Armistice Day

Poppies grow wild in fields heavily fertilized with corpses. It's the reason the poppy became the symbol of the old WWI Armistice Day.

I was tempted to print just the first part, leaving off the last stanza, the call to arms. Without that part, the voice of the endless Dead is poignant, evocative. But in these times, I think we need the call to arms.

We face an emboldened implacable foe, pounding us into dust, it seems, and the fate of the new century truly hangs in the balance. What will the world be like, for example, when four giant corporations own 80% of all fresh water on the planet — free in a "privatized" world to do whatever they like — responsive only to their dreams of wealth and their ego-driven Galtian erections? What will the resistance — you know there will be resistance — look and feel like? (You know the answer; that war has already started.)

Take up our quarrel with the foe: to you from failing hands we throw the torch. Our thanks to Ian Welsh, a Canadian of course, for reminding us of this great poem on this day of remembrance.

GP