[PEN-L:30458] Re:Re: Re: Forget Spencer-Bring on Ozymandias

[Hari Kumar <hari.kumar@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

PREVIOUS:
1)... what is exceptional about Americans is their mix of murderousness,
infantile self pity and devastating lack of self-insight. Mark
2) Exactly.  Just add America's new "hyperpower" status to that mix and
you have the most toxic combination for world calamity since WWII. Carl.

COMMENT:
I trust no one will accuse me of singing the praises of the beast. But
how "exceptional" is this in truth?
- "Anceint Greece had no interest whatever in compromise. It pursued
everything to the point of self-destruction"; J.Burchardt cited by
Christian Meier "Athens Portrait of the City in Its Golden Age"; New
York; 1998; p.507.
- "It must also be said that Athens had become its own worst enemy.
Grandly as it dealt with its problems, it had long since over-extended
itself"; Meier Ibid; p. 510;
-Perhaps the best example that shows that the USA is not "exceptional" -
take Good Old Eng-A-Land. In the National Portrait Gallery, in London is
a picture by Thomas Jones barker from c.1863: That is entitled "The
Secret of England's greatness  - Queen Victoria Presenting A Bible in
the Audience Chamber at Windsor". The benovelent white Queen bestows a
bible to the handsome cheetah cloaked be-feathered be-jewelled "exotic"
Black Warrior Chief who kneels at her feet and wondrously extends his
muscular arms towards the 'secret'.
But rather than reason - let Poetry bring some cheer perhaps - Intone
your Shelley:
"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast & trunkless legs of stone
Stands in the desert.....Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies........
On the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works ye Mighty, & despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that collosal wreck, boundless & bare
The lone & level sands stretch away".
Ozymandias circa 1800
The New Oxford Book of English Verse" Oxford 1972; p.580.
Take heart.
Hari