A journalist by the name of Sam Clemens (aka Twain), was, over 100 years ago, on to the nefarious doings of the Mormon gang, led by Boss Brigham Young, a "pious fraud", according to Twain. Twain's book "Roughing It" provides an amusing– and occasionally sublime– account of his experiences out west on his way to the Comstock, and includes descriptions of his jaunt across the mormon regime of Utah, and Twain actually met with Young, and his 20-30 wives, and some 100+ kids, all playing tin whistles. Twain's descriptions of a deserted Tahoe and the Mono Lake area (and the Paiutes residing on the shores) are also quite interesting, however rustic they might seem to many residents of Cyberia. Admittedly, Twain's no Proust or Pynchon, yet "Roughing It" reveals a rather sophisticated journalistic style on occasion (quite different than Huck Finn's colorful dialect; tho' Huck Finn a bit deeper— and darker–than many Americans realize), and that prose style is quite preferable to most varieties of contemporary PunditSpeak.
Twain's accounts of the Mountain Meadows Massacre (reports vary, but from 150 to 300 southern settlers crossing Utah were slaughtered by mormons) also shed some light on the brutality of the early Utah territory. (Conan-Doyle, of Sherlock Holmes fame, also wrote some things [see Valley of Fear] quite critical of the Mormons and Masons who ruled the West–after the natives had been purged, that is–with an iron hand). Indeed, Jimmy Buchanan at one point called in the Union Army to force negotiations with the Peoples of the Sacred Salamander (Brigham Young had, in the 1850s, assembled his own army--the Nauvoo Legion-- and was on the verge of seceding from the Union), and botched it, according to many historians. Of course, the Mormon cult has hardly been eliminated: Milt Romney, currently a candidate for Prez., has professed his allegiance to the code of Brigham, as has Nevada Senator Harry Reid, often mistaken for a democrat (as are Hillarity and her boy Obama as well).
From "Roughing It":
"….One of the last things which Brigham Young had done before leaving Iowa, was to appear in the pulpit dressed to personate the worshipped and lamented prophet Smith, and confer the prophetic succession, with all its dignities, emoluments and authorities, upon "President Brigham Young!" The people accepted the pious fraud with the maddest enthusiasm, and Brigham's power was sealed and secured for all time. Within five years afterward he openly added polygamy to the tenets of the church by authority of a "revelation" which he pretended had been received nine years before by Joseph Smith, albeit Joseph is amply on record as denouncing polygamy to the day of his death.
…….
Let it be borne in mind that the majority of the Mormons have always been ignorant, simple, of an inferior order of intellect, unacquainted with the world and its ways; and let it be borne in mind that the wives of these Mormons are necessarily after the same pattern and their children
likely to be fit representatives of such a conjunction; and then let it be remembered that for forty years these creatures have been driven, driven, driven, relentlessly! and mobbed, beaten, and shot down; cursed,
despised, expatriated; banished to a remote desert, whither they journeyed gaunt with famine and disease, disturbing the ancient solitudes with their lamentations and marking the long way with graves of their dead–and all because they were simply trying to live and worship God in
the way which they believed with all their hearts and souls to be the true one. Let all these things be borne in mind, and then it will not be hard to account for the deathless hatred which the Mormons bear our
people and our government.""""""
Mark Twain's thoughts on MormBots
yet another religious gang boss and his terminal erection...
and "huck finn" saw right through it the whole time.
and don't cut ol' joseph smith too much slack. it seems he received the multiple wives revelation when he decided he wanted more than one wife. and as founder of a maverick religion and all-purpose "seer", he could afford such a revelation. it goes deeper. according to j. smith, having three wives or so is a requirement for entry into heaven...
and "huck finn" saw right through it the whole time.
and don't cut ol' joseph smith too much slack. it seems he received the multiple wives revelation when he decided he wanted more than one wife. and as founder of a maverick religion and all-purpose "seer", he could afford such a revelation. it goes deeper. according to j. smith, having three wives or so is a requirement for entry into heaven...
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Totenkopf
Yes but Brigham got boo-coo more action than that scribbler ever did, raht: so he thus ranks higher in Beulah-land for many Americuns, I wager. Lots of chicks dig dictators anyways, comrade, whether those dictators be fascists, commies, or Viacom execs.
Twain provides some kicks, but Dr Johnson knew what yankees were about 150 years or so before Huck Finn. A race of convicts, said Sam (as did Sam Clemens as well, in a sense--as the nearly Kafkaesque Bricksville chapter in HF demonstrates).
Twain provides some kicks, but Dr Johnson knew what yankees were about 150 years or so before Huck Finn. A race of convicts, said Sam (as did Sam Clemens as well, in a sense--as the nearly Kafkaesque Bricksville chapter in HF demonstrates).
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