[Peace-discuss] RE: Peace Be With You, Kurt Vonnegut

Mon Apr 16 10:22:10 CDT 2007

If there were more Americans like Vonnegut, I wouldn't feel it so necessary to keep an ocean between me and my home country. 
Here is one of my favorite short articles of his, from The Nation magazine in early '84.

"The Worst Addiction of Them All"
Kurt Vonnegut, Jan 7th 1984
The Nation

What has been America's most nurturing contribution to the culture of this planet so far? Many would say jazz. I, who love jazz, will say this instead: Alcoholics Anonymous.
I am not an alcoholic. If I was, I would go before the nearest A.A. meeting and say, "My name is Kurt Vonnegut: I am an alcoholic." God willing, that might be my first step down the long, hard road back to sobriety.
The A.A. scheme, which requires a confession like that, is the first to have any measurable success in dealing with the tendency of some human beings, perhaps 10 per cent of any population sample anyone might care to choose, to become addicted to substances that give them brief spasms of pleasure but in the long term transmute their lives and the lives of those around them into ultimate ghastliness.
The A.A. scheme, which, again, can only work if the addicts regularly admit that this or that chemical is poisonous to them, is now proving its effectiveness with compulsive gamblers, who are not dependent on chemicals from a distillery or a pharmaceutical laboratory. This is no paradox. Gamblers, in effect, manufacture their own dangerous substances. God help them, they produce chemicals that elate them whenever they place a bet on simply anything.
If I was a compulaive gambler, which I am not, I would be well advised to stand up before the nearest meeting of Gamblers Anonymous and declare, "My name is Kurt Vonnegut. I am a compulsive gambler."
Whether I was standing before a meeting of Gamblers Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous, I would be encouraged to testify as to how the chemicals I had generated within myself or swallowed had alienated my friends and relatives, cost me jobs and houses and deprived me of my last shred of self-respect.
Not every member of A.A. or G.A. has sunk quite that low, of course - but plenty have. Many, if not most, have done what they call "hitting bottom" before admitting what it is that has been ruining their lives.
I now wish to call attention to another form of addiction which has not been previously identified. It is more like gambling than drinking, since the people afflicted are ravenous for situations that will cause their bodies to release exciting chemicals into their bloodstreams. I am persuaded that there are among us people who are tragically hooked on preparations for war.
Tell people with that disease that war is coming and we have to get ready for it, and for a few minutes there, they will be as happy as a drunk with his martini breakfast or a compulsive gambler with his paycheck bet on the Super Bowl.
Let us recognize how sick such people are. From now on, when a national leader, or even just a neighbor, starts talking about some new weapons system which is going to cost us a mere $29 billion, we should speak up. We should say something on the order of,"Honest to God, I couldn't be sorrier for you if I'd seen you wash down a fistful of black beauties with a pint of Southern Comfort."
I mean it. I am not joking. Compulsive preparers for World War III, in this country or in any other, are as tragically and, yes, as repulsively addicted as any stockbroker passed out with his head in a toilet of the Port Authority bus terminal.
For an alcoholic to experiencae a little joy, he needs maybe three ounces of grain alcohol. Alcoholics, when they are close to hitting bottom, customarily can't hold much alcohol. 
If we know a compulsive gambler who is dead broke, we can probably make him happy with a dollar to bet on who can spit farther than someone else.
For us to give a compulsive war-preparer a fleeting moment of happiness, we may have to buy him three Trident submarines and a hundred inter-continental ballistic missiles mounted on choo-choo trains. 
If Western Civilization were a person - 
If Western Civilization, which blankets the world now, as far as I can tell, were a person - 
If Western Civilization, which surely now includes the Soviet Union and China and India and Pakistan and on and on, were a person - 
If Western Civilization were a person, we would be directing it to the nearest meeting of War-Preparers Anyonymous. We would be telling it to stand up before the meeting and say, "My name is Western Civilization. I am a compulsive war-preparer. I have lost everything I ever cared about. I should have come here long ago. I first hit bottom in World War 1."
Western Civilization cannot be represented by a single person, of course, but a single explanation for the catastrophic course it has followed during this bloody century is possible. We the people, because of our ignorance of the disease, have again and again entrusted power to people we did not know were sickies.
And let us not mock them now, any more than we would mock someone with syphilis or smallpox or leprosy or yaws or typhoid fever or any of the other diseases to which the flesh is heir. All we have to do is separate them from the levers of power, I think.
And then what?
Western Civilization's long, hard trip back to sobriety might begin.
A word about appeasement, something World War II, supposedly, taught us not to practice: I say to you that the world has ruined by appeasement. Appeasement of whom? Of the Communists? Of the neo-Nazis? No! Appeasement of the compulsize war-preparers. I can scarcely name a nation that has not lost most of its freedom and wealth in attempts to appease its own addicts to preparations for war.
And there is no appeasing an addict for very long.
"I swear, man, just lay enough bread on me for twenty multiple re-entry vehicles and a fleet of B-1 bombers, and I'll never bother you again."
Most addictions start innocently enough in childhood, under agreeable, reputable auspices - a sip of champagne at a wedding, a game of poker for matchsticks on a rainy afternoon. Compulsive war-preparers may have been encouraged as infants to clap their hands with glee at a campfire or a Fourth of July parade.
Not every child gets hooked. Not every child so tempted grows up to be a drunk or a gambler or a babbler about knocking down the incoming missiles of the Evil Empire with laser beams. When I identify the war-preparers as addicts, I am not calling for the exclusion of children from all martial celebrations. I doubt that more than one child in a hundred, having seen fireworks, for example, will become an adult who wants to stop suandering our substance on education and health and social justice and the arts and food and shelter and clothing for the needy, and so on - who wants us to blow it all on ammunition instead. 
And please understand that the addiction I have identified is to PREPARATIONS FOR WAR. I repeat: to PREPARATIONS FOR WAR, addiction to the thrills of de-mothballing battleships and inventing weapons systems against which there cannot possibly be a defense, supposedly, and urging the citizenry to hate this part of humanity or that one, and knocking over little governments that might aid and abet an enemy someday, and so on. I am not talking about an addiction to war itself, which is a very different matter. A compulsive preparer for war wants to go to big-time war no more than an alcoholic stockbroker wants to pass out with his head in a toilet of the Port Authority bus terminal.
Should addicts of any sort hold high office in this or any other country? Absolutely not, for their first priority will always be to satisfy their addiction, no matter how terrible the consequences may be - even to themselves.
Suppose we had an alcoholic president who still had not hit bottom and whose chief companions were drunks like himself. And suppose it were a fact, made absolutely clear to him, that if he took just one more drink, the whole planet would blow up.
So he has all his liquor thrown out of the White House, including his Aqua Velva shaving lotion. So late at night he is terribly restless, crazy for a drink but proud of not drinking. So he opens the White House refrigerator, looking for a Tab or a Diet Pepsi, he tells himself. And there, half-hidden by a family size jar of French's mustard, is an unopened can of Coors beer.
What do you think he'll do?

----------------------------------------
From: n.dahlheim at mchsi.com
To: chason at shout.net
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Peace Be With You, Kurt Vonnegut,	by Harvey Wasserman
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 14:32:05 +0000
CC: Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net

Oh, the agony.  Losing both Vonnegut and Ivins in one year really stings.  

--Forwarded Message Attachment--From: chason at shout.net
To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Peace Be With You, Kurt Vonnegut, by Harvey Wasserman
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 12:03:46 +0000

Published on Friday,
 April 13, 2007 by CommonDreams.org

Peace Be With You, Kurt Vonnegut

by Harvey Wasserman

As the media fills with whimsical good-byes to one of America's greatest
writers, lets not forget one of the great engines driving this wonderful man-he
HATED war. Including this one in Iraq. And he had utter
contempt for the men who brought it about.Kurt Vonnegut was a divine spark of
liberating genius for an entire generation. His brilliant, beautiful, loving
and utterly unfettered novels helped us redefine ourselves in leaving the
corporate America in the 1950s and the Vietnam war
that followed.

Having seen the worst of World War II from a meatlocker in
fire-bombed Dresden, Kurt's Sirens of Titan, Cat's
Cradle, Slaughterhouse Five and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, cut us the
intellectual and spiritual slack to seek out a new reality. It took a
breathtaking psychic freedom to merge the interstellar worlds he created from
whole cloth with the social imperatives of a changing age. It was that
combination of talent, heart and liberation that gave Vonnegut a cutting edge
he never lost.

Leaving us in his eighties, Kurt also leaves us decades of
anecdotes and volumes of writings-and doodlings-about which to write. But lost
in the mainstream obituaries-including the one in the New York Times-is
the ferocity with which he opposed this latest claque of vicious war-mongers.

Vonnegut gave his last campus speech in Columbus. He and I
met here many years ago, after another speech. Not knowing me from Adam, he was
gracious enough to give me his home address.

Out of the blue, I sent him a book-length poem about the
passing of my parents. I was shocked when he called me on the phone about it. I
asked for his help in finding a publisher. He said to publish it on my own, and
gave me advice on how to do it, along with a blurb for the cover.

>From then on we talked by phone. His conversation was always
friendly, funny, insightful. When last I asked him how he was, he replied:
"Too fucking old!"

Last year, apparently on the spur of the moment, he agreed
to speak again at Ohio State. It would
be his last campus lecture.

When word spread, a line four thousand students long
instantly formed at a university otherwise known only for its addiction to
football.

Anyone expecting a safe, whimsical opener from this grand
old man of sixties rebellion was in for a shock. "Can I speak
frankly?" he asked Professor Manuel Luis Martinez, the poet and writing
teacher who would "interview" him. "The only difference between
George W. Bush and Adolph Hitler is that Hitler was actually elected."

Holding up a book about Ohio 2004, he said: "You all
know, of course, that the election was stolen. Right here."

Explaining that this would he his "last speech for
money," Vonnegut said he couldn't remember his first one. But it was
"long long ago.

"I'm lucky enough to have known a great president, one
who really cared about ALL the people, rich and poor. That was Franklin D.
Roosevelt. He was rich himself, and his class considered him a traitor.

"We have people in this country who are richer than
whole countries," he said. "They run everything.

"We have no Democratic Party. It's financed by the same
millionaires and billionaires as the Republicans.

"So we have no representatives in Washington. Working
people have no leverage whatsoever.

"I'm trying to write a novel about the end of the
world. But the world is really ending! It's becoming more and more
uninhabitable because of our addiction to oil.

"Bush used that line recently," Vonnegut added.
"I should sue him for plagiarism."

Things have gotten so bad, he said, "people are in
revolt against life itself."

Our economy has been making money, but "all the money
that should have gone into research and development has gone into executive
compensation. If people insist on living as if there's no tomorrow, there
really won't be one.

"As the world is ending, I'm always glad to be
entertained for a few moments. The best way to do that is with music. You
should practice once a night.

"If you want really want to hurt your parents, go into
the arts." He then broke into song, with a passable, tender rendition of
"Stardust Memories."

By this time, the packed hall was reverential. The sound
system, appropriately tenuous, forced us all to strain to hear every word.

"To hell with the advances in computers," he said
after he finished singing. "YOU are supposed to advance and become, not
the computers. Find out what's inside you. And don't kill anybody.

"There are no factories any more. Where are the jobs
supposed to come from? There's nothing for people to do anymore. We need to ask
the Seminoles: 'what the hell did you do?" after the tribe's traditional
livelihood was taken away.

Answering questions written in by students, he explained the
meaning of life. "We should be kind to each other. Be civil. And
appreciate the good moments by saying 'If this isn't nice, what is?'

"You're awful cute" he said to someone in the
front row. He grinned and looked around. "If this isn't nice, what is?

"You're all perfectly safe, by the way. I took off my
shoes at the airport. The terrorists hate the smell of feet.

"We are here on Earth to fart around," he
explained, and then embarked on a soliloquy about the joys of going to the
store to buy an envelope. One talks to the people there, comments on the
"silly-looking dog," finds all sorts of adventures along the way.

As for being a Midwesterner, he recalled his roots in nearby
Indianapolis, a heartland town, the next one
west of here. "I'm a fresh water person. When I swim in the ocean, I feel
like I'm swimming in chicken soup. Who wants to swim in flavored water?"

A key to great writing, he added, is to "never use
semi-colons. What are they good for? What are you supposed to do with them?
You're reading along, and then suddenly, there it is. What does it mean? All
semi-colons do is suggest you've been to college."

Make sure, he added, "that your reader is having a good
time. Get to the who, when, where, what right away, so the reader knows what is
going on."

As for making money, "war is a very profitable thing
for a few people. Jesus used to be so merciful and loving of the poor. But now
he's a Republican.

"Our economy today is not capitalism. It's casino-ism.
That's all the stock market is about. Gambling.

"Live one day at a time. Say 'if this isn't nice, I
don't know what is!'

"You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They
are people behaving decently in an indecent society."

The greatest peace, Vonnegut wraps up, "comes from the
knowledge that I have enough. Joe Heller told me that.

"I began writing because I found myself possessed. I
looked at what I wrote and I said 'How the hell did I do that?'

"We may all be possessed. I hope so."

We were joined for after-speech drinks by the professor and
several awe-struck graduate students. Kurt expressed an interest in renewable
energy, so I sent him another book, and he called back with another blurb, and
more advice on how to publish it.

We planned to have dinner. I wanted more than anything to
introduce my daughters to him. But when I finally made it to New York, he was too
ill. Now he's gone. When a national treasure and a being of beauty like Kurt
Vonnegut invites you to dinner, don't make plans, hop on the next plane.

The mainstream obituaries are emphasizing Kurt's
"off-beat" career and the "mixed reviews" for his books.
Don't believe a word of them.

Kurt Vonnegut was a force of nature, with a heart the size
of Titan, an unfettered genius who changed us all for the better. He was
possessed of a sense of fairness and morality capable of inventing religions
that could actually work.

Now he's having dinner with our beloved siren of social
justice, Molly Ivins, sharing a Manhattan, scorching
this goddam war and this latest batch of fucking idiots.

It hurts to think about it. But we should be grateful for
what we got, and all they gave us. So it goes.

Harvey
Wasserman read Cat's Cradle, Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse Five in
college, sought Boku-Maru, and has never been the same. He writes at
www.freepress.org and www.solartopia.org

Article printed from
www.CommonDreams.org

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/13/492/

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