Excerpts from Shantaram (nifty stuff)

[Guest guest]

Nisargadatta , " anabebe57 " <kailashana wrote:

>

> I am reading a book by Gregory David Roberts: Shantaram

> I can not speak of the clarity and beauty and truth in this book,

> so I shall share a passage or two:

>

> " The world is run by one million evil men, ten million stupid men,

> and a hundred million cowards.

>

> The evil men are the power--the rich men, and the politicians and

> the fanatics of religion--whose decisions rule the world, and set it

> on its course of greed and destruction.

>

> There are only one million of them, the truly evil men, in the whole

> world. The very rich and the very powerful, whose decisions really

> count--they are only one million. The stupid men, who number ten

> million, are the soldiers and policemen who enforce the rule of the

> evil men. They are the standing armies of twelve key countries, and

> the police forces of those and twenty more. In total, there are

> only ten million of them with any real power or consequence. they

> are often brave, I'm sure, but they are stupid, too, because they

> give their lives for governments and causes that use their flesh and

> blood as mere chess pieces. Those governments always betray them or

> let them down or abandon them, in the long run. Nations neglect no

> men more shamefully then the heroes of their wars.

>

> 'And the hundred million cowards, Abdul Ghani continued, pinching

> the handle of the teacup between his plum fingers, 'they are the

> bureaucrats and paper shufflers and pen-pushers who permit the rule

> of the evil men, and look the other way. They are the head of this

> department, and the secretary of that committee, and the president

> of the other association. They are managers, and officials, and

> mayors and officers of the court They always defend themselves by

> saying that they are just following orders, or just doing their job,

> and it's nothing personal, and if they don't do it, somebody else

> surely will. They are the hundred million cowards who know what is

> going on, but say nothing, while they sign the paper that puts one

> man before a firing squad, or condemns one million men to the slower

> death of a famine.

>

> 'So that's it', he concluded. The world is run by one million evil

> men, ten million stupid men, and a hundred million cowards. The

> rest of us, all six billion of us do pretty much what we are told.'

>

> He laughed, and slapped at his thigh. It was a good laugh, the kind

> of laugh that won't rest until it shares the joke, and I found

> myself laughing with him.

>

> 'Do you know what this means, my boy' he asked, when his face was

> serious enough to frame the question.

>

> 'This formula--the one million, the ten million,the hundred million--

> this is the real truth of all politics. Marx was wrong. It is not a

> question of classes, you see, because all the classes are in the

> hands of this tiny few. This set of numbers is the cause of empire

> and rebellion. This is the formula that has generated our

> civilisations for the last ten thousand years. This built the

> pyramids. This launched your Crusades. This put the word at war,

> and this formula has the power to impose the peace.

>

> 'They're not my Crusades,' I corrected him, 'but I get your point.' "

>

 

 

 

yep.

 

we may not be reading the same book, anna.

 

 

but we're on the same page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

win k win k

 

 

 

 

)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(quoting dah pundit, " the hidden hand that guides the universe... is

the universe. " dus, there IS no evo, stupit, no sheeepish and timid,

kind o' coy and unassuming peopo. radder, we hab met de enemy and she

am us. we is all o us pre-daters. fwom time im-me-moral.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

go figger