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those who died on that ship committed suicide? It's the same thing wherever the Europeans go. In Polynesia the Polynesians disappeared right after the French started Civilizing them; in Hawaii and Tahiti the original people are almost completely gone; all over Africa they kill men with guns and factories, mines and starvation diseases. Do you think all the dying people on this plantation are committing suicide; should they eat the rubber and tell themselves it's all their own fault? What they should do is chase out the guards and take over the land and grow food on it. But the guards would shoot, and that means violence doesn't it? And violence is bad for the soul isn't it? So we have to blame ourselves and go begging, don't we? Stop screaming, Vaisya!

But you do not know any better, do you? Do you know what a cash crop is, Vaisya? I'll tell you. It's something that can be grown in a large area, sometimes as big as Java--something like rubber, or coffee, or sugar, or cotton. To grow it and pick it and carry it, a whole population of black and brown and yellow men is needed--these men are called Natives and are treated like animals, because all they're good for is picking and carrying the cash crops. After it is picked, the cash crop is put on big ships and taken to America and Europe, because that's where Civilization is, Vaisya. There Christians fix it up and put it in cans and they sell most of it back to the Natives, and the white Christians keep the cash. The Natives can't fix it up themselves because they're backward--those who think they can are Reds. That's called Progress, Vaisya. Remember that: Progress. The Europeans take Progress all over the world; it's because of their Progress and their Christianity and their white skins that they're civilized. See: we can't ever be civilized, because we're Natives. And it doesn't matter if