Posted on 11/20/2005 4:00:26 AM PST by bornacatholic
ONE of the greatest living US writers has praised terrorists as "very brave people" and used drug culture slang to describe the "amazing high" suicide bombers must feel before blowing themselves up.
Kurt Vonnegut, author of the 1969 anti-war classic Slaughterhouse Five, made the provocative remarks during an interview in New York for his new book, Man Without a Country, a collection of writings critical of US President George W. Bush.
Vonnegut, 83, has been a strong opponent of Mr Bush and the US-led war in Iraq, but until now has stopped short of defending terrorism.
But in discussing his views with The Weekend Australian, Vonnegut said it was "sweet and honourable" to die for what you believe in, and rejected the idea that terrorists were motivated by twisted religious beliefs.
"They are dying for their own self-respect," he said. "It's a terrible thing to deprive someone of their self-respect. It's like your culture is nothing, your race is nothing, you're nothing."
Asked if he thought of terrorists as soldiers, Vonnegut, a decorated World War II veteran, said: "I regard them as very brave people, yes."
He equated the actions of suicide bombers with US president Harry Truman's 1945 decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
On the Iraq war, he said: "What George Bush and his gang did not realise was that people fight back."
Vonnegut suggested suicide bombers must feel an "amazing high". He said: "You would know death is going to be painless, so the anticipation - it must be an amazing high."
Vonnegut's comments are sharply at odds with his reputation as a peace activist and his distinguished war service. He served in the US 106th Division and was captured by German forces at the Battle of the Bulge.
Taken to Dresden and held with other POWs in a disused abattoir, Vonnegut witnessed the appalling events of February 13-14, 1945, when 800 RAF Lancaster bombers firebombed the city, killing an estimated 100,000 civilians.
The experience inspired his book Slaughterhouse Five - the title of the novel coming from the barracks he was assigned in the POW camp. The book became an international bestseller and made Vonnegut a luminary of the US literary left.
But since Mr Bush was elected, Vonnegut's criticisms of US policy have become more and more impassioned.
In 2002, he was widely criticised for saying there was too much talk about the 9/11 attacks and not enough about "the crooks on Wall Street and in big corporations", whose conduct had been more destructive.
The following year he wrote that the US was hated around the world "because our corporations have been the principal deliverers and imposers of new technologies and economic schemes that have wrecked the self-respect, the cultures of men, women and children in so many other societies".
But Vonnegut's latest comments are likely to make many people wonder if old age has finally caught up with a grand old man of American letters.
I think old Kurt has gone-round-the-bend (too much dope?) and will not be happy until he too can become a martyr.
That is prolly why he chose the Man without a country title. Google Man without a country and read about Mr. Nolan
"The following year he wrote that the US was hated around the world "because our corporations have been the principal deliverers and imposers of new technologies and economic schemes that have wrecked the self-respect, the cultures of men, women and children in so many other societies"."
New technologies like polio vaccines or cell phone technology or pest resistant agriculture or aids medicine or automobiles? I see his point...
Or the Internet? I casually ignore anything coming from him.
Stop 100 people in the street and ask them if they ever heard of Vonnegut......and then we'll see how great!!
You know...i've read 3 or 4 of Vonnegut's books
over the years...and while inteesting and readable...
I never really thought that he deserved the hype
that he got from the left. I allways thought he
had a quirky way of looking at things...but then,
i don't look for 'the Meaning of Life, and everything'
in re-runs of 'The Twilight Zone' either.
Who is Vonnegut will best be remembered as an answer to a $200 trivia question on Jeapordy. Answer: This author is only known for writing Slaughterhouse 5 because your hippy teachers made you read it in eighth grade.
Some people just have a tendency to say whatever comes to mind. Unfortunately, when you weren't too smart to begin with, and drugs and old age have taken their toll, what crosses your mind is often pretty damn dumb. Besides, what does being a novelist have to do with being smart?
LOL....only if you're of a certain age! Now the teachers make the kids read Toni Morrison. AAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH.......better to read Vonnegut!
Sad to see Vonnegut's mental disintegration. Once upon a time, when I was younger and less discriminating, he was one of my favorite authors. But "Slapstick" was where he started to lose me, and it was all downhill from there. The early stuff like "Cat's Cradle" is still worthwhile, but he now reminds me of James Thurber's description of his old English teacher, Miss Groby: that he couldn't imagine her dying, but rather ending up in a drawer somewhere, with all the protractors and rulers and other implements whose edges had gradually lost their dependability.
Who?
Good tag line.
His vision of a society in which ability or talent were seen as unfair advantages, and the talented accordingly handicapped, was prescient.
But it looks like he's around the bend now.
I think you're on to something.
"New technologies like polio vaccines or cell phone technology or pest resistant agriculture or aids medicine or automobiles? I see his point..."
And don't forget that the Evil Coporations' phalanx of Jack-Booted Thugs are there forcing those poor people and govts to buy that dreadful technology.
I see your point...lol I am sure the people of Burkina Fasso would much rather wait until their government lays cable and phone lines to communicate with eachother rather than use our evil satellite technology.
He has outlived his usefulness(if he ever had any), take old Kurt out and drop him off in the middle of the wilderness.
Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time. He keeps having sixties flashbacks.
Why am I not surprised?
But he became one of the Annointed Ones after S-5 and that was that.
It is ironic that he should whine now about people protecting their cultures when he himself had taken a whack at debasing the very culture that gave him his life and opportunity.
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