Antietum: Bloody Road

I woke up this morning to a story on NPR about

The Battle of Antietum, which occurred

September 17, 1862.

As I listened, my mind began to compose

some loose lines and contemplations:

(picture from NPR website; entire story at the link.)

~*~

(tablewarefare)

Antietum --

your innocent lands

still recall the

men whose blood you drank 

when they collided, driven by devotion to each

his own's belief in personal liberty:

Some, believing in freedom to all,

                               no matter their color

                                        or vessel for arriving

                                                     on America's shores.

Some, believing that the dark and enslaved

                                     were less than men,

                                                       and, as such,

                                                   deserved to remain so as they served

                                                  the economy of tobacco.

                                                          Oh,

Antietum --

two forces clashed in a 

Bloody Road, each force driven

by his own idea,

a whisper,

a thought.

Thousands lost

their lives; the idea

of equality ruled,

and history turned

towards liberation.

(from: old-picture.com )

So sad we no longer care

for history.   So sad

we no longer require

our youth to learn

to embody the lessons

of our heredity.  Instead,

we barely teach them

to get by; we teach to take a test,

then hurry home filled

with forgetfulness, anticipating

for the next episode of Jersey Shore,

or the next gossipy tweet.

( from: blogofshame )

History cannot be tweeted,

but history MUST be known,

as we stand today on the brink

of another ideological fissure,

right now embodied in

a battle over who should run

this land:

a Black Man

or

a Mormon;

a Son of Slaves and Idealistic Liberals,

or

a Son of Those Who Believe America is

The Promised Land.

But what promise is this?

Where guns are hidden and

(from National Park Service )

divisions are bitter,

the Bloody Road may be

just beyond the bend.

Our history can tell us how

to avoid it, and recent memory

of murdered diplomat,

a murder driven by 

insensitivity

to detail can stand 

as omen.

We have 

no time to lose;

the only answer is to restore

our public memory,

and with it, our ability to choose, 

and our integrity.

FreiKorps: A History Lesson (to Gabrielle Giffords)

I need to share with you

                                  why

this story disturbs me 

so much.

As the United States has become more

fragmented

and rebellious,

and as we have brought back

from an unforgivable war

more and more young men

and women

who are trained to be soldiers

nothing but soldiers,

I have feared that this country might become

a bit like a large-scale Germany

after World War I.

( ron paul )

~ ~ ~

Now, what do I mean by that?

After World War I,

which was a pretty demeaning war,

for most Germans,

the German economy dipped into,

well,

a depression.

Stories were told of how

you needed a wheel-barrow 

full of money,

just to buy a loaf of bread.

Those who couldn't deal with the fact

of the war, or the fact of the decline

in the economy

called it a Recession.

(Some of those folks in denial

stepped into government, and

some of those folks in denial created the fabulous,

functional arts

that were developed during what we call

"The Weimar Era.")

Anyway, but the truth is -

(and don't forget I know this,

because I was

there -- remember 

the lady's age, please.)

the truth is -

it was a Depression.

A bit like what we've been experiencing,

right now.

Yes, 

Bush was perhaps correct

when he declared:

"victory accomplished"

so early in the invasion of Iraq.

Yes, he was right.

In a way,  a war ended precisely when Bush

said it did:

That was when the war ended for America.

In other words:

the war that the rest of the world

acknowledged as a 

legitimate war

ended

when the United States

invaded

Iraq,

and from that point on

the war effort

was funded primarily

by the United States and

large corporations.

This, by the way,

is not a really financially sound way

to run a war.  To make it really

prophetable for all,

you need allies.

But anyway,

so the war may have indeed ended

shortly after we invaded Iraq, and

since then,

everything has been,

well, canon fodder.

Except for now,

as we return our energies

to Afghanistan,

which is where

the war should have been

in the first place.

But I think that's pretty common knowledge

right now.  A lot depends on if

you want to admit that or not.

Anyway,

There was a depression in Germany when their

"Great War" was 

over, and the German populace

was in a pretty nasty disposition.

Politically, they were

fractionalizing.

Strange parties emerged --

At this point,

I'm going to attach a link

to a fabulous slide show

posted at 

slideshow.net

that describes the period between

the Wars 

well:

Nazi Rise to Power: The Freikorps Years, 1919 - 1923.

Yes, if you can watch

this slideshow,

it explains not only

the way the post-war period for Germany

really sucked,

it also explains the concept of

the Freikorps -

wikipedia.

~ ~ ~

What you will note

as you read,

if you read

these links given above

is that 

The Freikorps

was a movement that in Germany

had a very long history.

In fact, some sources would have it

that the Freikorps could be traced

back to the Vikings:

So, let me please explain:

Freikorps is the term

that refers to

"free armies,"

basically the tradition

in Nordic countries

of including and occasionally engaging

small groups of militant men

in real political transactions.

As the Wikipedia entry tells us,

Freikorps can be traced back to the 1600s,

when there existed young militant groups

that existed in the public sector that were considered

"unreliable by regular armies, so they were mainly used as sentries and for minor duties."

 

In other words,

these small groups of men

had trained themselves

as soldiers and marauders

on their own.  They existed on the fringes of society,

and were more or less

accepted.

Sometimes they stepped forward and took

military action, and

the military welcomed them

as camerades

~ ~ ~ 

Since this acceptance of

small militant groups

existed in Germany before the First World War,

no one blinked an eye

when young men coming back from the War,

young men trained to be soldiers,

only soldiers,

and trained by the most efficient organization

in the country,

began creating and forming

small military organizations.

It was considered

right and even healthy

to go out and shoot a gun

effectively.  After all,

you never knew when you

were going to have to go

use it again,

and many of these young veterans harbored a desire

to go back to war.

Some of those groups were

pretty bad news,

especially

if they allied themselves

with some sort of political agenda.

One of those groups allied themselves

with others and 

called themselves

the Nazis.

Indeed, this is how the Nazis rose to power:

many of them knew how to fight;

they were trained well;

they believed in the goodness

of Germany and the Germans,

and they spoke of it

often.  They felt Germany

was mistreated

after they lost the Great War,

and they said that often,

too.

And they spoke the truth

about the state

of the economy.  They did not say

it was a Recession

when it was a Depression.

They were the disaffected,

those who could not get jobs

any other way:

they spoke the truth

about what the common man and woman

and family

were experiencing.

And that was how they Nazis gained

the public support.

~ ~ ~ ~

I have feared,

that such movements would begin to appear

in the United States 

during this miserable,

post-war 

depression,

because we are training a lot

of young solders, and we are

producing some pretty radical

views, using the media to 

express them:

( opposingviews )

I'd like to point out

at least one other

interesting parallel between

Germany then 

and the U.S.A. now:

the early 20th Century 

was the time

of the birth of 

"Mass Media," -

both aural

(in radio)

and visual

(in film)

that, for the very first time

could be distributed

internationally, and

an image, either

aural or visual

could have a vast impact.

Hitler and his crew

knew they had to manipulate this media

artistically, and so

they found artists to help them do that.

They found good artists

to help them do that,

with the most reviled and admired being

Leni Riefenstahl.

With folks like that working for them,

how could they not make

a powerful impression?

. . . and they did. . . 

And the German people

who desperately needed

a message like that

listened,

and voted.

We know the end of that story.

~ ~ ~ ~ 

I have been hearing stories

and getting information,

from friends,

students,

on the internet, 

in the news

that suggests that as the young men

have come back from the war,

they have taken to joining shooting clubs,

joined by their fathers or grandfathers

from Viet Nam,

who know

better than anything else

how to shoot a gun.

In fact,

one doesn't even have to be a veteran

to join these groups,

one only has to want

oh, so badly,

to make a statement

about how bad their life

has been,

and who they blame for it.

Yes, we have small

militant groups emerging

in this country,

some of them have guitars,

some of them

have guns.

I have felt

it was only a matter of time

before

they started using their guns

to make public statements.

When I heard the story

of Representative Giffords' shooting,

I shuddered,

thinking:

oh dear god,

is it happening again?

The Freikorp Effect?

In this, the greatest social experiment

of a country,

is it happening again?

 

 

Of course, the fact

that Americans don't read history

doesn't help matters much.

No,

most Americans don't know history,

or they know

only movie-versions of it,

and in the movie versions

America generally wins.

That's what makes being American

so damned fun.

(Be Aware: this film is long!  But it's good!)

(BEWARE: this film is 1 hour & 21 minutes long, but it is interesting.)

Oh, I beg you:

America NEEDS to pay attention

to accurate representations

of history

right now--

all 

of America

needs to listen,

right now.

Even, and especially if

you are the one of those

who is creating the machine

that will next take power in America,

be  aware of what history has shown us:

Momentary Political Power is not worth

the destruction that could be caused

by ignoring

history

right now.

My challenge to you is not

to use historic examples

to serve your own ends;

the challenge is to look at the events and trends of history

and the events and trends of the present

dispassionately

and honestly

and recognize

when the patterns are repeating

themselves,

honestly,

and not letting the bad patterns

repeat themselves

ever again.

Not in this time;

not on this earth;

not if you want

this earth to survive

beyond 2012.

The Ones Who Move and The Ones Who Talk: A Channelling

You see,

I've lived through so many lives:

I've seen the patterns played

over and over again:

and we're deceiving ourselves to think

that no one knows

what the fuck is going on.

Somebody does;

they're called the Inner Circle.

Really.

A village in any country

displays the same characteristics,

the same stereotypes,

from generation to generation.

It doesn't matter if it's

in China or India or Syria

or Africa or Argentina

or Nebraska.

It doesn't matter.

There's always the bully

There's always the freek

There's always the angel

There's always the geek

There's always the status quo,

the ones who don't know

that the extremes of society

talk to each other

to keep the rest

under control:

The ones who stick out; the noticable ones

who stay in one place all their lives

who see each other

over and over again and who know

exactly

who are the angels

who are the devils 

who are the beauties

who are the beasts

who are the kinds

who are the swingers and the ones

who know everybody's business

in any given place at any given time:

they're the ones who stay and 

talk

to each other.

( penwith )

2.

Those are the personality types;

there are also the talents:

those things we all do well

naturally:

we can be a freak

but be very good

at building a house;

we can be a beauty

but be very good

at fixing cars;

we can be a beast

but be good at ceremony

because we understand the meaning of the sacred;

we can have the desire to create

and not have any hands.

But as long as we are true

to the essential spirit within us,

we have an amazing

kind of beauty

that others see and admire,

and if we could all just be true

to the essential thing we are

then, well, 

we wouldn't have all the troubles in the world,

we'd just all be amazed

at the beauty around us

 3.

The talent we know is true 

to us

that makes us beautiful when we practice it

is our part of 

the spirit that runs through us

like a thread through the cloth,

that binds us

makes us one,

makes us God,

makes us Son.

The Manifestation of the Diverse

features of the All:

we are it.

We are one.

4.

But wait a minute ---

I may run 

far too far ahead

of myself.

THINK ABOUT IT THIS WAY:

Think about high school --

(high schools, in general, are the closest many of us

in America

will ever get to village life):

For some of us, it was

 a misery

because we were convinced there was

something we had to know

but nobody would tell us.

And we didn't know how to ask;

didn't think we had the right

to talk.

So we stumbled through

trying hard to figure out

the social game

while also trying

to deal with our growing

brains;

they grow so fast, but so does

our capacity to reproduce ourselves

so without knowing, our essential personalities showed

while the hormones 

made us insane;

we could control it,

so we became --

ourselves, flagrantly, and mutated.

Unfortunately, high school is also a place that doesn't tolerate

difference much.

So many of us are happy to see it end;

as soon as we leave, and

go somewhere else,

we can hide; we can be

something other than what we are 

essentially.

( dailydish )

5.

What I describe is human

nature, and these patterns have gone on

for as long as humans have been

social, have recognized themselves

as different from each other.

You see: humans,

be they Adam or Eve,

Sonny or Cher,

Cain or Abel,

Donnie or Marie,

Romeo or Juliet

or 

Emre or Esen,

Noah or Abraham

Buddah or Jesus or 

Mary Magdaline, Cleopatra, Ghengis Kahn, Charlie Chan . . . 

or all the other nameless

thousands,

have always had those patterns,

age to age,

generation to generation.

The big difference between 

then

and now

between a small town and

urban mindlessness

is the People Who Move.

6.

The Ones Who Move are the ones

who hated high school

(or hated the village)

because no one told

what everyone knew

because the ones who moved,

were the ones that everyone ostracized

for one reason or antoher,

so they moved

to new places,

full of other Ones Who Stayed There All Along.

The Ones Who Stay take advantage 

of what the ones who stay in one place know:

who are the geeks;

who are the fools;

who are the beauties; 

who are the tools;

and the ones who have power

are the ones 

who talk

and walk

into the right circles at the right times

( about )

They keep a kind of power over

the rest of us,

by talking only

to the ones

they want to share

their power with.

7.

Now the ones who move and talk

are the ones who move into

the inner circle quickly

and gradually create

a larger world.

They're the ones who know, 

well, 

just about everything about everyone

in a number

of different places

and they figure out the categories

of the ones who are in any given place

pretty quickly

because they know that that kind of knowledge

is power

~ ~ ~ ~

You see, I've lived so long.

While everyone else has died and returned

at least four or five times

each

I just trudge on through,

in the same old young body,

but ancient inside,

while your dying always provides you

a new masquerade.

And in your dying

you're forgetting

the growth you made in the years before --

you return to your old patterns,
the social lies you constructed
to mask

the old essential you,

and you have to learn it all 

all over 

again.

(Your forgetting is so deep

because the sleep of death is so great,

that it seems that everyone thinks

their short time on earth

is the only incarnation:

it's the one shot deal.

But it's not:

I meet people, and I know

I've met them

somewhere before; in fact I've bumped into them

many times before,

in their different lives,

their different places,

and they just don't see

they keep playing the same mistakes over and over

again;

they don't recall anything because they slept the sleep of death so deep.

(The sleep of death doesn't have to be

so deep

No sir;

But it is.

If we knew the sleep of death was

but a sleep,

a sleep during which 

our spirits seek out the best

avatar

in which to return and learn

the lessons needed to be learned

on our journey to perfection

as we seek

to come back, hoping

to get it right the next time

so we too can be

one of the ones who stay

and talk

and get into

the inner circle, but also bring

 the wisdom of how to live in the world

sanely and justly

to those who keep forgetting.

You see, I also see that talking

and getting into

the inner circle

right now

doesn't require

memory,

doesn't require

intelligence,

ethics,

wisdom

talent

NO

it only requires beauty

and the ability to manipulate

beauty.

Only rarely does an inner circle being

possess deep wisdom,

and when they do,

they become immortal,

because people keep talking about them

for ages to come.

They become 

stars in the firmament

of our collective souls

the ones who tell us how to do it right,

and how to do it well,

and how to do it,

beautifully

( childrensnewsmagazine )

but also
there are those heroes who show us

how to do it wrong, so we

never do it wrong

again

( fotobucket )

8.

We've just gone through an age

when everyone thought

it was wrong to think

in stereotypes

because people believed

they were individuals and deserved

individual rights.

We'll call that

The Age of America.

It was a 

selfish Age

in the History of 

Humanity,

and lasted about

600 years, give or take

a few; 

it began with 

the Renaissance, the Age of the Growth of the Human Mind.

The only way the collective

Human Mind

could grow would be for 

everyone to believe

that they were alone

abandoned,

miserable.

So each mind had to grow,

on its own

and find a variety of ways 

to get us out of that state
of being divided and alone
and miserable

and into United States.

And we did

precisely that.

***

Because at its best,

the United States has been 

populated

by The Ones Who Move,
those who didn't know

what everyone who stayed home 

was saying and caring about.  No.

The United States 

has historically been populated

by the Ones 

Who Were So Busy Thinking or Doing, so 

they didn't see

what everyone who talked

to each other saw:

they were too busy being creative individuals,

and they refused to see

the geeks,

the beauties, 

the nerds,

the squirrels,

the trains,

the guy 

who sits on the corner and is there every day.

Why didn't we see that?

Because we were probably 

tending a farm, or

writing a book, or

composing a song,

or

designing a house, or

playing with electricity 

in the garage,

and not talking to the people who talked

because we recognized they really had

very little to say.

So we (or our ancestors) left

the small town,

the homeland,

the place 

where patterns were familiar

and went somewhere else and

actually believed

it would be different.

But it really isn't.

We just created a new place

with geeks and freaks

and queens and kings

and nerds and gays

and ordinary joes:

It's all the same, and it 

repeats itself from

generation to generation

in every town, in every 

neighborhood, 

in every high school,

it's all

the same,

even in the land of individual liberty, 

even in America.

* * * * *

America is at its best when people

work together united by one purpose,

despite differences,

working side by side

despite jealousies,

living, even loving, past

the surfaces we fear.

The Age of America is Over

and will never return

if we cannot do that.

8.

We have reached the

Age of the Grid,

the age

of a union that extends far

beyond national borders,

that lives largely in the mind,

transmitted on the weave of frequency

and

if we talk, and talk enough

and talk to the right people,

we will find 

our likenesses,

and the fact we're different

just won't give a damn,

because it just doesn't matter 

in the Age of the Grid.

It's not the Age of Aquarius,

though that was as necessary

to the evolution

of the human mind

as the Age of 

America

was.

The question stands, now:

will we let 

the Age of America pass 

into disrespectful squallor

like the Roman Age,

or will we let it end

heroically

as in Ancient Greece,

and thereby let it last

Eternally?

That's up to U.S.

Right now the Gods of America,

the Inner Circle -

the Ones Who Talk

and get Talked About

are creating an infernal,

eternal pattern

of selfishness and gluttony

Yes, that's what keeps humans human

If only the Ones Who Talk

and get Talked About

could change their ways unanimously,

could right their wrongs

selflessly,

the Age of America would enter

history

heroically.

( theoi )

It's up to U.S.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It's a strange ride to be on,

what appears to be

a roller coaster of

life

        and death

life

       and death

and life

The fear of death would diminish if we could

only see

that what seems to be a windy, 

upside down journey

is actually a clear

straight line,

revolving within

and around

eternity.

Tom Petty - Into The Great Wide Open
Uploaded by RosaCrvx. - See the latest featured music videos.

Everything That Happens

1.

2. 

I'm living here

day to day

because to remember

is to relive

both the hard times

and the happy times

I know I'll never see again.

So I'm living for the smell of the crisp spring air

I'm living for the tear rolling down my cheek,

one more time remembering

remembering

the happy times

I know I'll never see again.

four hundred twenty four years

is such a long time of remembering

such a long line of remembering

So I'm living for the sound of a sleeping breath

I'm living for the pain that tears

my heart right in half

remembering

the happy times

I know I'll never see again.

I thought I'd never love

like that again

But I did:

was it a sin?

and then

you hurt me

and you made me have to leave you

if I wanted to be the

woman

I've worked to hard

to make myself to be

Don't you see?

That's the sin

you sinned

against me

So I'm living for the rumble

of a cat's contented purr

I'm living for the stumble

on an uneven path

I'm living for the glance

of a mother's embrace

I'm living for the trance

I'm living for the moment

living day to day

so I don't have to remember

the hard times

and the happy time

I know I'll never see again.

3.