Or should we simply abort the progeny of the rich?
Or perhaps we should reduce hypocrisy (and increase virtue) by aborting everyone in Bennett's family?
I've long despised Bennett. It was clear to me from the beginning that his Virtuous Books constituted nothing more a PR campaign, designed to mask the corrupting stink of the first Bush administration. After Irangate, the arming of Iraq, the contra-drug connection and -- worst of all -- the S&L scandal, the conservatives had to do something. (There were many other scandals during the Reagan-Bush years, of course; I have merely listed a few of the better-recalled ones.)
Thus, Con-intern tasked Bennett to take the lead in repainting the party of sleaze as the party of virtue. And the trick worked. Never mind the fact that Bennett -- like Pat Robertson and other conservatives -- signed his name to literary work largely done by others.
For now, I recommend to you the reaction of Greg Moses:
In Bennett's concept of the American crime rate, of course, genocide never counts. Neither does theft of labor. With these two great and obvious categories of crime dismissed, the souls of white folk may then be quite easily imagined to have worked their way to Democracy in America by means of honest trade, fair elections, and saintly patience, never bothering no one, and only occasionally dismayed by inappropriate displays of ingratitude.
The logic of the club is how W. E. B. Du Bois once punned it. And everywhere one looks, that logic holds like double epoxy. Of course, the USA Senate is the ultimate club in both senses of the term, with its predictable traditions of genocide, labor theft, war, and today's nominee as Supreme Court Chief Justice who need not even bother to produce his work product as understudy to a civil rights bashing attorney general.
2 comments:
Bennett's BOOK OF VIRTUES is an useful anthology of traditional stories, poems, fables, and so forth--otherwise hard to get in one collection. But you've got to ignore the editorial commentary, and watch out for expurgation. For instance, those of us who grew up hoosier learned our "Little Orphant Annie" straight from the poet. Bennett omits all the charm in his version of "Little Orphan [no t] Annie" and leads with this note, which moves quickly from the illiterate (because the poem is so playful and campfire spooky--obviously Bennett's assistant didn't get it) to the criminal (though also illiterate):
Illiterate: "Little Orphan Annie . . . In which we learn what may happen to little girls and boys who don't do what they are supposed to do."
Criminal: "With apologies to James Whitcomb Riley, I've taken the liberty of ammending the poem's original spelling and grammar to make it easier on the modern ear."
Reader's may find the delightful original here:
http://www.poetry-archive.com/r/little_orphant_annie.html
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