Flaunt out O sea your separate flags of nations! Flaunt out visible as ever the various ship-signals! But do you reserve especially for yourself and for the soul of man one flag above all the rest, A spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of man elate above death, Token of all brave captains and all intrepid sailors and mates, And all that went down doing their duty, Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains young or old, A pennant universal, subtly waving all time, o’er all brave sailors, All seas, all ships.

-Walt Whitman 208 leaves of Grass

That passage is one of my favorites. It causes a flood of thoughts. E. Pluribus Unum, out of many one. A nation forged by the sacrifices of so many God fearing men, who like the brave sailors of Whitman’s poem, were guided by their faith and devotion to duty and belief in their cause. A unified republic a nation of Americans.

But as surely as a ship can only operate when commanded by a captain, not a committee, America’s rejection of E. Pluribus Unum, in favor of multiculturalism has steered America into violent, treacherous waters.

One flag flying above all the rest, a return to those principles which guided our forefathers, reverence of the almighty and just belief in who we are as a people based on our common shared heritage is America’s salvation. To continue on the reckless course chartered by liberalism is dereliction of duty and an abandonment of our core principles.

The ship we occupy is America and there is little doubt she has come to dire straits. The William Whiting song, For Those in Peril on the Sea is suitable, beseeching God above for deliverance from the tempest is a start.

William Whiting:

http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/pages/tiPERILSEA;ttPERILSEA.html

It’s easier to read with the original line breaks.

Song for All Seas, All Ships
http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/waltwhitman/13392

… Flaunt out O Sea, your separate flags of nations!
Flaunt out, visible as ever, the various ship-signals!
But do you reserve especially for yourself, and for the soul of man, one flag above all the rest,
A spiritual woven Signal, for all nations, emblem of man elate above death,
Token of all brave captains, and all intrepid sailors and mates,
And all that went down doing their duty;
Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains, young or old;
A pennant universal, subtly waving, all time, oe’r all brave sailors,
All seas, all ships.

In 4 years Hillary became a more accomplished senator than Kerry in 20. Hilary is smarter and, it seems, more able to separate herself from her dogmatic leftist core.

What if in 2008 Hill will come as a Closed Borders candidate? Serious employer sunctions, speeded up deportations, whole package?

All she has to do is make one unprincipled exception (if I understand the term right) in relation to illegal immigration.

Will she beat a leftish Repub like Guliani?

In case Hillary doesn’t run, there is another, even more intriguing possibility for the Dems:

DREAM TICKET

2008 at last had rolled around!
The Democrats their dream-ticket had found!
For President? Who else but old Osama!
His running mate? Articulate Obama!

But wait a minute, you will say—the voters
Enumerate Osama with denoters
Of terroristic threats to our nation!
How could they view this leader with elation?

A strategist will answer this for us:
“You must be kiddin’! ‘W’ raised the fuss
About this guy! In fact, on 9/11,
The Moslems simply made a bid for Heaven!

“They aren’t ‘terrorists,’ they are poor folks
About whom we make real offensive jokes.
Let’s show the world that we are far above
Republicans, that we feel only love

“For our Islamic bretheren! How better
To get this point across than to unfetter
Bin Laden as our latest president!
Elect him, prove you are real tolerant!

“And then Barack Obama—hey, why ask?
An African-American whose task
Is forcing all those damned Caucasian bigots
To shut their traps and turn off all the spigots

“Of hatred and intolerance? To shame
Them into playing our power game?”
Ah, my friends, he is a real marvel,
The one and only guru, old James Carvile!

And so November, 2000 and 8,
Would prove the month in which the sorry fate
Of these United States for good and all
Would be determined: last decline and fall.

Thanks to Mr. Chaves for posting his poem here. I especially like the line:

They aren’t “terrorists,” they are poor folks
About whom we make real offensive jokes.

Somebody Blew Up America

By former (fired) New Jersey Poet Laureate Amiri Baraka.

(This excerpt passes for great poetry today, It is so awful, its funny)

Who own your crib
Who rob and steal and cheat and murder
and make lies the truth
Who call you uncouth

http://www.amiribaraka.com/blew.html

Yeah—who would call him uncouth?

Is Andrew sure the “one flag above all the rest” is the American flag? The poet calls it “A spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of man elate above death,” which doesn’t sound like the U.S. flag but some spiritual idea.

Mr. Auster,

You are correct. I was patiently waiting for someone to question that.

This magnificent poem to me reflects Whitman’s Universalist yearnings. He was honoring the spirit of mankind, of the human condition which all hope to approach with dignity an honor in the face of adversary in the call of duty.

Poetry is inherently subjective and as such I took the liberty of interpreting Whitman’s beautiful Song For All Seas All Ships, in a uniquely patriotic American way even though it is not implicit in the passage posted itself.

I don’t know if you ever watched Victory At Sea. The Famous 1950’s documentary which is a treasure of our American heritage.

The soul stirring score was written by Richard Rogers, the music performed by the NBC Symphony Orchestra. My two favorite episodes out of the many were Okinawa and Design for Peace.

I was surprised to see that in Design for Peace, the final episode of the Victory at Sea series, the Song for All Seas, recited by the narrator, Leonard Graves as the wonderful Rogers music plays in the background as returning American Naval ships pass beneath the foggy Golden Gate Bridge at the wars end. Apparently this poem was also thought of in a similar patriotic way by the producers of the time (1953) as well.

The reference to a spiritual flag doesn’t throw me off, there is only one flag above the rest to me and that’s the flag my uncles fought and died for, the American flag.

Mr. Auster and others would be well advised to rent episode 25 and especially 26. The Victory at sea masterpiece should be required viewing for all Americans.

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/V/htmlV/victoryatse/victoryatse.htm

Victory at Sea Theme

http://www.clevelandpops.com/victory.wav

How lovely to see the Whitman poem. My acquaintance with this poem comes from hearing the “Sea Symphony” of Ralph Vaughan Williams, set entirely to Whitman texts.

“A Song for All Seas, All Ships” makes up the text of the first movement. The others (in order) are “On the Beach at Night Alone”, “The Waves”, and “The Explorers.”

Did somebody say AMIRI BARAKA?

THE INAUGURATION OF AMIRI BARAKA AS POET LAUREATE OF NEW JERSEY

Amiri Baraka! Amiri Baraka!
His politics? Leftist! His poetry? Kaka!
New Jersey loves poetry, so Jim McGreevey
Appointed him Laureate: Ah! Little Stevie
—That’s Wonder—would be a far preferable choice
Because he, at least, has a Wonderful voice!

Baraka is vulgar, Baraka is funky,
Baraka is ugly and looks like a monkey.
Baraka has hatred engraved in his bones,
And perhaps that is why he was once LeRoi Jones:
He cannot decide what to call himself—bravery
In his jaundiced view lies in battling with slavery,

That is with the slavery that the mean white man
Imposed on his ancestors: “That’s why I fight, man:
I hate you for doing this to mine and me,
I hate you because you will never agree
To pay reparations to me and to mine,
To pay what you owe, a gargantuan fine,

That can never be paid! And we’ll never forgive,
Not as long as Amerika lasts, and we live.
That’s why I wrote poetry so very awful:
To embody your ugliness, to throw a clawful
Of kaka right in your disgusting white face
And to bring on the downfall of your fucking race!”

These words, inspirational, drew shouts of praise
From all who were present. The Gov then did raise
A glass of champagne to his Poet, Amiri,
And spoke for the People, while growing all teary:
“I grovel before you! Because I’m Caucasian
I know I am evil: each African, Asian

And Native American! Please be my Savior!
Without you I cannot transcend my behavior.”
And so, Ah! New Jerseyans! You leave the crowd
Of states without Laureates: Do feel proud
Of raising old LeRoi to Laureate status!
So what if his verses are like passing flatus?

Mr. Chaves

That Baraka, poem is very top-down funny. You should send it to old Le(hem)Roi(d), et. al., in the NJ Democratic party.

He claims his “poem”, Who Blew Up America was misunderstood. Oh, well, I said above I thought poetry was a subjective thing. But that idea has its limits as well.

Some so called poetry is rather explicit and more closely aligned to inflamatory rhetoric as in the case of Rap music which I have grown to despise with every fiber of my being.

Occupied Europe out.

HERE’S MORE ON THE SAME SUBJECT:

POLITICAL NIGHTMARE

Sit round, me lads, and listen up!
A raging sadness fills me cup,
And I must share it, or must die,
Because alone I’ll never fly.

I had a dream, a nightmare, rather,
About what I, now waking, gather
Must be the year 2008,
When men did meet this awful fate:

It was November of that year,
Election day to be quite clear,
And off they trotted to the polls,
The voters with two different goals.

One set of voters wished to keep
The old traditions, rejected creep
Of radical solutions which
Cause everything to change and switch.

They thought that we should love this land
With warts and all; on other hand,
That we should hate our enemies
Who’d kill us all by slow degrees.

The other voters, truth to tell,
Thought that our land was bad as hell,
And that our enemies were right
To challenge us to deadly fight.

They wished to kill off all tradition,
And substitute for intuition
A kind of reason, pure and simple,
That seeks out ways to pop each pimple

Defacing what would otherwise
Be perfect! They thought only lies
Emerged from our elected leaders,
And held up signs for foolish readers:

“Elect a woman president!
Enough with men! We have been sent
A savior who will bring us peace!
She will disband the mean police

And lead us with a woman’s hand
So love prevails throughout the land!”
And people read and thought it good:
They voted, “She,” and knocked on wood.

And so, first month 2009,
Ms. Clinton uttered this great line:
“I swear, upon the Works of Mao,
To bring a New Utopia, now!”

New Utopia! From that day,
Only women could hold sway
In institutions that once were
Male-dominated! This the cure

For centuries of male oppression:
All men gave way to SHE succession.
All college presidents, execs
And CEO’s had breasts, not pecs,

Each officer in the military
Replaced by woman, or by fairy,
As those few men, the Pres did say,
Who could hold jobs had to be—“GAY!”

And soon the men of this domain
Spent all their hours back home again,
While women took their jobs from them,
And left them home to sew a hem.

“It’s only fair,” the women said,
“It serves you right, until you’re dead
You’ll feel what we felt all those years,
And you will weep our bitter tears.”

When I awoke from this sad state,
I thought, “Thank God! I feel great!
2009 is far away!”
Or is it, lads? I’ve had my say.

And last, and probably least:

NEWS FROM 2008

‘Twas in the Fall of zero-eight
That something folks did long await
At last transpired and surely sent
The Left to Heaven! The President
At last was of the female sex
Thus terminating the ancient hex
Of men on women. Hillary
Had found a way to pillory
Her sad opponent, Rick Santorum
By showing he’d addressed the Forum—
The Forum for America—
Whose speakers thought one Pa, one Ma
Were what made marriage! But by then
The “Right of Gays” to marry when
They felt like it was widely thought
To be a right the country ought
To write into the Constitution—
“Gay Marriage” was an institution
Practised in all fifty states,
Where men took men to be their mates
And women women; any slob
Who spoke against this lost his job.
So Rick lost his; he now retired
And didn’t work since no one hired
Sexist bigots, “homophobes”
With evil thoughts within their lobes.

Lobotomized, poor Rick became
A token “right wing” man, now tame,
And functioned as the Secretary
Of Sensitivity, so very
Very, very sensitive
Had he become! I’d rather live
On Mars than in the USA
As it became upon the day
That President Hillary was sworn in!
Aside from Rick, all who did win
Postitions in her Cabinet
Were women! And men did regret
That they had voted Democrat,
As now the real power sat
Upon the distaff side, and laws
Were passed in quick succession, jaws
Of female venom clamping down
On their oppressors! White or brown
Or black or yellow, every man
Was ordered to obey a ban
On working in the world outside
The kitchen: “If a man does stride
Outside the home from 9 to 5
He’ll be locked in a huge beehive
Where bees, obeying their noble Queen,
Will sting him ‘til he turns quite green.
And this is what you get, you men,
For all the crap you pulled back then,
Back throughout all of history,
When you oppressed us: Hee, hee, hee!”

Santorum—Rick—woke in a sweat!
“This was the scariest nightmare yet!
Good God! I thought that it was real!
I’d rather a banana peel
Brought me down low than let that bitch
Become our president! Some glitch
I’m sure will come along to crash
Her whole computer, make a hash
Of all her evil plans; if not,
This place will be immensely hot
For men like me who once held power!”
Santorum took a chilly shower.