rolling over

[jonathankaplan]

Seems like I have been reading/thinking a great deal the last few months about social injustice. In accord with that, I recently read the book 'Oil!', by Upton Sinclair. It was a worthwhile read, and Sinclair uses words with more skill than most of his peers. Perhaps you were forced to read 'the Jungle' when you were in school, that is his most

Comments

[madwriter]

I posted an entry a few months ago about how conservatives are constantly quoting Winston Churchill with words that Churchill never said: The one that goes something like "If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart; if you're not a conservative at forty you have no head".

Many of the most famous "quotes" that supposedly came from the Founding Fathers about Christianity were never spoken either. They're bad paraphrases of things they originally said--many of which were taken out of context--and passed off as their authentic words by Christian historians starting in the 1980's.

[222b]

He's not obscure, but clearly Martin Luther King's messages have been grossly distorted since his death. He was becoming increasingly radical toward the end, and if he were still alive many of the people who claim to revere him -- particularly conservative politicians -- would instead shun him. But since he can no longer speak for himself people are free to run amok misrepresenting his politics. Pretty fucked up.

And of course the founders of the U.S., as madwriter stated.

[jonathankaplan]

I don't take him as an authority, just as a local perspective. And if he was a Progressive (with more fascist leanings) than pure Socialist, if he was red and not pink, okay, whatever. It was really easy to be more red (of any form) back then, there was more reason to see its possibilities and more naivety about its cost. But, whatever.

My beef with the situation was with whoever put the movie's casting box DIRECTLY on the cover of the book, etcetera; whoever was in charge of deciding to cross-market these two media did Upton Sinclair shame. I want to know who that was.

As an aside, I might be wrong, but I do think it is possible for good people to also have bad components and for bad people to have good components. Coupling Sinclair with Fascism (regardless of accuracy) does not dilute his good and correct message that the political economy of the time was dramatically corrupt, usually to the detriment of the common worker. And he was one of the few people dramatizing that, to his honor and credit.

[zincii]

Phil K Dick - Minority Report
Isaac Asimov - I, Robot

Both utterly butchered in basic message by Hollywood.

[zincii]

I disagree.

Denise Richards full frontal redeems that film in its entirety.

[darse]

The Pete Rose ban for life and exclusion from the Baseball Hall of Fame was totally bogus (he gambooled, but he only bet *for* the Reds); but when the commissioner of baseball (Bart Giamatti) kicked it, it became much less likely that that horrible decision would ever be revoked.

Okay, that's not exactly a match, but it does fall into the "distortion due to death" category. :-p

Einstein is frequently quoted out of context to justify ideas that he would *never* have supported.