States of Exile

On this mountain the Lord of Hosts will prepare a rich banquet for all the peoples . . .and swallow up the veil that shrouds all the people, the pall thrown over all the nations; He will swallow up death forever. - Isaiah 25:6-7 Many a hand has scaled the grand, old face of the plateau. Some belong to strangers, some to folks you know. Holy ghosts and talk show hosts are planted in the sand. To beautify the foothills, to shake the many hands. There's nothing on the top but a bucket and a mop, and an illustrated book about birds. You see a lot up there, but don't be scared. Who needs action when you got words. When you're finished with the mop, then you can stop, an look at what you've done. The plateau's clean, no dirt to be seen. And the work it took was fun. There's nothing on the top but a bucket and a mop, and an illustrated book about birds. You see a lot up there, but don't be scared. Who needs action when you got words. Well the many hands began to sc...

Albert Jay Nock writes in his essay Isaiah's Job : One evening last autumn, I sat long hours with a European acquaintance while he expounded a political-economic doctrine which seemed sound as a nut and in which I could find no defect. At the end, he said with great earnestness: "I have a mission to the masses. I feel that I am called to get the ear of the people. I shall devote the rest of my life to spreading my doctrine far and wide among the population. What do you think?" . . . So I mustered courage to say that he had no such mission and would do well to get the idea out of his head at once; he would find that the masses would not care two pins for his doctrine, and still less for himself, since in such circumstances the popular favorite is generally some Barabbas. I even went so far as to say (he is a Jew) that his idea seemed to show that he was not very well up on his own native literature. He smiled at my jest, and asked what I meant by it; and I referred him to ...