Fun_People Archive
9 Mar
QOTD - Vonnegut/Debs, 3/9/99

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Tue,  9 Mar 99 10:52:11 -0800
To: Fun_People
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Subject: QOTD - Vonnegut/Debs, 3/9/99

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Forwarded-by: Nev Dull <nev@bostic.com>
Forwarded-by: Geoff Lawler
Forwarded-by: qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca (Quote of the day)

I still quote Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926), late of Terre Haute, Indiana,
five times the Socialists Party's candidate for President, in every speech:

  "While there is a lower class I am in it,
   while there is a criminal element I am of it;
   while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

In recent years, I've found it prudent to say before quoting Debs that he
is to be taken _seriously_.  Otherwise many in the audience will start to
laugh.  They are being nice, not mean, knowing I like to be funny.  But it
also a sign of the times that such a moving echo of the Sermon on the Mount
can be perceived as outdated, wholly discredited horsecrap.

Which it is not.
			- Kurt Vonnegut, from his novel "Timequake"

© 1999 Peter Langston