On a more “peaceful” note, the tit-for-tat political posturing between DC and Minsk has escalated: the US has closed its embassy in Minsk and has ordered Belarus to close its embassy and all consulates here. Everyone sing along: There’s no diplomacy like no diplomacy, like the no diplomacy I know.
I wonder how many questions on the standardized (yet altogether lacking standards) TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge & Skills) test this week will deal with such issues. How many will even concern the topic of May Day, a day that commemorates the benefits of labor? One glorious benefit from this less-than-glorious revolution in education: the golden opportunity to read such priceless statements like this from my college-level philosophy course essays: “This makes me wonder what will we enlighten our people on next?” It does make one wonder, no?
I (modestly, of course) propose enlightening “our people” on patriotism:
“What, then, is patriotism? ‘Patriotism, sir is the last resort of scoundrels,’ said Dr. Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our times, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment for the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities of life as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the average workingman.” [from Emma Goldman’s essay “Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty”]
On this note, I bid all working peoples of the world a blessed day of rest. “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” And God bless Saint Emma.
No comments:
Post a Comment