We cry out, mostly seriously and only semi drunkenly, "Who is the next Steve Jobs? Where will we find another of the notorious intellectual fire of Chris Hitchens? What of someone precious and rare like the humble revolutionary Vaclav Havel?" On it goes.
Hitchens, for one, was a wicked and sly hybrid, one part cruel contrarian jackass, one part brilliant social commentator, one part chain-smoking bourgeois atheist, one part insufferable Iraq war-supporting hawk, all parts rare in literary kind and intellectual breed.
Add to this the fact that the GOP as a whole and the Tea Party in particular have seen to it that science, intellectualism, books, sex, spirituality, independent thought, higher education and decent taste in footwear are all considered elitist boogymen to be eradicated from the dumbed down American mind like fleas from a mangy dog. Not exactly fertile ground for radicals and revolutionaries to take root.
It actually is. Just in the wrong direction. More like potatoes or turnips than brilliant flowers springing into the sunshine.
The lad manages to end on a hopeful note. Ah, youth...
2 comments:
You know, whenever I lose faith in tomorrow's generation, I run into, or hear about, a kid who's invented something, or starts a charity for the underprivileged, or does something to make the world a better place, I get hopeful again.
When you look at the polls now, how the American people are fed up with what's going on, and are actually fed up with the right people, I can agree with Morford's slingshot principle.
Things tend to go in cycles. maybe folks have had enough.
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