Intellectual Prostitute

John Swinton 

John Swinton (1829–1901) was a Scottish-American journalist, newspaper publisher, and orator. He served as the chief editorial writer of The New York Times. He started a famous  American  labor newspaper called John Swinton's Paper, in the 1880s. Swinton also served as chief editorialist of the New York Sun for more than a decade.

Reproduced below is his toast.



"There is no such a thing in America as an independent press, unless it is out in country towns. You are all slaves. You know it, and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to express an honest opinion. If you expressed it, you would know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid $150 for keeping honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for doing similar things." 

"If I should allow honest opinions to be printed in one issue of my paper, in twenty-four hours: my occupation would be gone. The man who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the street hunting for another job." 

"The business of a New York journalist is to distort the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread, or for what is about the same — his salary. You know this, and I know it; and what foolery to be toasting an 'Independent Press'!"

"We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping-jacks. They pull the string and we dance. Our time, our talents, our lives, our possibilities, are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

____________

Prostitute is derived from the Latin word prostituta
“ pro " =  up front or forward“
“ stituta “ = to offer up for sale

“ to up front for sale "

Where the mind is without fear

"None  are  more  hopelessly  enslaved  than  those,  who  falsely  believe  they  are  free"                                  

~ Johan  Wolfgang  Von  Goethe. 

"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

 Where knowledge is free;

 Where the world has not been broken  up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

 Where words come out from the depth of truth;

 Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

 Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

 Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action -

 Into that heaven of freedom, My Father, let my country awake"

  Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore

       (1861 - 1941)

                                                    ___________________________

Come one and all, my fellow countrymen and women, let us celebrate our freedom. 

Why do you not celebrate with us on this Republic anniversary day of ours?

Let us sing and dance like all happy and free people.

Oh I see! You do not feel too happy or so optimistic.  

Freedom, what freedom you ask? 
Maybe you are right.  

We have traded in imperialistic rulers to replace them with self serving dynastic and often criminal rulers.  We lived in bondage under the Kings, Princes, Nawabs, British, Portuguese and French, now they have gone we like to believe we are  free.  But are we free? I think not. 

The enslavement of the mind and spirit is greatly more reprehensible and sad than physical slavery.  The physical slave is aware of his or her plight and either accepts or fights it. 

The tragedy of the people whose minds and spirit are enslaved is that they are not aware that they have been enslaved. They take great pride in their slavery and even preach the same dogma of their former and current masters.

This tragedy the great Rabindranath Tagore ji foresaw and prayed to God that  " …into that heaven of freedom, My father let my country awake" 

A great future beckons us, all we have to do is believe in it.  India can once again become a beacon of hope, health, prosperity and happiness for the entire world.

________________________

"The Bard of Bengal",  Rabindranath Tagore ji (1861 – 1941)  reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art.

Author of 'Gitanjali'  he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore's poetry was viewed as spiritual and mercurial; his "elegant prose and magical poetry" had a profound impact not only on Bengalis but on the world.

His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar Shonar Bangla. The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.