Teasers for "Slouching Towards Utopia?: An Economic History of the Long 20th Century"

Alexandra Petri: It is too bad I have been silenced: "It is with a heavy heart, and profound regret for the current state of media in America, that I have dragged my laptop to a Starbucks to pen this column. But I think it is important that we understand the degree of oppression we are up against...

...I regret to say: I have been silenced.

I expressed an opinion, and people criticized that opinion. And since that day, my voice has never been heard again. I am entombed where none can hear my jangling bells, for doing nothing more than walking down the street, saying that women who get abortions ought to be hanged.

The mob has borne me aloft (metaphorically, of course) with their torches and — in their infantile gulosity — devoured everything I worked to build. My voice is trapped in a seashell in the grip of a NARAL-affiliated sea-witch, and I swim haplessly through the world, bipedal but voiceless. No. Voiceless is not the word I want. Sponsorless. Except for my ability to type and publish this now, the world has excommunicated me and barred me from public spheres, where I cannot exist in safety. I am like a mime (I once saw a mime on the streets of Chicago; I think this image speaks for itself).

My life is (metaphorically!) over. These very words are invisible to you. Simply for having the temerity to breathe (this opinion in the pages of an august publication) I have had my liberty stripped from me and I am now confined, for life, to the pages of the Wall Street Journal, at best. This is injustice...


#shouldread

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