Hand to Hand to Hand

From Friday, I kept checking Dear Leader's schedule for some kind of Memorial Day info - nada until this morning. I'm sure he'd rather forget about the whole thing, but some onerous demands of office cannot, I guess, be blown off. Though I wonder who would notice if he had blown it all off. Gang of 500? Doubtful, and disgusting. When the criminal waste and lying and corruption and torture and - no doubt - stuff we have still to discover, are revealed and their agents brought to account, the pathos of the sacrifice our men and women in the military have suffered in these years should make us all weep. It's not the Q'ran that's being flushed down a toilet, it's this nation's honor.

Let guilty men remember, their black deeds
Do lean on crutches made of slender reeds.
- John Webster (The White Devil, V.1)

The brothers in the David painting, above, are accepting swords to serve as proxies for their city, Rome - that's why it is a civic virtue painting; only one will survive the conflict, and mourning is inevitable. Can anyone imagine Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld putting themselves, by proxy, on the line in place of the 1600+ soldiers we have already lost in the Iragi mirage? Or, indeed, any of their sycophants and courtiers, standing in for their leaders? Of course not, and those crying loudest for others to sacrifice themselves are least willing to do anything to help soldiers, help Iraqis caught in the crossfire, and most willing to slander relief workers who are doing both. And this has all happened in the roughly four years since that PIECE OF SHIT we call a President was, questionably, elected. Is that the truth, seditious speech, or merely rude? In my current mood, I almost wish the jerks would give me the midnight knock, just to give me full vent. This Memorial Day, the fallen are not just our troops, they are all of us who let this regime continue, without honor, and with endless shame.

Addendum: I have stood before this painting. Its scale is human, and it is as clear as a poster to read - A-B-C -, even if you don't know the narrative on which it is based. Don't let those outthrust arms fool you - they accept the swords, not salute them, and the brothers' bodies are poised between assertion of the oath and trying to stand firm, knowing fate targets them. I would say, by contrast, that our Bushies fear nothing, because for them there are no consequences - someone else will always pay. O - for those days of "moral clarity," not so long ago, and already rubbish!