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hatrack

(59,584 posts)
Fri Feb 21, 2014, 09:03 AM Feb 2014

Three Quotes From John Brunner

" . . .and Dr. Isaiah Williams, whose body was recovered from a ravine near San Pablo. Inquiries are being hampered by what an Army spokesman termed the obstinate attitude of the local people. “They won’t admit they know their left hands from their right,” he asserted. Here at home Senator Richard Howell (Rep., Col.) today launched a fierce attack on the quote chlorophyll addicts unquote who, he claims, are hamstringing American business, already staggering under the load of high unemployment and recession, by insisting that our manufacturers comply with regulations ignored by foreign competition. In Southern Italy rioting continues in many small towns formerly dependent on fishing. Meantime, dust storms in the Camargue . . ."

"When the politicians claim that the public isn’t interested any longer in environmental conservation, they’re half right. People are actually afraid to be interested, because they suspect—I think rightly—that we’ll find if we dig deep enough that we’ve gone so far beyond the limits of what the planet will tolerate that only a major catastrophe which cuts back both our population and our ability to interfere with the natural biocycle would offer a chance of survival."

"What hurt him most of all, made him feel like a sick child aware of terrible wrongness and yet incapable of explaining it to anyone who might help, was that in spite of the evidence around them, in spite of what their eyes and ears reported—and sometimes their flesh, from bruises, stab wounds, racking coughs, weeping sores—these people believed their way of life was the best in the world, and were prepared to export it at the point of a gun."

From The Sheep Look Up - 1972

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Three Quotes From John Brunner (Original Post) hatrack Feb 2014 OP
A great book - these are remarkable insights. GliderGuider Feb 2014 #1
Have You Seen Any Of These Insects? hatrack Feb 2014 #4
Another one-- eridani Feb 2014 #2
A remarkable and prescient book. I read it 30 years ago and saw the Nay Feb 2014 #3
 

GliderGuider

(21,088 posts)
1. A great book - these are remarkable insights.
Fri Feb 21, 2014, 09:47 AM
Feb 2014

Some people knew what was up 40 years ago. I think this one goes on my re-read list.

eridani

(51,907 posts)
2. Another one--
Fri Feb 21, 2014, 09:53 AM
Feb 2014

"Coincidence: you weren't paying attention to the other half of what was going on."

His work is startlingly prescient.

Nay

(12,051 posts)
3. A remarkable and prescient book. I read it 30 years ago and saw the
Fri Feb 21, 2014, 10:23 AM
Feb 2014

truth of it even back then. It's sad that it has basically come true.

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