Swelling The War-Whoop (again)

We thought it appropriate -actually more like a public service- to re-post this at this time while the usual war-mongers are busy saddling the Light Cavalry.

While Reading (again) Dwight Macdonald

Originally posted on June 1, 2012

I thought it correlative to lift Mr. Coleridge from his eternal solitude as had Dwight Macdonald 45 years hence in Esquire (Jan.) what with recent talk of Vietnam commemoratives and having just past the 10 (or 11th?) Memorial Day since our

War On Terror began I had begun to feel a bit feverish with an incessant anxiety (must be the presidential campaign) that reminded me of an exasperated John Houseman playing an intelligence exec in that movie Three Days of the Condor which was based on the novel with more days, anyway, Houseman, I think( I really should check this somewhere- google movie lines? google movie character lines?) is asked if he misses the "old days" (I'm thinking WWII) and he answers not really but he does miss the clarity and it is the way he annunciates cla-ri-ty that I most remember (like I was sitting in his first year law..) Which, somehow brings me to Coleridge as cited in old Dwight's essay which is the name of the poem-"Fears In Solitude". I am just a kid in Jan., 1967, a HS sophomore trying to hit a curve ball on the outside corner and girls faces were just starting to form a forward path (I know I heard that before) and the war -undeclared - was starting to intrude upon my green and silent dell.

In January Neil Sheehan was reporting in the NYTimes that the DoD was expecting the costs of the war to level off by mid-year barring some unforeseen development (the Tet Offensive was exactly a year away- any 15 yr olds you know today know this?).During the same week the Times was also reporting that post-war (WWII that is) babies were coming of age and for some reason that meant a good year for confetti manufacturers and cookbook publishers. A UPI story that first week in January told of how Gov. John Connally, Jr of Texas did not want President Kennedy to come to Texas in November, 1963 (and neither did I). Also in January the good gray paper published an article stating "practically the entire securities industry appears to be up in arms against a proposed government regulation that would require securities salesmen to recommend to customers only stocks that are suitable to the customer's financial situation."(Why oh why did I buy Facebook? at 39!!) On the first Sunday that January 

The Johnson "welcoming" a guest

the Johnsons, according to an AP story, heard a sermon from a Protestant minister expressing great sympathy with Cardinal Spellman's call for victory in Vietnam. And Hanson Baldwin(!) reported in the NYTimes, of course, that plastic baby bottles, complete with nipples and teflon had been accepted for combat use in the war in Vietnam. A few days later we learn that the Marines had moved into the Mekong River Delta(with baby bottles with nipples?). Among other news that month South Vietnam was planning to hold local elections that spring. And in Esquire, Dwight Macdonald introduced the relevant parts of the poem this way,

"England had used its power unjustly, had become insensitive to the sufferings of alien peoples on whom they had forcibly imposed their self-righteous ideas. Just as we are doing in Vietnam." 

Just as we continue to do 45 years hence.

from "Fears In Solitude" by Samuel Coleridge:

We have offended, Oh! My countrymen!
We have offended very grievously,
And been most tyrannous. From east to west
A groan of accusation pierces Heaven! 

The wretched plead against us; multitudes
Countless and vehement, the sons of God,
Our brethren! Like a cloud that travels on,
Steamed up from Cairo's swamps of pestilence,
Even so, my countrymen! have we gone forth
And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs
And, deadlier far, our vices...
...Meanwhile, at home,
All individual dignity and power
Engulfed in Courts, Committees, Institutions,
Associations and Societies,
A vain speech-mouthing, speech-reporting Guild,
One Benefit-Club for mutual flattery,
We have drunk up, demure as at a grace
Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth.

Thankless too for peace
(Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas)
Secure from actual warfare, we have loved
To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war!
...and forth
(Stuffed out with big preamble, holy names,
And adjurations of the God in Heaven)
We send our mandates for the certain death
Of thousands and ten thousands! Boys and girls,
And women, that would groan to see a child
Pull off an insect's leg, all read of war,
The best amusement for our morning meal!
The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers
From curses, who knows scarcely words enough
To ask a blessing from his Heavenly Father,
Becomes a fluent phraseman, absolute
And technical in victories and defeats,
And all our dainty terms for fratricide;
Terms which we trundle smoothly o'er our tongues
Like mere abstractions, empty sounds to which
We join no feeling and attach no form!
As if the soldier died without a wound.

And Macdonald ends his essay with words from this poem -"When will we know the meaning of our words? When will we be forced to feel the desolation and the agony of our fierce doings?"