LAST DITCH OF DEMOCRACY - Majority Rights

A friend of mine once entitled a poem “Attys or something missing.” I
wonder if any of you realize, or could by an effort arrive at realization of
the degree of detachment that I feel at moments or if you, on your own,
ever do try to see the present historic moment from the outside.
The thing in my case goes beyond an effort of will, I simply find myself
outside, observing. Le reconnaitre et le savoir. There is a poem of Guy
Charles Gros that does not end in the same manner, for he ends: “Ai-je
cru un seul instant a la realité du monde …” That is French poetry, and
Buddhistic detachment.
But I do not make out what has become of those Englishmen, or of that
English tradition that led one to believe in the existence of Englishmen
who protested against the drift of their governments. Mebbe they are too
old, the ones I remember, or too young, the ones whom I have not met.
Certainly the few dozen voices that rose from the printed page in Britain,
before this war, demanding justice, social justice INSIDE the borders of
England, and comprehension, or at least some degree of attention to fact
outside the borders of England, those voices are silent, or smothered. Or
at any rate they are inaudible here.
Lord knows you have the equipment, as contrasted to what I have
available. You have your BBC with your archives. And I have not one
disc, not one phonorecord available. And perhaps those past records are
the BEST that you have. But your use of them is deficient.
You know, the most flatheaded among you knows that your press has
lied, and that your BBC is not impartial. And no one expects it to be
impartial. But there are degrees in all things. And some of you must
perceive that from the difference between a howl for monopoly and
dominion and a demand for justice. Or at any rate I am not yet brought
to believe that that type of man is wholly beaten, is wholly extinct in
England.