by Mark Twain
"... I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities.
"It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy handful is right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the crowd follows it. The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilised, are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don�t dare to assert themselves.
"Think of it! One kind-hearted creature spies upon another, and sees to it that he loyally helps in iniquities which revolt both of them. Speaking as an expert, I know that ninety-nine out of a hundred of your race were strongly against the killing of witches when that foolishness was first agitated by a handful of pious lunatics in the long ago. And I know that even to-day, after ages of transmitted prejudice and silly teaching, only one person in twenty puts any real heart into the harrying of a witch.
"And yet apparently everybody hates witches and wants them killed. Some day a handful will rise up on the other side and make the most noise�perhaps even a single daring man with a big voice and a determined front will do it - and in a week all the sheep will wheel and follow him, and witch-hunting will come to asudden end.
"Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large defect in your race - the individual�s distrust of his neighbour, and his desire, for safety�s or comfort�s sake, to stand well in his neighbour�s eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish, and always oppress you, affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where the majority of the people were in their secret hearts loyal to any of these institutions."
I did not like to hear our race called sheep, and said I did not think they were.
"Still, it is true, lamb," said Satan. "Look at you in war - what mutton you are, and how ridiculous!"
"In war? How?"
"There has never been a just one, never an honourable one�on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful - as usual - will shout for the war.
"The pulpit will -- warily and cautiously�object�at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, �It is unjust and dishonourable, and there is no necessity for it�.
"Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will out-shout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.
"Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers�as earlier -- but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation�pulpit and all�will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open.
"Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."
Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger, 1916.
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Harry Pollard
Sent: Saturday, 12 January 2002 09:40
To: Ray Evans Harrell; Bruce Leier; Christoph Reuss; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Fwd: WTO/GATS - a Coup against Democracy
"Today we have George . . . . . . . . . . "
Ray,
Were that it were so!
Where on earth did you get that idea?
George was a Land Reformer and Free Trader, thus pitting himself against the real seats of power in every country: the large landlords who take their cut of production and give nothing in return; every corporation that buys politicians to legislate protection for them; every secondary beneficiary of corporative greed, such as the major unions, who support the import protections - even though they reduce the standard of living of the rest of us - that is lower the real wages of everyone else.
Take a look around and tell me who won - George, or the combined forces of privilege?
Yet, look at the political left - who we might expect to oppose the privileged. They spend their energies trying to redirect some of the stolen honey in the direction of the hungry poor. They are still trapped in variations of "take from the rich and give to the poor".
That is, those who haven't been diverted into various dubious aspects of planetary climate, and to anxiety about diminishing species, even though the earth is crawling with every kind of creature and not one of them needs humans to get all excited about them.
And of course - overpopulation - that wonderful problem that no-one can do anything about, which makes it perfect for childless yuppies, who can view with alarm, be seriously concerned, and heighten their sensitivities, as about 1.5 million new births each day arrive hopefully on this empty earth - unfortunately, mostly to be disappointed.
Harry
