Vonnegut Over The Edge

I'm a little late on this post, but by gosh, I once liked Kurt Vonnegut so much I named my dog after the chronosynclastic infidibulum in his book, The Sirens of Titan. Chrono for short. That was then. This is now:

"I regard [terrorists] as very brave people, yes."

"It is sweet and noble - sweet and honourable I guess it is - to die for what you believe in."

"What George Bush and his gang did not realise was that people fight back. Peace wasn't restored in Vietnam until we got kicked out. Everything's quiet there now."

"Well, [the terrorists are] dying for their own self-respect. It's a terrible thing to deprive someone of their self-respect. It's [like] your culture is nothing, your race is nothing, you're nothing."

"It must be an amazing high [to blow yourself up]."

It's all so easy to refute ... how Vietnam got peaceful after we left at a cost of so many lives, how the wealthy metroboys who flew the 757s into the World Trade Center hardly had lost their self respect, how there's nothing honorable about blowing up wedding parties or school buses.

Yes, it's easy to say Vonnegut is just an old Ward Churchill, or that he's become delusional in his old age, or that his experience as a POW in the basement of a Dresden slaughterhouse during the allied fire-bombing of that city justifies his attitude.

But that -- especially the last point -- all misses the point.

Vonnegut fought in a war in the 1940s to defend the future of his country, which was threatened by an evil that was poised to destroy all we held dear. Today, he hates us for going to war to defend the future of our country, which is threatened by an evil that is poised to destroy all we hold dear.

Now he honors the evil that would merrily slice off his head with an Allah Akbar! if given the chance. He's gone from one of America's most creative voices to one of its most shrill, and for this old fan, that generates more sadness than anger.