Dissident Veteran For Peace: Another PKD Post

Dissident Veteran For Peace

"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America." —Alexis de Tocquevile. Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter XV.

With a nod to the Most Rev. Dom Helder Camara: When I support Palestinians some call me an 'anti-Semite', when I try to explain why I stand in solidarity with Palestinians they call me a Nazi.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." —Major General Smedley Butler, USMC (ret.)

"... no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end." —character of O'Brien in 1984, part 3, ch. 3 by George Orwell.

"Every prophet has realized that nobody loves you for being the enemy of their illusions. Every prophet has realized that most of us want peace at any price as long as the peace is ours and somebody else pays the price. That is why the prophet Jeremiah said, ' "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace,' ..." —The Rev. William Sloane Coffin. "Not to Bring Peace, But a Sword."

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Another PKD Post

This will be a short post. Today, I finished reading The Early Work of Philip K. Dick, Volume Two. I'd like to draw attention to two stories in the collection. "The Last of the Masters" is hailed as Dick's best anarchist story. There's also a thread in the story that ties science and technology to oppression. "Tony and the Beetles" is a brilliant exploration through the characters of children of what it feels like to be colonized and how people from the colonizing class can easily misinterpret attitudes and circumstances.

Labels: art and literature, Philip K Dick