Friday, November 9, 2012

Remembrance Day

    Now is the day that we remember
    Our dead, the wars, each falling ember.
    Veterans, Poppy clad, march in sadness and pride,
    Ever mindful of the dwindling companies they once marched beside.
    Men, long turned grey, who remember the youth and strength
    Bourne by them into war, adventure, endless length,
    Ever yearning, at last, for home, for hearth, for peace.
    Remembering all their lives the horrors that wars release.

    Eleven, eleven, the day the guns fell still,
    Leaving only the stench of gas, and bodies, and graves to fill.
    Eleven, eleven and the “War to end all wars,” had ceased.
    Vengeance and madness! Again the dogs of war unleashed!
    Ever rending a new generation to feed their maw.
    Now, war follows war, each more cruel, more raw,
    Tears the fabric of life, slays man, woman, child; death in the rough.
    Heaven itself must cry in pain, “For the love of God! Enough! Enough!”

Steve Osborn
For Remembrance Day 2008
© Stephen M. Osborn 11/11/2008

“I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”


MANY of you are old enough to remember the movie Network. There are two clips you should watch. The first is Mr. Beale telling everybody to open their windows and shout, “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” and it worked! The politicians listened. Changes were made. The second clip is more somber, but lays out the program of the 0.01% in a nutshell.
    If you are tired of reading of women and children being killed by drones, of all males in a country between the ages of puberty and senility being deemed combatants, so killing them bolsters our alleged success and is not considered a terrorist act, if you are tired of Obama’s kill list, of the NDAA and the ability to pick up anyone and disappear them for life if someone feels they are a danger, if you are tired of endless surveillance, no fly lists, no border crossing lists; If you remember the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights and remember that this nation met terrible crises and survived under the above documents; if you remember habeas corpus; if you remember what life was like before the misnamed and unconstitutional “Patriot Act,” and its various clones supplanted the Constitution; if you remember what the world and the US was like before it was given to the banksters and Hedge Fund CEO’s, to rob at will. If you remember these things and would like our world and our nation back in the hands of the people, then it is time.
    It is time to remind Mr Obama and his henchmen that he has just been re-elected, mainly because the Republicans put up an even crazier and greedier opponent to run against him.
    But We the People expect our country back! We want our Constitution back in the halls of government, intact and functioning. We want transparency in government, we want whistleblowers protected and the crimes they expose investigated and corrected. We want the Bill of Rights recognized as the rule and guide of this nation as it has been for two centuries.
    So contact your alleged representatives, buttonhole the press, write Mr. Obama and the various appointees of his cabinet. Tell them We are mad as Hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!
    We want the change that was promised in 2008, not the change we got, with more wars, more dead, more trillions given to the banksters, more homeless and jobless than ever before. We want single payer medical. We want to be free again! You work for us! That is what your jobs are about. Our taxes paid belong to us, you just hold it in trust to help our nation prosper. It is not given to you to spend as you see fit on war and oppression and spying. Legislation is to protect the people, not make them subjects of an expanding Empire.
    Just keep hammering them until they get the idea, and if they don’t, impeach them, recall them, search for honest men and women to replace them and help them get in office.
    It is time for We the People to take our country back, to make an end to greed, bigotry, hatred, poverty.
 Let that beacon of liberty shine again with pride!