The Decision To Feed The

Despair, When Not The Response To Absolute Physical And Moral Defeat Is, Like War, The Failure Of Imagination.

We Assume That Politicians Are Without Honor. We Read Their Statements Trying To Crack The Code. The Scandals Of Their Politics: Not So Much That Men In High Places Lie, Only That They Do So With Such Indifference, So Endlessly, Still Expecting To Be Believed. We Are Accustomed To The Contempt Inherent In The Political Lie.

In The Interstices Of Language Lie Powerful Secrets Of The Culture.

We Have Seen Over And Over That White Male Historians In General Have Tended To Dismiss Any History They Didn't Themselves Write,on The Grounds That It Is Unserious, Unscholarly, A Fad, Too "political," "merely" Oral And Thus Unreliable.

The Serious Revolutionary, Like The Serious Artist, Can't Afford To Lead A Sentimental Or Self-deceiving Life.