. . . and truth. . .
. . . from John Kenneth Galbraith
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. "
"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite."
"It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought."
"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
as a form of employment for economists."
"The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself."
"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof."
"We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect. "
"Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. "
"Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative."
"The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking."
"More die in the United States of too much food than of too little. "
"In economics, the majority is always wrong. "
"Few can believe that suffering, especially by others, is in vain. Anything that is disagreeable must surely have beneficial economic effects."
"In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong."
"Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence. "
No one could make discussion of religion as entertaining as Christopher Hitchens. . .
(from JON WIENER, TRUTHDIG, CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS at http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/1249)
". . . Wiener: Let's talk about the U.S. Polls show that 94 per cent of Americans believe in God, and 89 per cent believe in heaven; of those, three-fourths think they will go to heaven, but only 2 per cent think they will go to hell. This seems laughable, but what's the harm in people believing they will go to heaven after they die—and see their mothers there?
Hitchens: All you have to do is promise them 72 virgins, and they'll kill to get there. That's what's wrong with it, along with the fact that it's a solipsistic delusion. And the spreading of delusion in the end isn't a good thing, because credulous and deluded people are easy to exploit. People arise who are aware of that fact.
If belief in heaven was private, like the tooth fairy, I'd say fine. But tooth fairy supporters don't come around to your house and try to convert you. They don't try to teach your children stultifying pseudo-science in school. They don't try to prevent access to contraception. The religious won't leave us alone. These are not just private delusions, they're ones they want to inflict on other people.
If religion were true, there would be no need for politics; you'd only need to have faith.
Wiener: The final killer argument of your critics is that Hitler and Stalin were not religious. The worst crimes of the 20th century did not have a religious basis. They came from political ideology.
Hitchens: That's easy. Hitler never abandoned Christianity and recommends Catholicism quite highly in "Mein Kampf." Fascism, as distinct from National Socialism, was in effect a Catholic movement.
Wiener: What about Stalin? He wasn't religious.
Hitchens: Stalin—easier still. For hundreds of years, millions of Russians had been told the head of state should be a man close to God, the czar, who was head of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as absolute despot. If you're Stalin, you shouldn't be in the dictatorship business if you can't exploit the pool of servility and docility that's ready-made for you. The task of atheists is to raise people above that level of servility and credulity. No society has gone the way of gulags or concentration camps by following the path of Spinoza and Einstein and Jefferson and Thomas Paine. . . "
Robert considered himself a poet; an amateur poet, but no less a serious one. And Robert, by personality, allotted the proper amount of gravity to all that his poetry involved, as he did in everything he undertook.
Deep in his heart, Robert knew that criticism was truly beneficial to he who chooses to exploit it wisely. Wise exploitation, he had learned from his many years of devotion to the poetic art, included the option to dismiss, within reason and with good cause, criticism from which he could gain nothing or that which was clearly malicious, unfounded, or merely a self-promotional exercise by a critic. But still less-than-favorable criticism still rankled him; a least for a period of time.
At the Poetry Night gala event, Robert was still replaying the latest negative review in his mind, in spite of the fact that it had been published well over a month before. He was, for all practical purposes, over it. The critic had even stressed the unique, freshness that he found in Robert's work and that it contained such great potential. Still though, Robert clung to the dismissive, condescending snipes the critic had taken at the heart and soul that Robert had taken such pains to record on the printed page.
Through, what seemed to be a fuzzy, poorly-focused camera shot from an art film, Robert saw the emcee introducing the next reading and was able to just-barely decipher his own name in the garbled monologue that accompanied the vision. Always prepared and always the consummate artist and professional, Robert rarely had problems at readings. Today for some reason, he had no poem.
He simply had nothing to read. He had no book, no manuscript, no notes.
The room was silent. . .
What
do YOU think?
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html
You can NOW download
your
very own copy of Ray Jozwiak's
newest release:
AMBIENCE & WINE
