Day: May 30, 2005

Compare and contrast…

A Canadian response to WWI events:

In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Here’s a later response by an American reader of “In Flanders Fields”…

We Shall Keep the Faith
by Moina Michael, November 1918

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet – to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We’ll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.

Now, what’s the comparison, the contrast? Well, not so much between the more famous “In Flanders Fields” and the less-well-known (today, at least) “We Shall Keep the Faith” but between the two poems and… attitudes today toward those who have fallen in service to their country. Today, large numbers of Americans hold such sacrifice in disdain. Indeed, many have attended and participated in “demonstrations” that have celebrated the terrorist savages who seek to kill not only American servicemen and women but civilian non-combatans as well.

Moina Michael’s now less-well-known poem was instrumental in establishing “Decoration Day” (now Memorial Day) and in
establishing the (apparently dying) tradition of wearing a poppy in honor of our fallen military. That McRae’s poem is “better” art, I’ll not dispute. But Moina Michael’s poem has a heart that’s sadly missing in all too many Americans today who cannot comprehend, let alone echo these lines:

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies

h.t. to “Sir George” @ The Anti-idiotarian Rottweiler

Gotta love ’em. Pseudo-liberals, that is. Easy pickings. See this article at The Telegraph. MQ is the lede:

Wristbands sold to raise money for a campaign against world poverty are made in Chinese sweatshops in “slave labour” conditions…

heh

The thing is, this is just the sort of empty-headed stuff that passes for “good ideas” among the Fantasist Class that thinks themselves “progressive” or “liberal” when in fact they are nothing of the sort.  All the Fantasist Class consists of are these sub-classes:

1.) Reactionaries who believe the failures of liberalism can be fixed if they just keep banging their heads against the wall. (Oh, and getting more money to make the wall stronger and higher… )

2.) “Reality-based” idealists whose only connection to reality is that it supports them in much the way that alchoholics are frequently supported in their addiction by co-dependants.

3.) The plantation slaves, that is, those dependant upon the handouts of goods and services stolen from Empiricists and from Fantasist dupes.

4.) The cynical manipulators of #s 1, 2 and 3.  This is the political class that derives its status, power and wealth from using the first three classes to steal wealth from those who produce it to buy influence with #s 1, 2, and 3.

It’s about time for the grownups in the Empiricist Class to just say No.  No more money.  No more buying of influence with the reactionaries, deluded idealists or plantation slaves.

Just Say No.

(And if they don’t get the message at the polls, then maybe it’s time for a Tea Party.)