Mark Tawin and Funerals

The funeral for Darla was yesterday.  They held it in the gym of Sonora High and a huge number of people attended.  It's obvious that she was very respected and loved in this community.  Channel 3 (out of Sacramento) did a news story on her and it was also front page in the local newspaper.  Everyone had good stories to tell and it was a good way to stay goodbye.

My family left after the funeral but I am still here staying with my grandmother.  She's a staunch conservative and we always seem to get into fun little debates.  Most of her information comes from right wing radio and radical conservative mailings.  Today she got two pieces attacking Hillary Clinton, one urging her to sign a petition to have the US leave the UN, three with information about how immigrants are taking over the country, and one about the threat of communist China.  She reads them all and donates money to some.  It's sort of useless discussing it though because she always pulls the age card.  A lot of conversations end with, "Well, you just don't know how it really works because you haven't been around long enough.  Don't you love this country?  Why are you always so pessimestic?"  I love my grandmother.

I am half way through the Zinn Reader.  Good essays on race, class, war, law and history.  I liked this thought, pulled from a Mark Tawin piece at the turn of the century, showing again how history repeats itself:

The loud little handful will shout for war.  The pulpit will warily and cautiously protest at first. . . .  The great mass of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes, and will try to make out why there should be a war, and they will say earnestly and indignantly: "It is unjust and dishonorable and there is no need for war."

Then the few will shout even louder. . . .  Before long you will see a curious thing: anti-war speakers will be stoned from the platform, and free speech will be strangled by hordes of furious men who still agree with the speakers but dare not admit it. . .

Next, the statesmen will invent cheap lies. . . and each man will be glad of these lies and will study them because they soothe his conscience; and thus he will bye and bye convince himself that the war is just and he will thank God for better sleep he enjoys by his self-deception.