Kurt Vonnegut has passed away. He was 84.
For a while Vonnegut was thinking about suing Philip Morris, because he always expected the unfiltered Pall Malls he smoked to kill him years ago, but they didn't. Instead he died from brain injuries he sustained after a recent fall at home.
He was a witness to the firebombing of Dresden, and wrote it up in "Slaughterhouse-Five." That event was the beginning of both this country's descent into habitual immorality and hypocrisy and Vonnegut's sharp condemnation of those things.
He retired from writing years ago, but reappeared in 2005 with a short, non-fiction rant, "A Man Without a Country." From page 87:
"In case you haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazis once were.
"And with good reason.
"In case you haven't noticed, our unelected leaders have dehumanized millions and millions of human beings simply because of their religion and race. We wound 'em and torture 'em and imprison 'em all we want.
"Piece of cake.
"In case you haven't noticed, we also dehumanized our own soldiers, not because of their religon or race but because of their low social class.
"Send 'em anywhere. Make 'em do anything.
"Piece of cake.
"The O'Reilly Factor.
"So I am a man without a country, except for the librarians and a Chicago paper called In These Times.
"Before we attacked Iraq, the majestic New York Times guaranteed that there were weapons of mass destruction there."
Vonnegut was a person you didn't want to lie to. He'd call you on it every time.
No comments:
Post a Comment