tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post7395581653123344036..comments2024-03-29T02:03:49.151-04:00Comments on History Unfolding: Bush and TrumanDavid Kaiserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05020082243968071584noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-51594971294570991122007-11-15T12:00:00.000-05:002007-11-15T12:00:00.000-05:00NOT HOMELAND BUT HOMETo criticize one´s country do...NOT HOMELAND BUT HOME<BR/><BR/>To criticize one´s country does not make one communist,<BR/>Though we look back and laugh at Joe McCarthy,<BR/>Yet lives were shattered as appeared upon his famed blacklist,<BR/>As calumnies made many people swarthy.<BR/><BR/>Despite a brief remission if we call it a disease<BR/>This terror of "the Other" is in flare-up,<BR/>Because the fits of prejudice and condemnation seize<BR/>As new breeds of accusers get their hair up.<BR/><BR/>Today instead of "communist" the moniker is changed,<BR/>One is but vaguely called unpatriotic,<BR/>"Terrorist sympathizer," so the charges are arranged<BR/>To make minds independent feel neurotic.<BR/><BR/>One is denounced, by slanders trounced, as even dares to question<BR/>The wisdom of a course of action chosen,<BR/>Whilst lungs fill with accusatory globules of congestion<BR/>Spewed forth in spite, discrimination frozen.<BR/><BR/>It was a "vast conspiracy" that very few denied,<BR/>As happened in the early Nineteen-Fifties,<BR/>When communists appeared to be ensconced on every side,<BR/>As sympathizers, Red-lovers and softies.<BR/><BR/>"Appeared to be" and "seems to me" reflect the unabated<BR/>Thrust of the argument, as often charges<BR/>Pursued their stopless course although as unsubstantiated<BR/>Means set whereby hysteria enlarges.<BR/><BR/>Good lives were ruined while praises crooned of persons more unworthy,<BR/>Collaborationists as now reveal<BR/>The transcripts of proceedings part occult and part unearthly,<BR/>As we by hindsight label them unreal.<BR/><BR/>Collaborators with hysteria never serve the truth--<BR/>Yet in these days we find so many joiners,<BR/>Demanding never proof but innuendoes as uncouth,<BR/>Of false descriptive phrases are the coiners.<BR/><BR/>The names are vast and varied but what difference is a name<BR/>When no criteria as underlying<BR/>Corroborates the charges--to my brethren´s lasting shame,<BR/>Wherefore it feels "democracy is dying."<BR/><BR/>As liberals, leftists, softies, or the new phrase socialists<BR/>(Which means but "communist" transformed in garb),<BR/>So men are slandered as to queers imputed limper wrists,<BR/>Varied and multifarious each barb.<BR/><BR/>Yet, in this nation´s history--believe--there was a time<BR/>When criticism was classed as a duty<BR/>Borne of the citizen and not a furtive sneaky crime,<BR/>Nor in this can a slanderer refute me.<BR/><BR/>It bothers me to think that my misguided thoughtless brothers<BR/>So easily align them with the chorus,<BR/>When we who criticize are rather lovers, not self-loathers,<BR/>Of home despite her faults and flaws before us.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-36180699818844949842007-09-04T00:43:00.000-04:002007-09-04T00:43:00.000-04:00Truman was worse than Bush.that idiot recognized I...Truman was worse than Bush.<BR/>that idiot recognized Israel, and we have been paying billions every year for that mistake.<BR/><BR/>just imagine there would be no need of any war on terror if there was no Israel.cindy25https://www.blogger.com/profile/03736713112915404729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-61759846370798271982007-09-01T23:13:00.000-04:002007-09-01T23:13:00.000-04:00William Manchester noted that toward the end of hi...William Manchester noted that toward the end of his life, Dean Acheson became a stalwart defender of the Vietnam war. I suspect this might have happened for the same reason that Johnson escalated the war, to avoid charges that somehow he had "lost" Vietnam. Of course, that begs the question of whether Vietnam was "ours" to begin with, which it was not.khughes1963https://www.blogger.com/profile/16118365554189078448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-2352906076171077102007-08-30T06:41:00.000-04:002007-08-30T06:41:00.000-04:00V. interesting (tho Pendergast is without an r) - ...V. interesting (tho Pendergast is without an r) - God, what a difference between then and now!Authorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13867780321948410850noreply@blogger.com