NO MORE ‘OLD LIES’. . please !
Not since I was 14 years old and first introduced to the words of WILFRED OWEN, has a collection of words resonated, articulated and described to and in me perfectly the horrors and clarity of what war actually is and does to human beings. . of how WAR, all war, is and always has been an INDUSTRY designed by the few for their own end, benefit and power over the many . . AT ANY COST. . creating and Spawning an infinite number of victims in the form of young men woman, children and innocent bystanders galore as this callous soulless machine is rolled over our earth time an time again. .
Let us NEVER forget war is Humanities’ most disgusting and morally lobotomised invention and industry. . nothing more.
The writer of the article is a veteran and humanitarian, who stood on the front line Mr Harry Leslie Smith. .
He says:
” I am afraid it will be the last time that I will bear witness to those soldiers, airmen and sailors who are no more, at my local cenotaph. From now on, I will lament their passing in private because my despair is for those who live in this present world. I will no longer allow my obligation as a veteran to remember those who died in the great wars to be co-opted by current or former politicians to justify our folly in Iraq, our morally dubious war on terror and our elimination of one’s right to privacy . . . Next year, I won’t wear the poppy but I will until my last breath remember the past and the struggles my generation made to build this country into a civilised state for the working and middle classes. If we are to survive as a progressive nation we have to start tending to our living because the wounded: our poor, our underemployed youth, our hard-pressed middle class and our struggling seniors shouldn’t be left to die on the battleground of modern life “.
Full Article here: http://www.theguardian.com/profile/harry-leslie-smith
Harry Leslie Smith is a survivor of the Great Depression, a second world war RAF veteran and an activist for the poor and for the preservation of social democracy. He has written several books about Britain during the depression, the war, and postwar austerity. Join him on Twitter@Harryslaststand
I too will not wear red poppy again for the same reasons as Mr Smith. Today and in the future, if i ever wear a poppy again, it will be BLACK to commemorate the victims of war and to signify and protest, that i want an end to war completely and will not be part of this co-opting process by current or former politicians, who in bondage use and abuse and attach my name, to justify our government’s morally dubious follies and wars, past and present, on terror which cause more innocent victims and the elimination of one’s right to privacy in the process.
I wear a black poppy because i am a patriot of humanity and of the value and sanctity and worth of all human life and the protection of it . .
Dulce et Decorum Est
Wilfred Owen, 1893 – 1918
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.
