Monday, July 30, 2007

Arrogant Prophecies - The Seeds of War


Perhaps I should apologize for continuing to post from the Arrogant Prophecies. It was certainly was not my announced intention, but then, our professed intentions are often in opposition to what we really want.

The fact is, this thematic cycle of poems fascinates me -- the unknown poet spent more than three decades muddling over and composing it. Now that I have direct access in the Third Galaxy to the 21st Edition of the Absolute Truth, my interest has been fired even more.

Finally, there is something nagging me, an intuition at the back of my mind, telling me it is important to get through this rather extensive and complicated work.

It's not that I imagine in any way that the Arrogant Prophecies mirrors our own, real world -- far from it! Consider the opening lines of today's poem in connection with the ill advised, illegal and outright insane attack, invasion and occupation of Wudda-Wrek -- a country which posed no danger whatsoever to that Land of Liberty which later morphed into the United State of Arrogance. Those lines were written thirty years before the madness began and yet uncannily describe the mood of jingoism and bloody hysteria which gripped the country when Ronald Rexona clapped his hands and said, "O boy, we're going to war! This feels good!"

This is so outrageous, I know you will all agree that this in no way could be considered to resemble anything that has ever happened in our own world!

Enough! Let us turn now to "The Seeds of War":

The flower burst into the night,
a blossom budding bleeding stubs of sick delight.

All who see it lose their sight,
they madly rage and praise the "Majesty of Might".

There's an S.O.B. whose got a scheme
to make love live upon a diet of whipped-cream!

Many will say that it's a madman's dream,
I swear to you that I've seen it all on my TV screen!
Let me tell you what they do:
they kill some arabs and then they kill some jews.

The Hole will say, "That's not so nice!"
I can see him smiling as he slowly turns down the lights...
That is why we seldom do
get to see the real killer's face on the evening news...

I beg you to try to remember this,
All the bombs are in the hands of terrorists!
___________________________________________
"The flower burst...", could be understood in many ways. Perhaps it should be seen as an antithesis to the act of creation.

Like Isidor in the Lord of the Rings, what later became the United State of Arrogance grabbed the "Ring of Power" after the War to Make the World Safe for Whatever. As far as the analogy goes, it slowly but surely corrupted that which was good and bright in the Land of Liberty, as well as elsewhere in our poor world.

When this verse was first drafted, the dream [nightmare really] of imperial bullshit which would be later formulated in the "Project for the New Arrogant Century" was already nascent. Other than that, the poem seems to speak of the ways in which Bankers of Illusion poisoned the public mind with half truths, twisted and spun.

"All the bombs are in the hands of terrorists" is more than a clever turn of phrase -- it is the simple truth and the necessity to say it loud and clear burns in me.

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