The Rabbits Who Caused All the Trouble

The blogs have been running a clip of Glen Beck saying that if there is violence from the right wing, it is because President Obama has provoked it.

This is a TV personality who told his viewers that he couldn’t debunk the story that FEMA was building concentration camps to detain Americans under martial law, that the United States is headed into totalitarianism, and that “progressives are taking you to a place to be slaughtered.”

And then there are the gun molls; Rep. Michelle Bachmann saying “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous,” and Sarah Palin telling tea baggers “don’t retreat, instead reload.”

Now as I read that the FBI has arrested heavily armed members of a “Christian militia” group, I wonder why Obama is doing all this.

Then I remembered the fable by James Thurber, “The Rabbits Who Caused All the Trouble,” published in The New Yorker in 1939.

Check it out..

Within the memory of the youngest child there was a family of rabbits who lived near a pack of wolves. The wolves announced that they did not like the way the rabbits were living. (The wolves were crazy about the way they themselves were living, because it was the only way to live.)

One night several wolves were killed in an earthquake and this was blamed on the rabbits, for it is well known that rabbits pound on the ground with their hind legs and cause earthquakes.

On another night one of the wolves was killed by a bolt of lightning and this was also blamed on the rabbits, for it is well known that lettuce-eaters cause lightning.

The wolves threatened to civilize the rabbits if they didn't behave, and the rabbits decided to run away to a desert island. But the other animals, who lived at a great distance, shamed them saying, "You must stay where you are and be brave. This is no world for escapists. If the wolves attack you, we will come to your aid in all probability."

So the rabbits continued to live near the wolves and one day there was a terrible flood which drowned a great many wolves. This was blamed on the rabbits, for it is well known that carrot-nibblers with long ears cause floods. The wolves descended on the rabbits, for their own good, and imprisoned them in a dark cave, for their own protection.

When nothing was heard about the rabbits for some weeks, the other animals demanded to know what had happened to them. The wolves replied that the rabbits had been eaten and since they had been eaten the affair was a purely internal matter. But the other animals warned that they might possibly unite against the wolves unless some reason was given for the destruction of the rabbits. So the wolves gave them one. "They were trying to escape," said the wolves, "and, as you know, this is no world for escapists."

Moral: Run, don't walk, to the nearest desert island.