TK:... I have great admiration for the essayists and writers on the left, but the left decided at some point that government couldn't get it what it wanted. As a result, it's a movement of endless complaint and of a one-sided reading of American history, which misses the important point: Constitutional democracy has created astonishing and apparently irreversible social progress. All we're interested in is talking about when government doesn't work.
MJ: When was the last time that a belief in the system paid off?
TK: It was the day they got that fucking Ten Commandments monument out of Alabama. ...
I've always felt that it was the right who had convinced Americans that government was evil, and that rather than making it do what you want it to do, everything should be privatized and that the pressures of the market will fix everything that's wrong with schools, with social services, what have you.
So I shudder to think that Tony Kushner might be correct, and that the left has likewise turned its back on government. But, sadly, I think he's right.
Am I some kind of fool to think that the government isn't an evil entity, that we should put our efforts into making it work better rather than just giving up on it? I guess Tony Kushner wouldn't think so.
The Swedish word for the day is gärna. It's not directly translateable, but my Swedish-English dictionary defines it as with pleasure.
- by Francis S.
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