Mark McTague
https://sites.google.com/site/markmctague/
Mark McTague
is currently reading
Reading for the 2nd time
read in February 2023
Mark McTague said:
"
For fans of Rumpole, especially as embodied by the late fine actor Leo McKern, for those who also loved the video series, little needs be said. All the delights are here - the barrister's endless duels with the forces of repression and sanctimony - p
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“The four cornerstones of the American political psyche are 1) emotion substituted for thought, 2) fear, 3) ignorance and 4) propaganda”
― Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War
― Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War
“In our modern world, this elemental quality of storytelling is denied. We live today in a world in which everything has its place and function and nothing is left out of place. Storytelling is thus at a discount and like everything else in a world ruled by the laws of exchange value, literature is required to submit itself to the requirements of the market and must learn, like any other commodity, to adapt and serve needs that lie outside of itself and its concrete value. It is forced to stand not for itself but for an ideological cause of one sort or another, whether it be political, social or literary. It cannot exist for itself: like everything else it has to be justified. And for this very reason the power of storytelling is automatically devalued. Literature is reduced to the status of complimentary utilitarian functions: as a pastime to provide distraction and entertainment, or as a heightened activity that would claim to explore 'great truths' about the human condition.”
― Dedalus Book of Surrealism 2: The Myth of the World
― Dedalus Book of Surrealism 2: The Myth of the World
“Republican or Democrat, this nation's affluent urban and suburban classes understand their bread is buttered on the corporate side. The primary difference between the two parties is that the Republicans pretty much admit that they grasp and even endorse some of the nastiest facts of life in America. Republicans honestly tell the world: "Listen in on my phone calls, piss-test me until I'm blind, kill and eat all of my neighbors right in front of my eyes, but show me the money! Let me escape with every cent I can kick out of the suckers, the taxpayers, and anybody else I can get a headlock on, legally or otherwise." Democrats, in contrast, seem content to catalog the GOP's outrages against the Republic, showing proper indignation while laughing at episodes of The Daily Show. But they stand behind the American brand: imperialism. They "support our troops," though you will be hard put to find any of them who have served alongside them or who would send one of their own kids off to lose an eye or an arm in Iraq. They play the imperial game, maintain their credit ratings, and plan to keep the beach house and the retirement investments if it means sacrificing every damned Lynndie England in West Virginia.”
― Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War
― Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War
“What white middle America loathes these days are poor and poorish people, especially the kind who look and sound like they just might live in a house trailer. They will swear on a stack of Lands' End catalogs that they are not bigots, but, human nature being what it is, we are all kicking someone else's dog around, whether we admit it or not.”
― Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War
― Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War
“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”
― Meditations
― Meditations
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