In the post-traumatic stress
disorder of living conscious-
ly in America, we continually
turn to each other and ask,
as if Vito Corleone in a gang-
land summit hosted by Barzini,
how did things get so far?
In one capacity, at least, I
trust we are all alike. We do
not favour the annihilation,
ever - or as the President of
the United States put it this
afternoon, prematurely - of a
human's innocence.
As must be apparent, I openly
and energetically differ with
St Paul, on the honourable con-
dition of thinking as a child.
I resist demands to put away,
childish things, if their sub-
stitution brings a consensus
of fabrication, delusion, and
ferocious self-interest. But
I proffer no boast in this im-
maturity, no rant of risible
puerility. I merely cite that
state of nature into which my
Lord deposited me by accident,
in longitudes of endless fal-
sification of His favour. To
think of the one picture here
today, without consciousness
of the other, is untenably
ridiculous. And who will now
give himself sleep, with this
pure reflection of our crime?
But I'm a superstitious man, and if some unlucky accident should befall him, .. or if he's struck by a bolt of lightning, then I'm going to blame some of the people in this room. And that, I do not forgive.
Francis Ford Coppola, director
Mario Puzo and
Francis Ford Coppola, script
The Godfather
Paramount, 1972©
Mario Puzo and
Francis Ford Coppola, script
The Godfather
Paramount, 1972©
Michelle McLoughlin, Reuters©
Senate of the United States
I felt chills when I read your last quotation. It is hard to post blame while you are reeling from grief, but it is foolish to let pain and suffering blind you from seeing the root of the problem and the obvious next steps that must be taken to prevent it from happening again in the future.
ReplyDeleteI believe in entropy more today than I ever have, but I also know in my heart that all seemingly isolated incidents are interconnected in even the most remote ways.
My heart goes out to all that are suffering today.
Thank you for your comment. A feigning of perplexity and an ideological, indeed all too often fundamental theological denial of causality, in the present occasion, is as insupportable as pretenses to acts of God in Corleone's famous speech. But one does reserve a special outrage for tolerating brutality which reaches children, and injures their development, not to mention shaping a demented perversion of masculine virtue.
ReplyDeleteOne would have to point to the most grotesque civil wars of our times to find societies as utterly incapacitated if not literally reluctant, as the United States, in protecting children from violence in their daily experience. This incapacity is political and religious, only its instruments are industrial. We must settle for controlling them.