Resistance moon: Truths too deep for taint

As I’ve pointed out before, upon inauguration the Kleptocrat got the biggest box of toys ever—the US economy, the US legal system and the US military. And he’s reacted exactly as expected for a 70-year-old narcissist with compensation issues and no impulse control.

His attempts in all these areas—illegal executive orders, cabinet appointments aimed at dismantling government, policy-making aimed at filling his corporate coffers—are terrifying. But it’s his use of what he’s pleased to call “my military” that we’ll consider today. Because the pathetic git who claims that a stint at a military high school 50 years ago gave him a better grasp on geo-politics than all our flag officers put together actually approaches brinksmanship with the gusto of having just unpacked a box of shiny new toy soldiers. He can’t keep straight which country he fired 59 missiles at, but he can give you details about the piece of chocolate cake he was eating when he gave the order.

(His real expertise in military matters was his ability to get five bogus deferments to avoid active service during the Vietnam War. His access to America's armed forces enables him to be petty, bloody-minded and vindictive on a scale he could only dream of before.)

We used to call his ilk chicken hawks—the ones e.e. cummings was talking about in “next to god of course america”. They flap their manicured hands (tiny or not) about to urge other people’s babies to go in harm’s way in defense of personal gain wrapped up in national honor and patriotism, while remaining safely at home with all their children intact. They never feel the consequences of their actions because the filth and mayhem of war just never comes close enough to touch them.

The Kleptocrat's flavor of chicken hawkery is that the one lesson he's learnt from his missile attack on Syria (not Iraq), and sending "a YUGE armada" somewhere--possibly toward North Korea, possibly not--is that when he makes big bang sounds, his supporters are energized and his approval ratings rise a couple of points. He's stiill below 50%, but any improvement (in any poll, no matter how small the sample) causes the bluster tweets to rise accordingly. And ratings (and profit) are all the reality TV player cares about.

The War Poets of World War I held the chicken hawks of that era—the politicians and the profiteers—in the contempt they thoroughly deserved. We got a taste of it earlier this month with Siegfried Sassoon’s “Suicide in the Trenches”. But let’s have something from Wilfred Owen, possibly my favorite.

There’s a lot going on in “Strange Meeting”, both poetically and in the narrative. Owen messes with the rhyming scheme, using pararhyme or slanted rhymes—the “rhyming” words don’t land quite squarely. Groined/groaned; moan/mourn. We have narrative references to the Hell of Dante, the title coming from Shelley… And the enemy soldier the poet meets—who is he, really?

Is it possibly himself?

“Strange Meeting”

It seemed that out of battle I escaped

Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped

Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.

Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared

With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,

Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.

And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,— 

By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;

Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,

And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.

“Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.” 

“None,” said that other, “save the undone years,

The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,

Was my life also; I went hunting wild

After the wildest beauty in the world,

Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,

But mocks the steady running of the hour,

And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.

For by my glee might many men have laughed,

And of my weeping something had been left,

Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,

The pity of war, the pity war distilled.

Now men will go content with what we spoiled.

Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.

They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress. 

None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.

Courage was mine, and I had mystery;

Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery: 

To miss the march of this retreating world

Into vain citadels that are not walled.

Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels, 

I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,

Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.

I would have poured my spirit without stint

But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.

Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned

Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.

I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.

Let us sleep now. . . .”