The Mark Twain We Were Not Taught At School

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by resisting arrest, Sep 1, 2011.

  1. resisting arrest

    resisting arrest Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Mark Twain could teach the Tea party a thing or two about life, politics and rebellion. Why doesn't the conservatives love this man??? Perhaps because he was so utterly revolutionary!!!!

    When all the bricklayers, and all the machinists, and all the miners, and blacksmiths, and printers, and hod-carriers, and stevedores, and house-painters, and brakemen, and engineers, and conductors, and factory hands, and horse-car drivers, and all the shop-girls, and all the sewing-women, and all the telegraph operators; in a word all the myriads of toilers in whom is slumbering the reality of that thing which you call Power ... when these rise, call the vast spectacle by any deluding name that will please your ear, but the fact remains a Nation has risen.


    Who are the oppressors? The few: the King, the capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat.

    (I used to be) a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific ...Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? ... I said to myself, Here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American Constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves.

    But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris [which ended the Spanish-American War], and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to 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 an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.
     
  2. camp_steveo

    camp_steveo Well-Known Member

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    It's not just the Tea party that could learn a thing or two from Twain.
     
  3. WertyFArmer

    WertyFArmer Well-Known Member

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    Have we subjugated the people of Japan? Germany? Korea? Since the reprehensible "relocation" of the Native Americans, what nation exactly have we invaded, occupied and “forced” our constitution on?
     
  4. Defengar

    Defengar New Member

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    not really force our constitution on, but we have definitely tried to crush several countries (like in the Spanish American war) into becoming "colonies" in all but name, in fact there was about 300 thousand Filipinos who died trying to get the americans to leave after we "liberated them but then "stayed".
     
  5. WertyFArmer

    WertyFArmer Well-Known Member

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    Are we talking about 1899? I mean if we want to go back in history, Europe has done some bad stuff. The Turks? They were a nasty bunch. The Arabs? Man could they wipe out a town.

    Not that it makes it right, it just makes it irreverent
     
  6. JIMV

    JIMV Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    "That's the difference between governments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do." - Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad

    No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
    -- Mark Twain (1866)

    Get your facts first, and then you can distort 'em as much as you please. ~Mark Twain
     
  7. resisting arrest

    resisting arrest Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    As William Blum would say, "That remark could have been punctuated by a pinch of snuff"--- arrogant and ignorant.

    Just for starters there was this thing called the Vietnam war ... et al ...


    www.killinghope.org
     
  8. darckriver

    darckriver New Member Past Donor

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    I do love Twain. One of the best, most down-to-earth wordsmiths I've ever read. Walt Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, and dear Emily Dickinson are this conservative's favorite poets, as well. Just because someone opposes most of the modern Leftist's toilet bowl of slop doesn't mean we can't appreciate artistic genius and revolutionary ideas. Speaking of revolutionary, I'm convinced that revolting against political correctness and the general rise of the State as THE subsidizer of all manner of harmful foolishness is everyone's (not just conservatives) duty. I have no doubt Mark Twain would've agreed.
     

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