democracy most
fragile thing on earth, it rests
upon you and me
Democracy is the most fragile thing on earth, for what does it rest upon?
You and me, and the fact that we agree to maintain it.
The moment either of us says we will not, that’s the end of it.
It doesn’t rest on anything but us; it doesn’t rest on armed force, the moment it does it isn’t democracy.
It isn’t something to kick around or experiment with.
From the preface page to the 2017 Edition of the book, Advise and Consent by Allan Drury (WordFire Press: Colorado Springs, Colorado , 2017).
Advise and Consent is one of those books AND film adaptations that I can read or watch again and again.
Watching the movie today I have to laugh the Minority Whip of the Senate arrives a the Capitol Building in a cab, walks to a news stand and buys and paper and only then learns what the President did overnight.
In today’s instant news coverage, I marvel that anything got done back in 1959.
I mean the poor guy woke up, got dressed, had breakfast and got to work before he had any news on which to plan his day.
According to Wikipedia, “Advise and Consent is a 1959 political fiction novel by Allen Drury that explores the United States Senate confirmation of controversial Secretary of State nominee Robert Leffingwell, whose promotion is endangered due to growing evidence that the nominee had been a member of the Communist Party. The chief characters’ responses to the evidence, and their efforts to spread or suppress it, form the basis of the novel.”
A Mr. Tom Kemme, in his book, Political fiction, the spirit of the age, and Allen Drury (Bowling Green State University Popular Press: Bowling Green, Ohio. 1987), writes that, “The basic assumption underlying Drury fiction is that totalitarian Communism is intrinsically evil and that Communism’s ultimate goal is world domination, an end or goal that Communists will strive to achieve by whatever moral, immoral, or amoral means are expedient, including propaganda, lies, subversion, intimidation, infiltration, betrayal, and violence.”
Had anyone been able to tell Mr. Drury that such a threat would be coming, not from Communists buy from within the Government, he would have dismissed the plot as impossible to believe.
But if we make one slight change, that phrase can be read …
The current administration is intrinsically evil and that the current administration‘s ultimate goal is world domination, an end or goal that the current administration will strive to achieve by whatever moral, immoral, or amoral means are expedient, including propaganda, lies, subversion, intimidation, infiltration, betrayal, and violence.
Just that last bit is worth repeating.
The current administration will strive to achieve [its goals] by whatever moral, immoral, or amoral means are expedient, including propaganda,
lies,
subversion,
intimidation,
infiltration,
betrayal,
and violence.
It’s worth repeating Mr. Drury’s warning.
Democracy is the most fragile thing on earth, for what does it rest upon? You and me, and the fact that we agree to maintain it. The moment either of us says we will not, that’s the end of it. It doesn’t rest on anything but us; it doesn’t rest on armed force, the moment it does it isn’t democracy. It isn’t something to kick around or experiment with.
It isn’t something to kick around or experiment with.
No Haiku For You 