Kick Ass article by Kurt Vonnegut

Post by **Arkady** » Thu May 13, 2004 5:00 pm

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0512-13.htm

That man ownz.

Lost Traveler · Post by **Lost Traveler** » Thu May 13, 2004 5:48 pm

Good article

.................I didnt realize he was still alive :shock:

Thrall · Post by **Thrall** » Thu May 13, 2004 10:25 pm

That man is a national treasure.

and i guess i am a doughnut.

Hardcoregirl · Post by **Hardcoregirl** » Thu May 13, 2004 10:41 pm

Hrm...very good. Very interesting.

I have never, *gasp* read any Vonnegut. Any suggestions on where to start?

pryjmaty · Post by **pryjmaty** » Fri May 14, 2004 1:05 am

All of Kurt Vonnegut's Books
Bluebeard, Breakfast of Champions, Cat's Cradle, Deadeye Dick, Galapagos, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Jailbird, Mother Night, Palm Sunday, Player Piano, Sirens of Titan, Slapstick, Slaughterhouse-Five, Wampeters, Foma & Granfallons, & Welcome to the Monkey House
Code and Content © Copyright 1998 MacKenzie

Post by **Arkady** » Fri May 14, 2004 2:21 pm

Add to that countless short stories. :dup:

doctorthoss · Post by **doctorthoss** » Sat May 15, 2004 1:42 am

Buttercup wrote:Hrm...very good. Very interesting.

I have never, *gasp* read any Vonnegut. Any suggestions on where to start?

I'd start with "Slaughterhouse Five," his most famous, and then move on to "Cat's Cradle," "Breakfast of Champions" and "Galapagos" (those are my favorites, at least).

Vachy · Post by **Vachy** » Sat May 15, 2004 9:10 pm

I've never read anything of his before, but that's very good. Congrats to him for having the balls to speak out against things so widely accepted. Articles like that make me hopeless and sad. *sigh* Because really, what can you do? Unless countless millions of people decide to protest , we're all doomed. :confused:

Thrall · Post by **Thrall** » Sun May 16, 2004 12:38 pm

[quote="Vachy"] Because really, what can you do? Unless countless millions of people decide to protest , we're all doomed. :confused:

[/quote

And Thus Begins my rant.

What indeed can we do? Nothing. Nothing but hope. That thing that holds on after faith, any real belief has long faded. That is what I do. I hope. Every time i walk into the election booth to vote. I vote only for independant or third party canditates when there are some to vote for. I choose 'no' for all judges and leave blank any ballots where no choice exists other than the two party coin toss of damned if you do damned if you don't.
Even in the face of so many people i love and respect chanting at me the old addage "you're throwing youre vote away". I used to argure with them. Try to get the point across. I am not wasting my vote you are. I am voicing my desires you are choosing the lesser ot two evils.
Then i came to understand that the addage is true not because people can not affect change but because they believe themselves powerless. If we all believe the earth to be flat it might as well be. because no one is going to bother finding out diffrently.

So go ahead and accept what you have been told. vote for the two party coin toss. and feel good about yourself because you helped to make sure the bad guy didn't get ellected. Shake your head and feel sorry for me for throwing my vote away. just don't try to convince me to do otherwise. I would rather sit on my soapbox and hold onto my hope.

strangefaith · Post by **strangefaith** » Sun May 16, 2004 6:59 pm

Yeah Thrall!!!

I also will not play the "Lesser of two evils." two step.

I am a doughnut also. Ten more and we will have a dozen.

Mmmmmm Doughnuts. :0Pdrool

doctorthoss · Post by **doctorthoss** » Sun May 16, 2004 11:39 pm

Thrall wrote:
Vachy wrote: Because really, what can you do? Unless countless millions of people decide to protest , we're all doomed. [/quote

And Thus Begins my rant.

What indeed can we do? Nothing. Nothing but hope. That thing that holds on after faith, any real belief has long faded. That is what I do. I hope. Every time i walk into the election booth to vote. I vote only for independant or third party canditates when there are some to vote for. I choose 'no' for all judges and leave blank any ballots where no choice exists other than the two party coin toss of damned if you do damned if you don't.
Even in the face of so many people i love and respect chanting at me the old addage "you're throwing youre vote away". I used to argure with them. Try to get the point across. I am not wasting my vote you are. I am voicing my desires you are choosing the lesser ot two evils.
Then i came to understand that the addage is true not because people can not affect change but because they believe themselves powerless. If we all believe the earth to be flat it might as well be. because no one is going to bother finding out diffrently.

So go ahead and accept what you have been told. vote for the two party coin toss. and feel good about yourself because you helped to make sure the bad guy didn't get ellected. Shake your head and feel sorry for me for throwing my vote away. just don't try to convince me to do otherwise. I would rather sit on my soapbox and hold onto my hope.

Well -- this is why the bad guys often win. We've got a guy in the White House who's invaded a foreign country under false pretenses, scrapped a decade's worth of environmental progress, eliminated as many social programs as possible (including Head Start) and who's running up a deficit our kids will have to pay.
Somwhow, I don't think Al Gore would have done any of that.
Not that Al Gore would have done everything I'd have like him to, but he wouldn't have done a lot I really object to. Folks like Jello Biafra (whom I respect in a lot of ways) who spend their time ranting about how the two parties are basically alike are quite wrong and uninformed, I'm afraid.
There has NEVER been a time in our history when people didn't feel like they were voting for the lesser of two evils, or else weren't polarized into extremes. That's normal -- we just act like the "corruption" is something new. What IS new is so many people figuring they should sit back and NOT vote, or only vote when they think they had a candidate they mostly agree with.
Democracy is built around compromise. It's built around participation. It is, in the words of Winston Churchill, "the worst form of government imaginable than all the others that have been tried."
I've got nothing against third parties, but they've never been effective in this country (except to trigger social movements later adopted by one of the two main parties). Maybe they should be -- I don't know.
But after the last election -- when the will of the majority was ignored -- bear in mind the whole fiasco could have been avoided had a chunk of the population not voted for Nader's party, it seems nothing less than an abrogation of our responsibilities as citizens to suggest that only going for a third party is the way to go.

jenna · Post by **jenna** » Mon May 17, 2004 4:39 pm

i guess i'm somewhere in between DoctorThoss and Thrall. i can see the pros and cons of both beliefs. i put my vote where i percieve it as having the most effect, regardless of wether or not it is with one of the 2 major parties or not. This coming election i will put it towards the Dems because everything else becomes a minor issue to me when it is compared the the importance of dethroning King George II. Last election, i voted Green, because i saw the possibiulity of the Greens getting 5% of the vote and therefore getting the same amount of funds as the 2 main parties, and bringing down the two party system as more important than any other issue.

Vachy · Post by **Vachy** » Tue May 18, 2004 4:00 pm

The sad thing is that the third party has hardly any chance at winning. All they can really do is prevent a mandate.

As for environmental issues- fuel consumption, waste disposal, etc- a lot of people are "concerned," but nowhere near enough people actually do a damn thing. And really, how hard is it to recycle? Compost? Take a bus? It's sad how much of a difference could be made if only people weren't so frickin lazy.

Has anyone seen that commercial about that Japanese company that's found a way to recycle just about everything? I'm not sure what channel it's usually on. It's amazing. We have research, why can't we put it toward useful things like that?

A few people who realize everything sucks can't do anything by themselves. So what do ya do? :shrug:

As I said, we're doomed...