Pierce: They Did Not Die for What We Have Now--and That's On Us, Not Them

[mcar]

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a20944792/memorial-day-sacrifice-american-republic/

They Did Not Die for What We Have Now—and That’s On Us, Not Them
Ultimately, that's why we've lost the plot on Memorial Day.


BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
MAY 28, 2018


Long after he had done his part at Gettysburg to help save the Army of the Potomac, and win the battle, and probably preserve the United States of America as the United States of America, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a soldier and a gentleman and a scholar, wrote about how best to memorialize what he had done, and what had been done by all the less-famous souls, some gone off to glory and some not, with whom he had served.

He wrote:

Those who will may raise monuments of marble to perpetuate the fame of heroes. Those who will may build memorial halls to remind those who shall gather there in after times what manhood could do and dare for right, and what high examples of virtue and valor have gone before them. But let us make our offering to the ever-living soul. Let us build our benefactions in the ever-growing heart, that they shall live and rise and spread in blessing beyond our sight, beyond the ken of man and beyond the touch of time.

Perhaps it was too much to hope that Memorial Day would continue to be a day of mourning and of contemplation—an “occasion of sacred bereavement,” as historian David Blight called it. In truth, its origins are a matter of some dispute and for years, it was an occasion to re-fight the Civil War over the bones of the people who’d died in it. Like Blight, however, I choose to place its beginnings on May 1, 1865....

They did not risk, they did not bleed, they did not die for what this country is at the moment: a republic of mummery, numb and stupid, drunk on unreality and unreason, and, by its own public choice, led by a ridiculous and dangerous man. They did not risk, they did not bleed, and they did not die for what we have now, and that is on us, not them, and not on the people who sent them to war. It is this country at this moment that has squandered the peace and that has profaned the sacrifice because it has made a mocker's game of both of them. This is not what they died for.

Happy Memorial Day.

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So much in this piece.

[Hekate]

1. Kick and Rec

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row...

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