In recent years I have visited my daughter on Memorial Day and attended the parade and observances in her small New England town.
This year the parade and the observance are canceled. Because Wu Flu.
And The New York Times, with staggering stupidity, has filled its front page with the names of Wu Flu victims.
Maybe that is good, that the Good Little Boys and Good Little Girls at The New York Times have No Clue. Because if they did have a clue they could do more damage to our nation than they do with their ignorant and conceited blundering.
Because I have come to appreciate in recent years the meaning of Memorial Day and Veterans Day. That it is all about telling the mothers of the Fallen that is was all worth it and that their sacrifice of their darling son is honored and appreciated for evermore.
It's all lies, of course. There can never be recompense to the mothers of the sons sent to fight the rulers' stupid wars. Because all wars are the result of the stupidity of the current rulers and the vauntings of the current ruling class. At least ever since, say, 1800, when the economic benefit of loot and plunder for the victors was canceled by the loss, to victor and loser, of the benefits of ordinary peacetime trading.
You can expand the notion, if you like, to the idea that the rulers should be honoring the fallen resulting from every government stupidity, from the lives blighted by stupid government education to the lives blighted by stupid government-caused recessions and depressions.
In that light, I suppose that you could excuse The New York Times and its list of the COVID fallen. Only not on Memorial Day, idiots!
Memorial Day originally began as Decoration Day, when the mothers of the fallen soldiers of the Confederate army decorated their sons' graves. I suppose, back in the day, the graves were decorated by mothers other than the actual mothers of the fallen, since in the late 19th century it was hardly possible for an ordinary Commoner mother to travel hundreds of miles to the battlefield where her dead son was buried. But then, since I expect more soldiers died of disease than wounds, maybe many of the dead sons were buried where they were being trained. Or maybe buried somewhere on the route of march, from a disease contracted from the usual unsanitary conditions of army life.
But I wonder whether we shouldn't start instituting various Idiots Days, to deeply ponder the mistakes and blunders of politicians and activists that got us into wars and depressions and hardships in which ordinary people suffered and died for no fault of their own, and ruling class idiots got celebrated as saviors of their nation.
But that is a thought for another day. Today is Memorial Day, when we remember the soldiers that died in the nation's wars. And we honor their sacrifice that can never be repaid, and the sacrifice of their mothers who can never be consoled.
For the truth is that all the Memorial Days and parades and flags and speeches can never be much more than a patronizing pat on the head of those whose loved ones suffered and died in consequence of various rulers and their conceited posturing and blundering.
And that, I believe, should be the real understanding of Memorial Day, even if it is too horrible to contemplate and to speak about in public.
This year the parade and the observance are canceled. Because Wu Flu.
And The New York Times, with staggering stupidity, has filled its front page with the names of Wu Flu victims.
Maybe that is good, that the Good Little Boys and Good Little Girls at The New York Times have No Clue. Because if they did have a clue they could do more damage to our nation than they do with their ignorant and conceited blundering.
Because I have come to appreciate in recent years the meaning of Memorial Day and Veterans Day. That it is all about telling the mothers of the Fallen that is was all worth it and that their sacrifice of their darling son is honored and appreciated for evermore.
It's all lies, of course. There can never be recompense to the mothers of the sons sent to fight the rulers' stupid wars. Because all wars are the result of the stupidity of the current rulers and the vauntings of the current ruling class. At least ever since, say, 1800, when the economic benefit of loot and plunder for the victors was canceled by the loss, to victor and loser, of the benefits of ordinary peacetime trading.
You can expand the notion, if you like, to the idea that the rulers should be honoring the fallen resulting from every government stupidity, from the lives blighted by stupid government education to the lives blighted by stupid government-caused recessions and depressions.
In that light, I suppose that you could excuse The New York Times and its list of the COVID fallen. Only not on Memorial Day, idiots!
Memorial Day originally began as Decoration Day, when the mothers of the fallen soldiers of the Confederate army decorated their sons' graves. I suppose, back in the day, the graves were decorated by mothers other than the actual mothers of the fallen, since in the late 19th century it was hardly possible for an ordinary Commoner mother to travel hundreds of miles to the battlefield where her dead son was buried. But then, since I expect more soldiers died of disease than wounds, maybe many of the dead sons were buried where they were being trained. Or maybe buried somewhere on the route of march, from a disease contracted from the usual unsanitary conditions of army life.
But I wonder whether we shouldn't start instituting various Idiots Days, to deeply ponder the mistakes and blunders of politicians and activists that got us into wars and depressions and hardships in which ordinary people suffered and died for no fault of their own, and ruling class idiots got celebrated as saviors of their nation.
But that is a thought for another day. Today is Memorial Day, when we remember the soldiers that died in the nation's wars. And we honor their sacrifice that can never be repaid, and the sacrifice of their mothers who can never be consoled.
For the truth is that all the Memorial Days and parades and flags and speeches can never be much more than a patronizing pat on the head of those whose loved ones suffered and died in consequence of various rulers and their conceited posturing and blundering.
And that, I believe, should be the real understanding of Memorial Day, even if it is too horrible to contemplate and to speak about in public.
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