ANARCHISM, Page 70, text by Emma Goldman from pgs 70-71 of the book ANARCHISM, 3rd edition published 1917, with original music and reading by J Neo Marvin and Davis Jones, 2019.
Text by Emma Goldman
Music and arrangement by J Neo Marvin and Davis Jones (BMI)
lyrics
Never before did the corruption, the complete rottenness of our government stand so thoroughly exposed; never before were the American people brought face to face with the Judas nature of that political body, which has claimed for years to be absolutely beyond reproach, as the mainstay of our institutions, the true protector of the rights and liberties of the people.
Yet when the crimes of that party became so brazen that even the blind could see them, it needed but to muster up its minions, and its supremacy was assured. Thus the very victims, duped, betrayed, outraged a hundred times, decided, not against, but in favor of the victor.
Bewildered, the few asked how could the majority betray the traditions of American liberty? Where was its judgment, its reasoning capacity?
That is just it, the majority cannot reason; it has no judgment. Lacking utterly in originality and moral courage, the majority has always placed its destiny in the hands of others. Incapable of standing responsibilities, it has followed its leaders even unto destruction.
Dr. Stockman was right: "The most dangerous enemies of truth and justice in our midst are the compact majorities, the damned compact majority." Without ambition or initiative, the compact mass hates nothing so much as innovation. It has always opposed, condemned, and hounded the innovator, the pioneer of a new truth.
The oft repeated slogan of our time is, among all politicians, the Socialists included, that ours is an era of individualism, of the minority. Only those who do not probe beneath the surface might be led to entertain this view. Have not the few accumulated the wealth of the world? Are they not the masters, the absolute kings of the situation?
Their success, however, is due not to individualism, but to the inertia, the cravenness, the utter submission of the mass. The latter wants but to be dominated, to be led, to be coerced. As to individualism, at no time in human history did it have less chance of expression, less opportunity to assert itself in a normal, healthy manner.
The individual educator imbued with honesty of purpose, the artist or writer of original ideas, the independent scientist or explorer, the non-compromising pioneers of social changes are daily pushed to the wall by men whose learning and creative ability have become decrepit with age.
Text by Emma Goldman
Music and arrangement by J Neo Marvin and Davis Jones (BMI)
credits
from New Standards,
released March 25, 2019
Musical Instruments:
2019 J Neo Marvin and Davis Jones of The Granite Countertops
Vocals:
2019 J Neo Marvin and Davis Jones of The Granite Countertops
The Granite Countertops are dark, whimsical, tender existential action heroes J Neo Marvin and Davis Jones, exploring the outer limits of what a duo can create.
Based on Noodle Brain Productions series aired on Channel 29 in San Francisco, backing tracks and on a 1978 workshop in SF, recreated at Noodle Brain Productions https://noodlebrain.com/nbsits.swf The Granite Countertops
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