must read: «cold turkey» by kurt vonnegut
you are hereby commanded to read cold turkey by kurt vonnegut. yeah, i know, it's lots of words and you probably have a date with american idol or reality television... don't make me despair of you more than i already do...«many years ago, i was so innocent i still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable america so many members of my generation used to dream of. we dreamed of such an america during the great depression, when there were no jobs. and then we fought and often died for that dream during the second world war, when there was no peace.
but i know now that there is not a chance in hell of america’s becoming humane and reasonable. because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. by saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am i in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the middle east? their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. they are being treated, as i never was, like toys a rich kid got for christmas.»
«my government’s got a war on drugs. but get this: the two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.
one, of course, is ethyl alcohol. and president george w bush, no less, and by his own admission, was smashed or tiddley-poo or four sheets to the wind a good deal of the time from when he was 16 until he was 41. when he was 41, he says, jesus appeared to him and made him knock off the sauce, stop gargling nose paint.»
«for some reason, the most vocal christians among us never mention the beatitudes. but, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the ten commandments be posted in public buildings. and of course that’s moses, not jesus. i haven’t heard one of them demand that the sermon on the mount, the beatitudes, be posted anywhere. "blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "blessed are the peacemakers" in the pentagon? give me a break!»
