Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Today's Quote

all right, here's my idiot take, a la dostoyevski

when massacres occur, the really horrible, villainous types who are guilty of mass crimes blame the victims:

--they should have surrendered, it's not my fault

--they would have used these weapons against me, so i am entitled to use them against them

--they would have threatened me by joining my enemies in the future

you can go on. the most open face of aggression, masquerading as defense in our times, is occurring now as thousands are dying. the evil thinking that dreams up excuses for it has no end.

now, that's really idiotic.

oh, i forgot the master idiocy: you did all this before, so you have no right to criticize me for doing it now.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2022 8:49 AM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Today's Quote

 

"Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow" (The Hollow Men

Chidi says that "The idiots far outnumber the non idiots. They (the idiots) are in the majority."

Where? Ukraine? Utah? NATO? North Korea?

Don't forget that between the idiots and the non-idiot there are the semi-idiots and a good number of educated, over-educated, under-educated idiots who by definition must belong to one of those two categories (idiots/ semi-idiots) - unless you want to add a third category – "Full idiot" – like "Full Professor", not half-professor or what in Victorian English is referred to as "half-idiot"

I intuit where you are heading, dear Chili, because I've heard it plenty of times from e.g. the kinds of Anglo-Sierra Leoneans and semi-Anglo Sierra Leonean Missionaries and allied Creole petty bourgeoisie (usually with estates and "farms"), the intelligentsia, the lumpen proletariat. the shoemakers  who say that the Colonial Brits did a huge disservice to the Creoles when they amalgamated the Creoles' Crown colony – I, e Freetown and the Western Area, with the Protectorate, that is, "the hinterland" and then extended franchise to all and sundry, so that from then on it became "one man, one vote";  as a result of which they (the Creoles, both Yoruba and igbo Creoles)  became "outnumbered".

 It was from then on and with a gradual increase in vehemence  and frustration that you heard them complaining so wistfully, or bittrely, that "The country has gone to the dogs"

 "They (the illiterates) will soon be electing your houseboy and your former gardener as their next Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, Minister of Foreign Affairs,,  Director-General of the Central Bank andChief Justiceof the Supreme Court !"

On Saturday, 19 March 2022 at 10:21:36 UTC+1 chidi...@gmail.com wrote:

The idiots far outnumber the non idiots. They (idiots)are the majority. The reason it is like that, I do not know.

-Chidi Anthony Opara (CAO)

--
Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Founder/Publisher of, www.publicinformationprojects.org)

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