How Much is In the General Fund of Optimism?

I used this quote at the beginning of the month...but it fits nicely with the credit sequence on offer in The Other Guys.

When the ordinary American hears of cases of injustice he begins to pooh-pooh and minimize and tone down the thing, and breed excuses from his general fund of optimism and respect for expediency. "It's understandable from the point of view of the parties interested"--but understandable in onlooking citizens only as a symptom of the moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That--with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success--is our national disease.

Wm James, "Letter to H.G. Wells, 1906" (quoted in AMERIFIL.TXT by Douglas Crase)

Punishing Success

A little something to go with the James quote yesterday about our national disease--a description of a symptom:




Tom Tomorrow

The Squalid Cash Interpretation

When the ordinary American hears of cases of injustice he begins to pooh-pooh and minimize and tone down the thing, and breed excuses from his general fund of optimism and respect for expediency. "It's understandable from the point of view of the parties interested"--but understandable in onlooking citizens only as a symptom of the moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That--with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success--is our national disease.

Wm James, "Letter to H.G. Wells, 1906" (quoted in AMERIFIL.TXT by Douglas Crase)