>>>snip
>>>
>>>>Damn that pesky electorate. How dare they want to keep what they earn. If only they'd succomb to the wisdom of an enlightneed elite. ;)
>>>>
>>>
>>>Can you name any evolved society / country in which people get to keep
all of what they earn? There are some who seem to feel that is an inalienable human right, but in fact such a society does not exist.
>>
>>The United States 1776-1862 & 1868-1913.
>>
>
>My God, man. No one would want to * come * to a country like that ! How would it ever attract immigrants?
Ha ha. You and Jake are two really smart guys, that said unironically. Not that you care about my opinion -- you (Charles, not Jake) have made that crystal clear and have said it in about exactly those words -- but still it is disappointing to see the idolization of greed from both of you. It is coming across as "I've got mine and the rest of you can go fly a kite." Sad, really. We have all these problems and some of our best and brightest are going to the mattresses. This is supposed to make things better how?
The backlash against and now official suppression of the Occupy Wall Street protesters, and the worldwide movement they spawned, is quite amazing. It started with fury against the financial interests who got us into this whole economic mess, the most serious since the Great Depression. Somehow it has been reportrayed as a matter of good-for-nothings seeking handouts, needing to be removed from their protest spots as public nuisances and dangers to society. Now that is spin of the highest order. And people believe it! These past few years, continuing, are not going to be remembered as a shining chapter in our nation's history. When times get rough people turn ugly. That's what we're seeing now.
As an aside, please do not snicker or even insinuate that I am unpatriotic. That is the tactic of the truly lame-minded, which you are not. I wish I had "The Stories of John Cheever" handy to find the exact wording from "The Death of Justina" -- my country, my beloved country, I remain with one knee still figuratively on Plymouth Rock, something like that. That quotation is surely not accurate word for word and I don't want to leave you a piece of meat to pounce on.
(OK, having the entirely wrong author of a famous piece, you nailed me there).
Now this is interesting. Not trying to make any kind of point with it, just interesting. John Cheever has long been among my favorite writers even though I am well aware of his personal shortcomings. Graham Greene, same way. Hmmm.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/04/wolcott-on-cheever200904Things are going well for me at the moment, even though I am feeling tired and a little pissy tonight, so here is your UT Thanksgiving doorbuster. If you promise to read it, or at least pass it along to someone who will (Greene's cynicism about the human condition creeping in there), I will buy "The Stories of John Cheever" for the first three repliers. It won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award and landed Cheever, late in life, on the cover of Time magazine.
This is not any kind of litmus test. He just wrote like an angel IMO and I like to pass my admirations along.
