Dear Gunnar,

I will check the notinourname website.

But my "furious objection" is--I repeat--to the fact that IT IS NOT TRUE.

This keeps being disconnected from the discussion.

IF allies agree and the UN agrees, you get 71%  IF they don't, you get
48%.  I think this needs to be said constantly and everywhere despite
Rummy, Cheney, Condi, W, et.al.
Still distressed,
Nancy



Date sent:              Mon, 30 Sep 2002 18:08:28 +0200
Send reply to:          "T. S. Eliot Discussion forum." <[log in to unmask]>
From:                   Gunnar Jauch <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                Re: Twain on War--OT or not?
To:                     [log in to unmask]

am 27.9.2002 17:04 Uhr schrieb Nancy Gish unter
[log in to unmask]:

> In a minor link--Eliot was in Germany when WWI broke out and reports
> that at the time he thought Germany was right.  When he got back to
> England, he changed his mind.  He said everyone agreed.
>
> Subject:                Twain on War
>
> 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)
> --
> Susan Feiner
> [log in to unmask]
> 207 846 5213


Dear Nancy,


amazing what you are able to dig out -- Twain's words, albeit written
nearly a century ago, are of almost scary actuality!

I have noticed your furious objection to the (officially published) figure
of nearly 70 % of the U.S. population in favor of Bush's call for war.
Maybe you ought to join the list of American artists and intellectuals
against the war, "NOT IN OUR NAME" (www.notinourname.net).

There is a rising concern in Europe about the belligerent rhetoric from
the chief of the leading world's nation. As I have mentioned, there have
been huge peace demonstrations in many European capitals, among others in
London, Rome and Madrid. The majority, however, seems to have resigned
because of the apparent inevitability of a pre-emptive strike against
Iraq. Bush's advisor, the awful fundamentalist "Christian" Donald
Rumsfeld, has led the nation into a dangerous one-way street.


Gunnar