Claim: Author Kurt Vonnegut penned a opinion piece entitled 'Cold Turkey.'
Status: True.
Example: [Vonnegut, 2004]
Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace. But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America’s becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas. [Rest of article here.] |
Origins: Author
school).
The above-quoted essay — opining, among other things, that America cannot become "humane and reasonable," particularly in its dealings with the Middle East, because power inevitably turns human beings (including American leaders) into corrupt "power-drunk chimpanzees" — is a genuine Vonnegut work, however: an excerpt from an opinion piece titled '
Mr. Vonnegut has penned several opinion pieces (such as his February 2004 State of the Asylum essay) for In These Times over the last few years, and he describes his January 2003 interview piece ("Kurt Vonnegut vs.
Last updated: 14 October 2007
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