I'm beginning to feel the symptoms of flag sickness, which I tend to get
when there are too many of them waving. Symptoms: nausea and an acute
desire to move to France.
You got the tune right, but the words are "The Battle Hymn of the
Republic": "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord/ He has
trampled out the vinyards where the grapes of wrath are stored/ He has
loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible quick sword/His truth is
marching on."
America as an entity seems incapable of dealing with the hopelessness of
grief--taking action is our drug of choice, even if there's no apparent
action to take. I would expect steady drum-beats until near the next
congressional election, and then a lot of bloodshed from our side.
Unfortunately, this is not hypocricy. If one is the only possible leader
pragmatism is merely righteousness.
But despite the polls almost every individual I speak to, and there's an
unusual amount of conversation between strangers, across all the usual
barriers, is profoundly sad rather than angry. It remains to be seen how
much Bush and company can persuade that private response to be relinquished
in favor of the corporate response.
Mark
>
>But language is the province of any true poet, and resistance to a rebirth
>of the old rhetoric of the State is essential. I was genuinely shocked when
>I heard the closing moments of the memorial service at St Paul's, I thought
>it a sick parody at first, with its apostrophising of Liberty and John
>Brown's Body being sung by a massed choir in the background.
>
>To find out tonight that it was a specific request by the US govt was an
>even further shock.
>
>That empty language can easily be a mask for murder.
>
>The unanswered question about this tragedy is why did the terrorists become
>terrorists? What does the US do that makes the poor of the Middle East hate
>them so much? What makes someone want to become a suicide-bomber?
>
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