Whisper words of wisdom...

"What's wrong with this country? There is such a stupid 'get even' mentality - there is such a sadistic anger...
Is this country so huge that it needs to oversimplify everything? Look at the war: Either we have a strategy to 'win' it, which makes us - in the world's view - murderers; or else we are dying, without fighting to win. Look at what we call 'foreign policy': our 'foreign policy' is a euphemism for public relations, and our public relations get worse and worse. We're being defeated and we're not good losers.
And look at what we call 'religion': turn on any television on any Sunday morning! See the choirs of the poor and uneducated - and these terrible preachers, selling old Jesus-stories like junk food. Soon there'll be an evangelist in the White House; soon there'll be a cardinal on the Supreme Court. One day there will come an epidemic - I'll bet on some humdinger of a sexual disease. And what will our peerless leaders, our heads of church and state... what will they say to us? How will they help us? You can be sure they won't cure us - but how will they comfort us? Just turn on the tv - and here's what our peerless leaders, our heads of church and state will say: They'll say, 'I told you so!' They'll say, 'That's what you get for fucking around - I told you not to do it until you got married.' Doesn't anyone see what these simpletons are up to? These self-righteous fanatics are not 'religious' - their homey wisdom is not 'morality.'
That is where this country is headed - it is headed toward oversimplification. You want to see a president of the future? Turn on any television on any Sunday morning - find one of those holy rollers: that's him, that's the new Mister President! And do you want to see the future of all those kids who are going to fall in the cracks of this great, big, sloppy society of ours? I just met him; he's a tall, skinny, fifteen year old boy named 'Dick.' He's pretty scary. What's wrong with him is not unlike what's wrong with the TV evangelist - our future president. What's wrong with both of them is that they're so sure they're right! That's pretty scary - the future, I think, is pretty scary."
(bold emphasis mine)


-from A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, written in 1987 and set in the 1970s

Another excerpt to come later. In the meantime, continue to be fucking amazed that the horrid future of this country was so fucking predictable. Or is it just that Irving was an amazing psychic?