Mark Twain, John Conyers, & DU - Democratic Underground

H2O Man

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Sat Jun-18-05 06:01 PM
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Mark Twain, John Conyers, & DU

"Some forty years ago G. K. Chesterton wrote that every time the world was in trouble the demand went up for a practical man. Unfortunately, he said, each time the demand went up there was a practical man available. As he pointed out then, usually what was needed to deal with an impractical muddle was a theorist or philosopher." -- Senator Eugene J. McCarthy; May 9, 1965

If a person were to watch Fox News this evening at 6 pm EST, and five hours later, that same person were to read DU:GD, they would reach the inescapable conclusion that they were being exposed to two very different worlds of thought.

From Fox News, they would be told that we have entered a troubled time, but that a practical man -- George W. Bush -- had a firm grip on the reins of control. Fox would assure that person that the safest bet to protect the Constitutional Rights outlined by our Founding Fathers was to sit back and do nothing more than trust this practical president as he crushed those rights, one by one, in order to make us safer. The most that Fox requires of citizens is to pay tribute to those who advertise on their station.

From DU:GD, that same person would read that the need of the day is not a practical George -- indeed, practically speaking, Bush represents the greatest threat to that Constitution. Rather, DU has found a voice in the wilderness, a combination of theorist and philosopher: Congressman John Conyers. And, unlike on Fox News, the reader would find encouragement to become active, as a partner in the struggle for democracy .... in fact, DU has a near constant supply of activities for grass roots activists to participate in.

"It is absolutely necessary that rebellion find its reasons within itself, since it cannot find them elsewhere. It must consent to examine itself in order to learn how to act." -- Albert Camus; "The Rebel"

One of the things that has struck many of us as singular is how a congressional leader, of character and integrity, has such trouble getting access to the media. The bigger the lies of the republican counterpart, the more often they are featured on a Fox News exclusive. A practical citizen might conclude that there are tariffs on the truth when it comes to the corporate media. Free press, indeed!

Yet this is not new. A century ago, when the United States had to compensate for the end of slavery by engaging in a series of imperialist adventures, author Mark Twain attempted to speak out against the injustices he saw. But the media, recognizing him as both a theorist and philosopher, knew it was impractical to allow him to have a public forum. Thus, he was denied coverage for his public utterances.

One group of grass roots activists, known as the Anti-Imperialist League, printed a series of pamphlets and small cards that carried some of Mark Twain's more insightful comments. In honor of John Conyers, I thought I'd share a few of these quotes with DUers. I think that it is likely that other DUers have other quotes, from other patriots, that might help us in our search for reason from within.

"Is this a case of magnanimity, forbearance, love, gentleness, mercy, protection of the weak -- this strange and over-showy onslaught of an elephant upon a nest of field mice, on the pretext that the mice had squeaked an insolence at him -- conduct which 'no self respecting government could allow to pass unavenged'?"
-- Mark Twain on the Boer War

"The royal palace of Belgium is still what it has been for fourteen years, the den of a wild beast, King Leopold II, who for money's sake mutilates, murders and starves half a million of friendless and helpless poor natives in the Congo State every year, and does it by the silent consent of all the Christian powers except England, none of them lifting a hand or a voice to stop these atrocities, although thirteen of them are by solemn treaty pledged to the protecting and uplifting of those wretched natives. In fourteen years Leopold has deliberately destroyed more lives than have suffered death on all the battlefields of this planey for the past thousand years. In this vast statement I am well within the mark, several million lives within the mark. It is curious that the most advanced and most enlightened century of all the centuries the sun has looked upon should have the ghastly distinction of having produced his moldy and piety-mouthing hypocrite, this bloody monster whose mate is not findable in human history anywhere, and whose personality will surely shame hell itself when he arrives there .....

"The conditions under which the poor lived in the Middle ages were hard enough, but those conditions were heaven itself as compared with those which have obtained in the Congo for these past fourteen years."
-- Mark Twain; "King Leopold's Soliloquy"; 1905 (The profits from this 25 cent pamphlet went to the relief of the people in the Congo.)

"(In the Philippines) we do not intend to free but to subjugate the people. We have gone there to conquer, not redeem. It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land."

"(In the Boxer Rebellion) my sympathies are with the Chinese. THey have been villainously dealt with by the sceptered thieves of Europe, and I hope they will drive all the foreigners out and keep them out for good. We have no more business in China than in any other country that is not ours."
-- Mark Twain; Anti-Imperialist League cards