ny lottery

Agora é oficial. O Prêmio Nobel resolveu agraciar uma escritora que ninguém ouviu falar – Herta Who the Fuck Is Mueller quando ainda estão por aí Philip Roth, Thomas Pynchon, Javier Marías, Claudio Magris, Mario Vargas Llosa, Tom Stoppard e Geoffrey Hill – e também o nosso admirado Obamis, também conhecido como a Nova Encarnação de Jesus Cristo (pelo menos, segundo próprio e, claro, Vladimir Soloviev). Mas como aqui na Dicta ficamos acima dessas platitudes, convido o leitor a recuperar o fôlego e ler este artigo de James Bowman, chamado The Death of Politics, que já em Abril mostrava uma análise correta de tal situação, em que qualquer presidente será visto não mais como um político e sim como uma celebridade:

The politics of celebrity is, first and foremost, moralistic. Though celebrities love to think of themselves as “controversial,” the point of their intervention in politics is always to abolish controversy. About that favorite celebrity cause, global warming, for instance, Al Gore and the other celebrities keep telling us there is no controversy. It is not a political but a moral issue. Those who oppose their position on what is to be done about “climate change” — assuming they have such a position and not just a posture — are not political opponents but wicked and immoral. And — what do you know? — they are often the same wicked and immoral people who lied in order to engage in an immoral war or pursued terrorists by immoral means. Or who brought about economic crisis by failing to make “hard choices.” Or, as the new President said in another part of his inaugural address, gave way to “petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

E se alguém ainda acha que o (Ig)Nobel foi correto em premiar o sujeito que finge sair do Iraque para continuar no Afeganistão, lembre-se que isso não é o mais importante, pois Philip Larkin, o poeta inglês mais rabugento do mundo, nos deixou uma futura lição:

Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home
For lack of money, and it is all right.
Places they guarded, or kept orderly,
Must guard themselves, and keep themselves orderly.
We want the money for ourselves at home
Instead of working. And this is all right.

It’s hard to say who wanted it to happen,
But now it’s been decided nobody minds.
The places are a long way off, not here,
Which is all right, and from what we hear
The soldiers there only made trouble happen.
Next year we shall be easier in our minds.

Next year we shall be living in a country
That brought its soldiers home for lack of money.
The statues will be standing in the same
Tree-muffled squares, and look nearly the same.
Our children will not know it’s a different country.
All we can hope to leave them now is money.