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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: greenspirit who wrote (46482)9/24/2002 12:37:37 AM
From: stockman_scott  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 281500
 
Victory of the Loud Little Handful

The loud little handful - as usual - will shout for the war.

Published on Friday, September 20, 2002 in the Philadelphia Inquirer

Victory of the Loud Little Handful

by Mark Twain

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 dishonorable, 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 outshout them, and presently the antiwar
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...

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" (1910)



To: greenspirit who wrote (46482)9/24/2002 2:01:25 PM
From: JohnM  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 281500
 
Iraqi Interrogatories, The usual questions about Iraq.
September 20, 2002 9:00 a.m.


Michael, it helps some of us if you will include the name of the author at the heading of the quote. I started reading it seriously, thought the language sounded familiar, then scrolled to the bottom, hit the link, and learned it was Hanson once again.

So then I knew to skim.