Pax on both houses: The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

Sunday, June 22, 2014

The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

The Original Waltzing Matilda

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltzing_Matilda

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"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

By Eric Bogle 1971

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG48Ftsr3OI

When I was a young man I carried me pack
And I lived the free life of the rover
From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over

Then in 1915 my country said: “Son,
It's time to stop rambling, there's work to be done”
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
When the ship pulled away from the quay
And amid all the tears, flag waving and cheers
We sailed off for Gallipoli

Well I remember that terrible day
When our blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell they call Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter

Johnny Turk, he was ready, he primed himself well
He rained us with bullets, and he showered us with shell
And in five minutes flat, we were all blown to hell
He nearly blew us back home to Australia

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
When we stopped to bury our slain
Well we buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then it started all over again

Oh those that were living just tried to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
While around me the corpses piled higher

Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head
And when I awoke in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, I wished I was dead
I never knew there was worse things than dying

Oh no more I'll go Waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me

They collected the wounded, the crippled, the maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia
The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla

And when the ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where me legs used to be
And thank Christ there was no one there waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity

And the Band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway
Oh nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
Then they turned all their faces away

And so now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
I see my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reviving their dreams of past glories

I see the old men all tired, stiff and worn
Those weary old heroes of a forgotten war
And the young people ask "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question

And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men still answer the call
But as year follows year, their numbers disappear
Someday, no one will march there at all

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?

***

Alan: If George Bush and Dick Cheney had not waged their Whimsy War on Iraq, thus undermining a stable country that was a staunch ally of Ronald Reagan -- a country with no WMD and no involvement in 9/11 -- the current ISIS crisis would not exist.

ISIS' seizure of Mosul and Tikrit (Saddam Hussein's hometown) would have been inconceivable --- like The Tea Party winning the Oval Office, both houses of Congress and packing the Supreme Court with nine judges all named Antonin Scalia.

The prospect of a 9/11-type terror strike launched on the United States from Iraq or Syrian soil would have been unthinkable except in the delusional minds of paranoid xenophobes whose constituency (spearheaded by Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bolton) was solely responsible for kicking every hornet's nest in the Islamic world, then wondering why blowback was biting them in the ass.

If tables were turned, Americans would have already launched terror attacks across the Middle East. For that matter, the entire Iraq War -- from inception onward -- has been an unrelenting exercise in state-sponsored terrorism perpetrated by Uncle Sam.

During the run-up to The Iraq War, everyone with an internet connection and a folded cortex was aware that the invasion was monstrously stupid -- and grotesquely unjust. (Pope Benedict XVI declared the war unjust. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/07/pope-benedict-xvi-questions-if-modern.html)

Remember "Shock and Awe?" Remember "The Power of Pride?"

Who's shocked now?

And what about the pride - which, predictably, came before the fall - and wasted all those lives?

The dead, the maimed.

The Americans, the Iraqis?

Since the Vietnam War, two lessons scream at us.

"You don't get involved in somebody else's Civil War."

"And you don't start them."

When we forget either lesson, American soldiers come home in caskets having accomplished nothing.

We owe our troops trustworthy guidance, not swashbuckle, bluster and simian chest-thumping.

Fear-driven Christians, cheerleading the Apocaplypse, are the most reprehensible actors in this whole sordid scenario.

They are America's Taliban. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-newsroom-tea-party-is-americas.html

"Pope Benedict Questions Whether War Will Ever Again Be Just"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/05/benedict-xvi-from-now-on-there-are-no.html

Alan: Three star Air Force general friend, AWC, age 95, recently confided: "It seems we haven't fought a "good war" since World War II."

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"Terrorism And The Other Religions"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/04/terrorism-and-other-religions-juan-cole.html

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An armed man waves his rifle as buildings and cars are engulfed in flames after being set on fire inside the US consulate compound in Benghazi late on Sept. 11, 2012. The alleged ringleader in the attack has been captured by involving Special Operations forces. (AFP/Getty Images)

Alan: Whichever "pistol" this young buck is shooting, it's all about: "Bang!" There is no better categorization of the hormonally-driven, cultural illiterates who fight wars than "young, dumb fucks." I know. I was a young, dumb fuck. (And smarter than most...)