Twain's "To the Person Sitting in the Darkness" (1901)

This is an excerpt from the essay, "To the Person Sitting in the Darkness", which Mark Twain wrote in 1901 - in response to the U.S. involvement in the Philippine-American War. The "person" was the country, The Phillipines. It was Twain's tongue and cheek way of protesting United States' imperialism and its annextion of the Phillipines. Twain had previously written:

"...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."

The exact excerpt you're seeing was placed in the programs of the musical HAIR when it was running in New York City in the late 60's...undoubtedly to call attention to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Click on it to enlarge it. Read it. Sound familiar today?

If you're wondering where I stand on the issue - I'm not entirely sure. I believe the U.S. needs to protect its interests overseas and be the "Big Brother", in a way, helping to keep other countries in check, sort of say. I also think that we often stick our nose in places it doesn't belong - for whatever the reason. With all due respect to President Bush and the Office of the Presidnet of the United States, I don't believe he's as effective as a leader as some of his predecessors. We have problems with our country that need dealing with. Yet, we're spending billions of dollars on a war in Iraq that the American people, as a whole, DO NOT WANT; a cause our soldiers are dying for and a cause where a mutual resolution between Iraq and the U.S. seems as far-fetched as my worker's compensation suit getting settled in my lifetime. The U.S. sends millions of dollars to countries overseas who need our help for this disaster and that conflict and whatever else, yet we can't seem to get our own house in order - the city of New Orleans isn't where it should be since Katrina; millions of Americans don't have proper health care; we have an immigration crisis that is not getting fixed - something I blame as much on our politicians and Corporate America as I do on the illegals themselves. And yet illegal aliens come here to have anchor babies and get free healthcare and other benefits and that's allowed by our government because it's the humanitarian thing to do.

This country has problems - and still it's the best country in the world. But this country has serious problems and unless we do something now...unless our politicians (who I believe are a pustule this country can't do without and that's why I believe the party system as we know it is archaic) quit playing party politics and do something that's for the good of the country and not their own legacy, this U.S. will resemble every poor, 3rd world country we're helping or have ever helped - only who will help us when we need it?

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