Scanlyze

The Online Journal of Insight, Satire, Desire, Wit and Observation

My message of support for the troops

America Supports You is a propaganda site run by the US military in order to encourage public support for the war(s). They are providing the opportunity to post messages of ‘support’ for ‘the troops’. Following is my submission:

My message of support for the troops:

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
-Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

–Wilfred Owen, KIA, 1918

If you participate in an illegal, unauthorized armed action you are violating your oath to uphold the US Constitution and destroying the honor and integrity of our military forces. The use of torture is a capital offense under US law. It is the legal obligation of every US service member to refuse to obey illegal orders.

best regards,

Henry Edward Hardy
https://scanlyze.wordpress.com/

see also: Anthem for Doomed Youth

Copyright © 2007 Henry Edward Hardy

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14 February, 2007 Posted by | America, Army, censorship, media, military, news, patriotism, peace, politics, propaganda, psyops, scanlyze, troops, USA, war, war crimes | 3 Comments

America the Beautiful and Rabih Haddad

America the Beautiful

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

America the Beautiful
1st and 2nd verses,
Catherine Lee Bates
1913

I sang these verses in a somewhat quavery but fairly on-key voice to a high school auditorium full of people at a town meeting called by US Rep. Lynn Rivers (D-Mich) after 9/11. One brave lady in the crowd sang with me.

One of the panelists invited by Rivers, a moderate and well-respected member of the Ann Arbor Muslim community was Rabih Haddad. Mr. Haddad was taken from his Ann Arbor home by US officials on December 14, 2001, terrorizing and traumatizing his wife and young children in the process. Haddad was then held without charges, mostly in solitary confinement, for 19 months. The ranking Democratic member (and now chair) of the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers (D-Mich), was refused admission to Haddad’s hearing in Detroit for purported reasons of national security. Following a great deal of public demonstrations, controversy, and criticism concerning the government actions, Haddad was then secretly deported. The Ann Arbor News withheld the information about his impending deportation from publication for several days at government request.

My Brother Rabih Haddad
Rabih Haddad Speaks Out

I was inspired to write this by:

I Love America by Shirley Buxton.

This is my response to Shirley:

Is this the America you love?

  • Secret trials and secret prisons?
  • Torture, rape and murder as instruments of state policy?
  • No more habeas corpus?
  • A Government which contemptuously disregards the Geneva Conventions?
  • No right to a lawyer, a trial by jury or even the right to know the charges against you?
  • A President who has utter contempt for the Constitution and the law?
  • A Nation that attacks without provocation, and lies about the putative reasons?

Shame on you, Shirley Buxton.

The patriots and ‘founding fathers’ you pretend to admire were, in fact revolutionaries who took up arms to overthrow a repressive government. That’s why we call it the American Revolutionary War! Furthermore, the original Pledge of Allegiance you quote was written by a socialist, Francis Bellamy in 1892, and did not include the words, “under God”. This phrase was added by Congress in 1954 during the height of the McCarthy repression.

Consider:

Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.

–Benjamin Franklin

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.

–John Adams

Give me liberty or give me death!

–Patrick Henry

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

–Sam Adams

Copyright © 2007 Henry Edward Hardy

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3 February, 2007 Posted by | 9/11, America, America the Beautiful, Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor News, Bush, Conyers, democratic, essay, liberty, Lynn Rivers, Michigan, patriot, patriotism, peace, Pledge of Allegiance, politics, quotations, Rabih Haddad, repression, revolution, scanlyze, Shirley Buxton, US Constitution, USA | 3 Comments