my dear old friend.
Economic power, and political stability, and the willingness to end political corruption, and end chronic judicial malfeasance, along with
ending predatory police misconduct
are the core components of being a positive power. When US citizens are willing to face these problems head on then there is a chance of regaining our role as a major player in the process of constructive world stewardship.
The core unresolvable deadend difficulty in Capitalism is that competition breeds an enormous waste of human, natural, and industrial resources. In order to compete triumphantly a corporate entity must expand exponentially to achieve monopolistic dominance. When the victory has been won then Capitalism dies and Plutocracy takes over. The US has reached that point recently, and because of its enormous success, the US is poised to take the whole planet down with it due to the sheer weight of the enormously poor choices it has made since 1917.
The Capitalists want to continue fortify themselves behind a great wall of illusion called “democracy”.
“Democracy” is a trojan horse and although possibly promising in theory is not comfortable mediating between Capitalism and Plutocracy.
This banter of some supporting the destruction of countries which are half children and wasting oil in the process is a ruse perpetrated by the cabal of Capitalist cutthroats to make the US military buy more oil, use more oil; buy more bullets and bombs, use more bullets and bombs.
The Capitalists are selling arms to both sides in this as usual
and a mature competent analysis of the issues at hand bear this out. The only thing that Capitalists care about in this war mongering is the appreciation of their stock portfolios. They are very lazy and would much rather pick up their gun and shoot a meal rather than plant and plan for the harvest. This oil is food for the Capitalists and they are going out to kill children in Iraq and Palestine which stand in their way. Just like Buffalo Bill Cody after slaughtering thousands of bison they will see the error of their ways but it will be too late.
...and so it goes…
(imagine…)
a prison system run by private ($) enterprise.
a billion-dollar industry in
HUMAN CAPTIVITY.
their only product is the cell.
their only customer is the criminal.
paid off lawmakers make more stringent laws against crime (3 strikes).
a media bent on terrorizing the citizenry into higher ($) ratings makes
“tough on crime” look good.
taxpayers acquiesce to building more prisons, afraid to walk at night.
and once they get you, prisons do anything to keep you ($).
there’s no ($) in rehabilitation or education…and
an ever-growing percentage of our population is put away,
no vote
slave labor
and prison guards make more than teachers.
(imagine…)
an armed force that consists almost
solely
of a country’s poor
while the rich build in protections for their children.
the poor are forced into the military often
due to lack of employment or educational opportunity.
and the ($) old, white that run this country have
no problem sending
the poor
the dark
the non-voice
to do their economic bidding.
To kill or be…
(imagine…)
the most affluent country on the planet won’t
blink an eye at spending
a BILLION dollars to
develop a missile to
exterminate the transgressor
…and people starve in our streets.
oh, what one missile could do…
If we can imagine these things, we must be able to imagine something better.
When we can’t, we’ve lost.
FREE to do what we’re told.
FREE to enjoy their programming.
Totalitarianism wears a cloak of cowardice.
They will soon define FREEDOM out of existence.
read, write, learn, think…FIGHT!
When Vonnegut learns the facts, we can have this discussion.
My older brother introduced me to Kurt Vonnegut’s books when I was a little girl. I immediately fell in love with his wit and caustic humor. It was all too good to be true. But I digress. I want to say that Kurt’s feelings and mine once again mesh. I’ve felt the same way about it all, and there aren’t enough words in the English language to describe what gwbush is doing to the world. I wonder about God’s plan everytime that feeble-minded freak opens his mouth. I’ve wondered about the complacency of the American people where his mind-numbingly stupid actions are concerned. I have fought him in the only ways I can, and I know that it does make a difference. On the other hand, I’ve wondered if they spike the water pitchers in congressional and senate meetings. It wouldn’t be anything new. They used G.I.s as lab rats without their knowledge in “experiments” with LSD. I would put nothing past bush.
Sincerely,
Sue Westmoreland
My older brother introduced me to Kurt Vonnegut’s books when I was a little girl. I immediately fell in love with his wit and caustic humor. It was all too good to be true. But I digress. I want to say that Kurt’s feelings and mine once again mesh. I’ve felt the same way about it all, and there aren’t enough words in the English language to describe what gwbush is doing to the world. I wonder about God’s plan everytime that feeble-minded freak opens his mouth. I’ve wondered about the complacency of the American people where his mind-numbingly stupid actions are concerned. I have fought him in the only ways I can, and I know that it does make a difference. On the other hand, I’ve wondered if they spike the water pitchers in congressional and senate meetings. It wouldn’t be anything new. They used G.I.s as lab rats without their knowledge in “experiments” with LSD. I would put nothing past bush.
Sincerely,
Sue Westmoreland
Wonderful. Keep this coming. Somebody needs to be calling it like it is. Mr. Vonnegut is a natural. Thank you
So yet another laudable figure is emboldened by his status to pontificate about matters in which he is so evidently a neophyte. His diagnosis, like that of so many analysts, begins to approach the truth before imploding. The answer to the conundrum of why “they” hate us (whoever is meant by “they”) just isn’t “that simple”, as Vonnegut ignorantly postulates. But our government has over time committed to policies of embarassing irrationality and barbaric atrocity. This is almost undeniable. The cyclical action and inaction of our government is greatly to blame, as facts suggest. To blame corporate expansion, however, is to both demonstrate a lack of familiarity with basic information and realities, however, and to draw a complicit parallel between the motivations of politics (enshrined in government) and the market (corporations). Vonnegut’s assertion that terrorism is borne out of the machinations of American corporations, who he says have “been the principal delivers and imposers of new technologies and economic schemes that have wrecked the self-respect”, is pitiable. This platitude-ridden screed should, like most others of its kind, be discarded reflexively.
I read and kept the original article, and everything he writes or has written, and am delighted that you host such comments. Reading the other comments I can see that he is getting the message through, even to those who are so blind they cannot think. To them I would say this. The United States is not the whole world folks! There are lots of the rest of us out here, even if that doesn’t interest your sort. Keep it up and you’ll convert us all into terrorists and some pretty sophisticated ones at that (remember the 4th of July was a British colonist led event).
I have nothing but admirtation for the American ideal and the people, their best traits are thos that we would like to import. What gets up our noses is the brass-bound arrogance and hubris of the pirates who now run your system. Their total disregard for anything and anyone other than the select few who are grabbing all the goodies, and where possible only the American few at that.
Gloalisation shouldn’t mean exporting all the shitty bits to “them” and importing all the profits to us few. This is not a policy for the future of the world, commercially or militarily. What is staggering to us “Old Europeans: is the incredible and blatant cycicism of those that are presently running your country at the expense of all its ideals. Don’t these people have children and can they really believe that they’re offering them a future if they do? Another great writer, William Golding, pictured that very well in Lord of the Flies.
If the sainted one will forgive me, I have taken to csalling the Bushies the Stainless Steel Rats (with apologies to Harry Harrison) Over here we have our own Woolly mammoth (or is it mouse) in the form of Baby Blair and boy what a corner he has backed himself and us into. But get this. His spin factory has today, in searching for an escape hatch, started to put it about that Blair’s only objective has been to contain Dubya! Who believes in fairy stories then? Any ideas for a title for this cowardly farce?
So it goes, as he would say himself. But how to stop all this idiocy when they’ve corrupted even the minor form of democracy we’ve rejoiced in previously? Whatever. Keep it up, give more dissenting voices a chance. and I’ll do my bit by circulating everything to like minded people with a serious interest in change. Thanks.
Bob Hope
Dang it, Jon, you use lots of fancy words, thanks for your support! You really drove home the point that Vonnegut is a obviuscerly very dopey.
Why do we care what happens to the societies that treat women as third class citizens ? The ‘innocents’ who will die in this war are better off dead than in that hellish place. The majority of the middle east is backward and uncivilized.
Dhani, your vision of the Middle-East is quite innacurate. The vision of these people you have is nothing but the one that your medias often like to show you. In fact, Irak was a very prosperous and advanced country before the golf war and the islamic religion shows a great respect toward women. You should sincerely stop thinking that one human life out there is meaningless. Humans are humans. It is even sad how sometimes some people seem to think their dog’s life is more precious than the of a little irakie boy.
Dhani, do you remember this song from Sting about the Russian that love their kids too? Well think about it before opening your mouth.
We seem now to have a predominance of elected officials in Washington who do not share traditional, historical values of our society. Some of them, such as Bush, seems to be ignorant of these values.
Father Abraham should have kept it to one religion. He was among the first to speak of one God, but he blew it by having two sons and tossing one out. The Crusades of the 11th through the 13th Centuries were military expeditions undertaken by Christian powers and peoples to win back the Holy Land from the Muslims. How is what we are doing today differ from our history? The descendants of Ishmail and Isack have been going at it to covet this wasteland for so long, we present-day followers have forgot the REAL reason for the dispute…we both want the same piece of ground all to ourselves.
Of course, the money machine loves this scenerio cause “war is good business…invest your children.” If you sell arms or own an oil tanker or two, this is the place to do business. Its difficult to sell tanks in Texas or to float oil out of North Dakota.
Maybe the money people that have alternates for us to consider could work the old religion angle and bring all of us that believe in ONE TRUE GOD back together. If wars over religion and religious ideals would stop, wars would pretty much stop. Christians fighting Jews. Jews fighting Muslims. Muslims fighting Hindus. Hindus fighting Shintus and Shintus fighting Christians; now there is a quick history of every major war ever fought. All of the minor wars were fought over land, land whose occupants would receive the proper religion from the conquerors.
Its time to bring this cycle to an end. We have to do it one country at a time, and some country has to be first. Who better than that country that embraces all others and their faiths? Who better than that country that can get by without cheap oil? We do not need a war to spend us back into economic recovery. All we need is to focus on the future, invest in it, and share the results with our community.
It’s disheartening to repeatedly go to the trough of our best thinker-writers, find the sawdust of accurate analysis, and go hungry for any scheme of change sustenance. When the best thinker-writers make destructive analysis complete and ignore the other half of the logical pair, construtive analysis, what happens to the majority who need help to think of right reason solutions? Until thinker-writers of Vonnegut’s high quality begin to meld history with the majority’s current needs to uncover reasonable solutions, we’re all doomed to the sawdust trough.
There have been no wars fought OVER religion, religion has been USED as a tool by governments to rally popular support for their economical and political domination over other people who happen to have different views of “god” and spirituality. What else but religion has such a mass of people under it’s umbrella and can motivate so many to do so much harm? Would anybody willingly kill or be killed because their government wants more resources, more power, more subservient labor to feed their greed while those that go to battle have as their only reward the horrid memories of war? Even the cold war was portrayed as a struggle between the “godless communists” and god fearing democracy. If there is a god, I think he’d be beyond displeased that the warmongers are destroying his creations under his name.
There have been no wars fought OVER religion, religion has been USED as a tool by governments to rally popular support for their economical and political domination over other people who happen to have different views of “god” and spirituality. What else but religion has such a mass of people under it’s umbrella and can motivate so many to do so much harm? Would anybody willingly kill or be killed because their government wants more resources, more power, more subservient labor to feed their greed while those that go to battle have as their only reward the horrid memories of war? Even the cold war was portrayed as a struggle between the “godless communists” and god fearing democracy. If there is a god, I think he/she would be beyond displeased that the warmongers are destroying his/her creations under his/her name.
Well written and to the point..I refer to GWB as ” Saint George the Dragon Slayer ” off to fulfill all the messages he receives from God. In the never ending changes of the agenda of the Bush Court ” Saint George ” deems it his moral duty to free all the Iraqi’s from that “Dragon Saddam”...regardless as to how many lives will be lost of those he is out to free….and how does he deem the USA morally right when they are the ones that armed Saddam with all the weapons of mass destruction in the first place…I’m sure that the High Court of Saint George are convinced that we are all idiots…..bill
When I first read Mr. Vonnegut’s interview, I thought he sounded angry and unfocused (although I agreed with everything he said). I would not have published his letter in the NYT either.
I thought the reply “Posted by: Jon on 3.6.03 | 2:10 pm from Washington, DC” was more interesting.
“to pontificate about matters in which he is so evidently a neophyte.”
That’s name-calling, Jon.
“His diagnosis ... begins to approach the truth before imploding.”
That’s better feedback, giving Mr. Vonnegut some credit for truth-telling, even though he didn’t pursuade you.
“...(whoever is meant by “they”) just isn’t “that simple”, as Vonnegut ignorantly postulates.”
You’re right. Nothing is ever that simple, since reality is always much richer than our words and concepts can convey. But simplifying and generalizing allows us to understand complex situations. By understanding them, we are better able to solve them.
“...our government has over time committed to policies of embarassing irrationality and barbaric atrocity. This is almost undeniable.”
Again, common ground.
“The cyclical action and inaction of our government is greatly to blame, as facts suggest.”
Which facts?
“To blame corporate expansion, however, is to both demonstrate a lack of familiarity with basic information and realities, however, and to draw a complicit parallel between the motivations of politics (enshrined in government) and the market (corporations).”
What basic info and reality? If you want to persuade people (or, better, lead us to a clearer understanding of “that which is”), please don’t do the same thing you accuse Vonnegut of doing. You clearly have a pro-corporate capitalism bias, as he has one against. Calling him ignorant and pitiable doesn’t make your case any stronger.
Whether Vonnegut wrote a “platitude-ridden screed” or not, NOTHING in the public domain should “be discarded reflexively.” Why? Because a human created it. And disrespect for humans, individually and as groups (Blacks, Muslims, poor people, unschooled folk, Communists), is the reason there’s so much suffering on this planet.
Thanks for reading (this really is meant for folks like Jon).
What a wonderful and witty response by the incomperable Kurt. I agree with his points re the basic perniciousness of the Bush cabal and the ovewhelmning threat they pose to both our nation and our planet. Another anti Christ has appeared and stalks the land. Just how much innocent life will he devour before the Messiah of the Jews encounters him? What fascinating times we all live in.
A friend emailed this story to me and I found your web site. I will visit often. Great Article. Thank you.
You lift my spirit with both pieces. Kurt, my prayers are with you. You are a prophet of the times. You speak the truth. Keep on speaking and writing!!
Dear Mr. Vonnegut,
I understand that you pride yourself as an intellectual as being far above those who may read your opinion. Until I started reading it I had a fair amount of respect for you but now I realize you are a complete chowder-head. I understand that you don
Dear Mr. Vonnegut,
I always felt that your books all contained the theme that we should not
dehumanize and demonize others by making of them simplistic caricatures. I
always thought your satire was directed at people and groups who did that,
and by so doing answered the question “What the hell are people for?” this
way: “To be used by me to get what I want.”
I rarely seek to learn anything about writers I admire as their biography is
not as important to me as their work. Yet, in your case, I did, becoming a
part of the newsgroup alt.books.kurt-vonnegut started by your friend Bob Wilde who kept us up to date on your life and work and his own work regarding you.
I know you think we’re all ghost on the Internet who need to get on our
Harley’s instead, but I enjoyed that group. As a Christian I prayed for you
when your house caught fire, something I learned in real time by reading that
group.
I left that group some time ago. It was once a vibrant and thriving
discussion group filled with diverse people, like the Afghani student who
wrote an “Open Letter to the Northern Resistance.”
Sadly, many left the group because a couple of others came into the group and kept saying those of us who were politically conservative or Christian could
not be real Vonnegut fans. They compared us to Hitler and called us evil.
They said things like this:
“And what remains the best-kept secret from the Second World War, because it
is so embarrassing, is that Hitler was a Christian, and that his swastika was
a Christian cross made of axes, an apt symbol of a political party for
Christians of the working class.
And like this:
“One wishes that those who have taken over our federal government, and hence
the world, by means of a Mickey Mouse coup d’etat
How can you say that Hitler was a Christian when the very last sentence you wrote prior to that was “The devil can site Scripture for his purposes?”
You seem to think Hitler was a real Christian but Bush isn’t. You also think a
decision by the US Supreme Court amounts to a coup d’etat in an election
where roughly 50% of the people who voted, voted for the current president.
My question, then, is why do you of all people dehumanize others with such
simplistic caricatures? How could you forget what people are for and become,
instead, the thing you pretend to be, something you once warned us against?
Bravo on this well wrtten piece on the monster residing in the white house! thank you!
Bravo on this well wrtten piece on the monster residing in the white house! thank you!
Bless You Mr. Vonnegut
I’m a “baby-boomer” and I have never seen such a mess in the leadership of this country. Wouldn’t you think that we should “get our house in order” before we try to dictate morals for the rest of the world?
I have long respected Mr. Vonnegut for his honest appraisals of American injustice. I am at a loss to understand how the American public have allowed this to go on. Surely the answer must be that the government has systematicly taught the American people that they are seperate from the government and powerless to do anything more damaging than change the channel.
there seems to be a great deal, we as americans take for granted. we wake up everyday and we are free to go to work, or to stay home, to play, to travel. we are free to do anything we please so long as it doesn’t infringe on the freedoms of those who surround us. we must be respectfully of every man, woman and child’s right to these freedoms.
our government may not be liked by foreigners and some americans alike, and may be responsible for miseries and corruptions. but because of our government, we are able to live as we do. everything we as americans are able to experience, all the opportunities that we have, all the possibilities that lie in wait for our futures, are all made possible by our government. without this system in place we might find ourselves, all of us, oppressed under a dictator. without rights, with no say. constantly aware of the thumb that could snub us out, and the ears that listen for any ill spoken word.
when people threaten our right to our freedom, established for us by our government, then we must make a stand, and we must react. this is what we did. i lost friends on 9.11 too many friends. too many friends of family, and friends of friends. in a matter of minutes 2000+ americans lost their freedoms for ever. and while, my religious background has taught me to turn the other cheek to my enemy and extend my hand in acceptance of those with whom i disagree, we have been attacked in an act of war. we have been attacked as we went about living our free lives. this i will not stand for, and by all means nescassary, i say wipe out the problem. wipe theses individuals, osama, sadaam, al qaeda, their supporters, their allies, their sympathizers, from their positons of influence. we have the right to preserve our way of life. and from this we cannot back down.
AMEN
Anti war? Hell no Im anti-glacier
GOD BLESS YOU, MR. VONNEGUT!
Cheap ugg classic boots-Various discount uggs & outlet uggs
As one specialized outlet uggs on sale,here offers various ugg boots cheap for comfort and fashion, ugg boots clearance is worthy of every penny.
ugg bailey button ugg bailey button
Ugg Bailey Button Boots Triplet Ugg Bailey Button Boots Triplet
UGG Classic Tall Boots UGG Classic Tall Boots
Ugg Classic Cardy Boots Ugg Classic Cardy Boots
ugg Classic Short Bootsugg Classic Short Boots
Ugg Classic Mini BootsUgg Classic Mini Boots
dear
Belstaff|Belstaff Jackets|Belstaff UK|Belstaff Clothing|Belstaff Leather|Belstaff Sale|outlet Belstaff|Belstaff online|belstaff bags
Belstaff,Belstaff Jackets,Outlet Belstaff,Belstaff Leather,Belstaff Clothing,belstaff Sale 60%-80% - Belstaffonsale.com
sen
cheap uggs uk
ugg boots clearance
uggs boots sale
uggs online|uggs outlet|cheap uggs
uggs boots sale cheap uggs uk online in uggsofuk.com with free shipping
Uggs Bailey Button|Uggs Classic Short Boots|Uggs Classic Tall Boots
op
register a new account »Posting Security