The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 4 of 11)

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! England is fast ceasing to be the "Land of Hope and Glory,*" lauded in the Elgar piece that is the high point of the Last Night of the Proms**; the lines "God who made thee mighty, make the mightier yet" are sooo politically incorrect, so jingoistic! And, eeek, it actually uses the G-word -- Gaia forefend! I wonder how much longer it will take before it is replaced by "Kumbayah."

*"Land of Hope and Glory" is probably better known in this country as the "Pomp and Circumstance" march played (and often butchered) at high school and college graduations.

p>** The "Proms" are the Promenade Concerts held every summer at the Royal Albert Hall. br> -- Gretchen L. Chellson br> Alexandria, Virginia /p> p> I suggest that the coming "Winston Smith" villages in the UK are a good thing. In order to be legitimately "eco-friendly" they will, of course, have to be self-sustaining, deriving no food, power, etc from the surrounding fossil-fueled capitalist society. Under these circumstances, their inevitable failure will serve as a perfect demonstration project for the lunacy of what the eco-warriors demand of the entire planet; just as the dismal failure of Biosphere (in Arizona) was a perfect display of human hubris, refuting the idea that we know enough to design an entire, self-sustaining, environment. br> -- K. Weissman br> Massachusetts /p> p> Larry Thornberry replies: br> The finely-reasoned suggestion from Mr. Weissman of Massachusetts (Go Sawks!) might make sense if we were dealing with sensible people, which socialists manifestly are not. When have the many abject failures of socialism (environmentalism being one of the branches thereof) made the first impression on the many co-religionists of the Left? That the late but hardly lamented Soviet Union collapsed in the 74th year of its first five-year plan goes unremarked on in leftie circles, as do the countless other less spectacular examples of the failure of socialism. Failure, no matter how gaudy, seems only to stoke the Left's paranoia and to excite them to greater efforts. They are hermetically sealed, and determined as badgers.

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