Hollow Men.

[CoffeeAnnan]

In his book GANDHI: A MEMOIR, the great William Shirer makes a comparison between Gandhi and Hitler.He says that Hitler was a mesmerizing orator who moved Germans to a frenzy during each major speech.Even Hausfraus were caught up in the power of those orations and they would scream about Jews, gypsies, Slavs and others that need to be killed so Germany could get its revenge against those that meant them harm.One always felt that any one other than a German would be physically assaulted during these mass meetings.

By contrast, Gandhi too could stir hundreds of thousands of his countrymen but was always careful to tell them that their struggle is not against the British but against injustice.That individual Britons were our friends and no one should physically assault them or threaten them with violence. This is why Shirer says he and many British colleagues never felt that harm would come their way even at the height of India's Independence Movement.

Now, as we think about the hollow men that hold power in our own country, it would be worth recalling that none of these, Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld, can be thought of as people who have earned any right to lead us either by virtue of an examplary life led, courage shown or moral rectitude or even their accomplishments in Business which they have claimed as their strength.One could probably say, as Patrick Buchanan has done, that even Hitler has shown personal courage by laying his life on the line by fighting in the German Armed Forces during WWI.Contrast that with the courage or lack thereof of GW or Dick Cheney or Rumsfeld.

It is my belief that the resort to base tactics like smearing one's opponent comes from their realization that they are indeed hollow men who cannot appeal to people on their merits alone.They have to erect a
phantom threat and appeal to fear and prejudice.

Men like Ike, Gandhi, Churchill did not need such tactics.

[ewagner]

1. Thoughtful post

thanks for the point of view......

[BlueEyedSon]

2. Oh BTW, welcome to DU, CA

[CoffeeAnnan]

3. Thanks.Enjoy the company of so many thoughtful and kind people.

[DemBones DemBones]

4. Excellent post, the first of

yours I've read, but I hope to read many more like it. Love your user name too. Welcome to DU! :hi:

[CoffeeAnnan]

6. Thanks for your kind welcome. My name has a curious history in and of

itself.Every morning I would stop at a nearby Starbucks and the Barista there would joke about Kofi Annan with me and say what a cute name it was.I used to tell her I am going to change my name to Coffee Annan because of the amount of money I am spending drinking coffee.She thought that was a great idea.And so here I am.

[gpandas]

5. great post! welcome...

to the monkey house!

[Burma Jones]

7. Yep........and welcome

Speaking of Hollow Men, I have to post Eliot's Poem:

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

[CoffeeAnnan]

8. Thanks!.What a treat!