“The one thing I never want to see again is a military parade.”
Ulysses S. Grant - In a conversation with the Duke of Cambridge.
On this Memorial Day we will again see the uber patriotic spectacle of uniforms, flags, marching bands, military vehicles, fly-overs by F-15s and all the other reminders that our secular religion is war. We love it. We immerse our culture in it. We inculcate our children into its glory with commercials for the armed services and first person shoot ‘em up video games. We grieve for a few minutes when taps is played and the old soldiers in their uniforms walk by us trying to look grateful for the honor we bestow upon them and then we go shopping for the Memorial Day specials and gather for a BBQ and some beer.
This perversion of Memorial Day is not unexpected for a nation which has been hijacked by the Military Industrial Complex. From its beginnings as Decoration Day it was envisioned as a solemn occasion, one to honor the dead of the Civil War and later all those who have died during war time.
US Code - Title 36: Patriotic Societies and Observances
36 USC 116 - Sec. 116. Memorial Day
(a) Designation. - The last Monday in May is Memorial Day. (b) Proclamation. - The President is requested to issue each year a proclamation - (1) calling on the people of the United States to observe Memorial Day by praying, according to their individual religious faith, for permanent peace; (2) designating a period of time on Memorial Day during which the people may unite in prayer for a permanent peace; (3) calling on the people of the United States to unite in prayer at that time; and (4) calling on the media to join in observing Memorial Day and the period of prayer.
Just as Armistice Day (...Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations...) became Veterans Day by an act of congress and later proclaimed as such by President Eisenhower on October 8, 1954 and in his proclamation stated;
“…and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.” We have disregarded the message and the instructions given us. We do not “…unite in prayer for a permanent peace”. We do not “… reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace.” We bang the drum of military might. We never ask why? We are bamboozled by the mighty Wurlitzer that passes for a free press. We have yet to realize that war IS the enemy, not some shadowy bogeyman intent on destroying our “freedoms”. We are quite capable of doing that ourselves. No, we must have our Emmanuel Goldstein, someone or something to keep us in fear. Another General summed it up;
“The powers in charge keep us in a perpetual state of fear: Keep us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded. Yet in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened; seem never to have been quite real...."
---General Douglas MacArthur
And so we will again “celebrate” Memorial Day in all its capitalistic glory. Rally round the flag boys! Stand at attention! Salute! In Portland, there will be a Memorial Day parade as part of the Rose Festival. But not just any parade, it will be the
"Danner"Memorial Day March.
May 30 - 1:30 p.m.
Starting at 1:30 p.m. the Danner Memorial Day March parades down Naito Parkway from the Burnside Bridge south to Salmon Springs Fountain. Come show your support as the Grand Marshals, Oregon Army National Guard, Patriot Guard Riders, bands and patriotic vehicles march on. Stake out your spot on Naito Parkway to watch the Rose Festival's newest and most patriotic parade!
There will also be the
Danner Tribute Wall
May 27 - 30
Located in the Rose Festival CityFair, please visit the Danner Tribute Wall during Memorial Day Weekend to post pictures and notes to honor all Veterans (whether living or fallen) and all service personnel currently serving our country!
Fuck me. Memorial Day is for the dead. Those who died during war. We commingle the dead and the living as if there is no difference. November11th is Veterans Day, which is for the living and those who did not die in war. The dead never got to be veterans.
I’m a vet, spent a year in Vietnam. I have seen the elephant and he wasn’t pretty. Many of my closest friends are vets and most are members of Veterans For Peace. We are bonded through a shared experience. We have held a dying teenager or watched the Dustoff take the wounded and dying off to the aide station not knowing their fate. On Memorial Day we gather to reflect on and remember those who died in the wars. We think about a world at peace. We think of the lies that caused those names on the wall to be there. We ask why? We don’t march in any parades. We “reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.”
My only wish is that our leaders would do the same.
Bonus reading
"Let us have peace."--From a letter in which Ulysses S. Grant accepted the nomination for the presidency.
Washington, D.C., May 29, 1868
General Joseph R. Hawley, President National Union Republican Convention:
In formally accepting the nomination of the National Union Republican convention of the 21st of May instant, it seems proper that some statement of views beyond the mere acceptance of the nomination should be expressed.
The proceedings of the convention were marked with wisdom, moderation, and patriotism, and I believe express the feelings of the great mass of those who sustained the country through its recent trials. I endorse their resolutions.
If elected to the office of the President of the United States, it will be my endeavor to administer all the laws in good faith, with economy, and with the view of giving peace, quiet, and protection everywhere. In times like the present it is impossible, or at least eminently improper, to lay down a policy to be adhered to, right or wrong. Through an administration of four years, new political issues, not foreseen, are constantly arising, the views of the public on old ones are constantly changing, and a purely administrative officer should always be left free to execute the will of the people. I always have respected that will, and always shall. Peace and universal prosperity, its sequence, with economy of administration, will lighten the burden of taxation, while it constantly reduces the national debt. Let us have peace.
Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?
BOHICA
Repentant ex member of Murder Inc.
Southeast Asia Division