Momma Angel wrote:
What Does Freedom Mean To You
Many fine men and women have been stationed overseas, ready to fight for this nation and sacrifice all for you and me. The troops are ready to rise when called upon to any operation , most with very little rest. Here at home ,we walk freely, enjoying the best life has to offer. So support our troops and give them your heartfelt thanks. Let them know that you are grateful for protecting your freedom, your safety and all that America stands for. What does freedom mean to you?
I find this hypocritical and sickening.
Worst of all, it is a false reality and anyone with any integrity at all knows that.
But for those who have already forgotten
Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
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You talk of freedom? Give the troops their Freedom - to live their lives unscarred.
We shouldn't have gone to Iraq and we shouldn't be there now. It was a mistake and our leaders should be man enough to admit it.
That our troops must continue to die to save face in the Whitehouse and Downing street is as big a war crime as that inflicted on Iraq - because those men trusted our leaders with their lives and with their reputations and our leaders fuc ked up and now many are dead or mutilated or traumatised in a crusade that should never have been. Why?
Because some still peddle the old lie.
I won't contribute to it.
