Zell's speech was plagiarized. Knew I heard that before. A RW favorite.

[thebaghwan]

http://www.nightstalkers.com/nspoems/itisthesoldier.html

[NMDemDist2]

1. hmmm i see n/t

[mazzarro]

2. So the bastard did not have the decency to give credit to the author

Why am I surprised - these people are lords of the universe!

[DrFunkenstein]

3. You Can Say "Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death" Without Credit

Let's choose our battles. And Zell has given us plenty.

[DemoTex]

5. Zactly! Zell has loaded our pouch with ammo.

Like I said before, his speech and subsequent embarrassments on CNN and MSNBC need to be cherry-picked by the DNC's best ad agencies. Shove Zell's words down the GOP's throat. Make them expend capital to defend their "Democrat." He is certainly not ours. They know this is dynamite. They are distancing themselves from Zell as we sleep. Go for the throat. This is a political goldmine.

[Wickerman]

4. Good poem

and who was who expanded the premise there by saying,

I am a soldier so that my son may be a farmer so that his son may be a poet?

A tad more elegantly than I recorded it, of course.

[seabeyond]

6. i bet bushie boys just handed it to him anad told him to

read it. it has been around internet a while. they are always sending this shit out. my brother is one. and i got the kitten one to send him babies they are repugs 3 weeks later democrats, cause their eyes are opened

[Virginian]

7. I like the part at the top.

"...Then said I, here am I, send me."

That reminded me of a speech I heard at the Dem convention,
"... and John Kerry said, 'Send me.'"

I thought Our man Bill was going to get on a roll with the two words "send me." He can really hold an audience. I hope he does OK next week in surgery.

[salcero]

8. It's not really plagiarism

It's not really plagiarism. It's a poem that every Marine knows. Anyone who is a Marine or probably any other branch of the service will immediately recognize the poem. I don't know about it being a favorite of the RW but it is certainly a favorite of the Marines. Zell is a Marine so maybe that is why he used it in his speech.

[pinkpops]

9. Yes, I've seen it before too but it is total B.S.

This is not a poem which honors soldiers. It is a poem meant to stifle exercise of rights. And it is not "the soldier" who did these things. It was those who exercised their rights in the face of those who would deny them. True, at some times in out history there were external threats which soldiers kept from American shores. But more often soldiers have been used as enforcers for business and ideologues. I believe there is a famous quote on the enforcer role, isn't there. This poem is pablum for the ignorant.

[kcwayne]

11. Exactly right

Did Nazi storm troopers spread freedom?
How about the Soviet Red Army?
China?
Britain?
Rome?
Ottomon Empire?
Atilla the Hun?
Christian Crusades?

The list is long and the common story behind armies is that they took away rights from people, especially when they were deployed to foreign shores.

Its the Constitution that provides rights, and its deliberate subjugation of the military to the civilian leadership that insures that this citizen has rights. The minute the army is given jurisdiction, those rights disappear.

Ask any journalist (if you can find one that is an independant truthseeker) how many rights they have to investigate Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, or George Bush's military records. When the military has control of the information, there are no citizen rights.

This is great for people that want to live under repression or be the oppressor as is the case for Zell.

[discopants]

10. careful

Zell Miller began that portion with " For it has been said ..." which I beleive excuses the plagarism claim. There's too much other b/s in the content of his rant worry about this stuff.