JanMichael
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Tue Sep-02-03 10:07 AM
Original message |
Amazing how things remain the same...From "Main Street". |
|
Edited on Tue Sep-02-03 10:16 AM by JanMichael
Taken from the Sinclair Lewis novel is this timeless exchange between the lead character Carol and her good Liberal friend Guy written in 1920:
Guy:
"See here, my dear, I certainly hope you don't class yourself with a lot of trouble-making labor-leaders! Democracy is all right theoretically, and I'll admit there are industrial injustices, but I'd rather have them than see the world reduced to a dead level of mediocrity. I refuse to believe that you have anything in common with a lot of laboring men rowing for bigger wages so that they can buy wretched flivvers and hideous player-pianos and----"
The author, or Carol's internal voice, waxing poetic:
"At this second, in Buenos Ayres, a newspaper editor broke his routine of being bored by exchanges to assert, "Any injustice is better than seeing the world reduced to a gray level of scientific dullness." At this second a clerk standing at the bar of a New York saloon stopped milling his secret fear of his nagging office-manager long enough to growl at the chauffeur beside him, "Aw, you socialists make me sick! I'm an individualist. I ain't going to be nagged by no bureaus and take orders off labor-leaders. And mean to say a hobo's as good as you and me?""
Fascinating. Sounds like the same stuff you hear today.
At this second the same damned things are probably still being uttered.
|
GainesT1958
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Tue Sep-02-03 10:13 AM
Response to Original message |
|
Edited on Tue Sep-02-03 10:15 AM by GainesT1958
For a party that says it so badly wants to disprove Darwin, the Repubs suuure do espouse that "Social Darwinism" thing! :eyes:
And, ironically, Lewis wrote this in 1920, the year America passed up on James Cox, who reflected Woodrow Wilson's dreams, to put in office...Warren Harding, the SECOND dumbest president after Dub!
B-)
|
JanMichael
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Tue Sep-02-03 10:18 AM
Response to Reply #1 |
2. For clarification the quote was "Guy" a Dem. |
|
You're right about the IRONY in this book, it's absolutely phenominal.
It reads like it was written just a couple of years ago minus the mindnumbing TV.
|
JanMichael
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Tue Sep-02-03 12:34 PM
Response to Original message |
DU
AdBot (1000+ posts) |
Tue Apr 23rd 2024, 03:07 AM
Response to Original message |