Having the Flu and with Nothing Else to Do
Having the Flu and with Nothing Else to Do - meaning Summary
Politics Turned Personal Anger
Bukowski mocks political hypocrisy and ideological stagnation. He cites John Dos Passos as an example of radicals mellowing into complacency, then generalizes that young conservatives rarely radicalize while young radicals who remain radical are treated as insane. The poem rejects both partisan pretenses and the critics who police ideological change, ending in a blunt, obscene dismissal of politics as a whole.
Read Complete AnalysesI read a book about John Dos Passos and according to the book once radical-communist John ended up in the Hollywood Hills living off investments and reading the Wall Street Journal this seems to happen all too often. What hardly ever happens is a man going from being a young conservative to becoming an old wild-ass radical however: Young conservatives always seem to become old conservatives. It's a kind of lifelong mental vapor-lock. But when a young radical ends up an old radical the critics and the conservatives treat him as if he escaped from a mental institution. Such is our politics and you can have it all. Keep it. Sail it up your Ass.
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