Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise
So pass the glories of the world, which are fleeting. This note was occasioned by a series of comments on my link to the Bill Sardi essay on FDIC failures and bank runs coming. Anna Morgenstern noted that the plan seems to be to have Goldman Sachs become the world's only central banking gangsters (banksters) and thereby consolidate total power.
Of course, the history of the free market for the last ten thousand years reveals many such plans and their downfall. The tulip mania, the John Law money, the worthless continental, the assignat and the mandat, the Confederate scrip, the greenbacks, Republic of China's runaway inflation, the disaster with the piastre, and Yugoslavia's five quadrillion percent hyperinflation all seem to be lessons lost on the Federal Reserve maniacs who have increased elevenfold the money supply since 1971.
I was reminded of a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley about a monument to the glory and power of an authoritarian.
OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
I had not been aware of another fine poem by Horace Smith, published about a month later in the same magazine as Shelley's poem.
In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
"The wonders of my hand." The City's gone,
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.
We wonder, and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragments huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.
I remembered seeing a number of parodies of the poem, as well, in a book long ago. About ten years back, I tried to find the parodies on the web, but they hadn't been added. They have now.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Also the names of Emory P. Gray,
Mr. and Mrs. Dukes, and Oscar Baer
Of 17 West 4th St., Oyster Bay.
—Morris Bishop
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: A huge four-footed limestone form
Sits in the desert, sinking in the sand.
Its whiskered face, though marred by wind and storm,
Still flaunts the dainty ears, the collar band
And feline traits the sculptor well portrayed:
The bearing of a born aristocrat,
The stubborn will no mortal can dissuade.
And on its base, in long-dead alphabets,
These words are set: 'Reward for missing cat!
His name is Abyssinias, pet of pets;
I, Ozymandias, will a fortune pay
For his return. He heard me speak of vets—
O foolish King! And so he ran away.'
—Henry BEARD—Poetry for Cats
A wildlife writer from The Forest Lost
Said this: I saw a blue car wrecked beneath a cliff,
Shattered and flattened. Near it had been tossed
Half sunk, a well-drained Johnnie Walker fifth.
Suggesting that the driver had been sauced.
The road above was barely marked at all—
Could he survive? Or was this his adieu?
No butler, bear nor dog had blocked his fall—
But on the dashboard, in his blood, this scrawl:
"My name is Aldo Kelrast—Stalkeroo:
Look upon your work, O Mary, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that pathetic wreck, boundless and bare
The Santa Royale sands stretch far away.
—author unknown
It is a fine theme. Those, like the perfidious villains who work at Goldman Sachs, taking hundreds of billions in subsidies to protect them when they neglect to manage their counter party risk, and rolling themselves in grease when their ships come in (with a big "fuck you" to the taxpayers) should think on these matters. But they certainly won't.
And when the mob comes to their homes, rapes their children, hangs their pets, burns their houses, and tortures them to death with rusty knives, I'll read the reports, shake my head, and say, "When will they ever learn?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y2SIIeqy34
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz_eJqQCCig
One of the few songs reliably capable of making me break down in tears.
WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE
words and music by Pete Seeger
performed by Pete Seeger and Tao Rodriguez-Seeger
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young girls gone?
Taken husbands every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?
©1961 (Renewed) Fall River Music Inc
All Rights Reserved.
I'll tell you when. Never. They will never learn. And that is why they don uniforms and fight and bleed and die.
Their ignorance and stupidity is certainly their own fault. Every soldier has a conscience, and is morally culpable for every person he harms, every crime he commits.
But it is the old men and women, the Harry Reids and the Nancy Pelosis who are covered in blood. It never touches them, shame to say, but they are drowning in it.
divestfromdeath.wordpress.com
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