here's something interesting/scarey that I came across this evening--
"What happened was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to be governed by surprise, to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security ...
To live in the process is absolutely not to notice it -- please try to believe me -- unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, regretted.
Believe me this is true. Each act, each occasion is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow.
Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven't done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we did nothing) ... You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair. "
German professor after World War II describing the rise of Nazism to a journalist
on a much less creepy note...at 11:00 tomorrow, jerad will be presenting part of his thesis at the new orleans tennessee williams literary conference. i just talked to him & he was having a drink at our very favorite bar before trying to get as much sleep as his nerves will allow. of course there's nothing for him to worry about--he talks real purty. (if it looks like they aren't buying what he's selling, his plan b is to yell out, "tull rules! later, bitches!" & storm out.)
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