Op-Ed by Smitty Dize
Note: On September 15, 1814, Georgetown lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key, was held overnight as a prisoner aboard HMS Tonnant in Baltimore Harbor, and observes with trepidation the all-night British bombardment of Fort McHenry. Not knowing the outcome of the American defense from the British assault, he waits on deck, and as the dawn breaks, the 15-star flag of the United States remains aloft over the fort. He scratches down a few notes, and after returning home, completes a four-stanza poem called The Defense of Fort McHenry, set to the tune of a popular English drinking song. We know it, of course, as the Star Spangled Banner, our beautiful and somewhat difficult to sing national anthem.
I generally try to stay away from these kinds of things, but the defacement of the Francis Scott Key memorial in Baltimore made me want to say something, and put the record straight on Key. The statue was splashed with paint and “Racist Anthem” was written on the base. In reality, this was a man that was sent out to the British Ships to try to arrange a prisoner swap, once he arrived it was agreed a prisoner for a prisoner. The captain of the ship stated that it really wouldn’t matter because the British fleet was headed their way to decimate Fort McHenry and kept him on the boat. As the evening wore on the ships started to come in, all night they sent cannon shot after cannon shot on the Fort. The next day at dawn He paddled ashore and when he arrived at Fort McHenry the battered flag still stood, it was propped up with dead soldiers. When it started to fall a soldier held it up and was killed and so on and so on. These where Americans being attacked on our soil and they did not let the flag hit the ground.
I know it’s our right to sit, kneel, keep your hat on or anything else you want to do. But good god show respect to our country and the people that have died to protect it. I hope and pray no country comes at us full fledge because all you kneelers, protesters, and entitled people will probably go running.
Paul Plante says
Should we really be surprised, as we read in the venerable New York Times article “‘Antifa’ Grows as Left-Wing Faction Set to, Literally, Fight the Far Right” By Thomas Fuller, Alan Feuer and Serge F. Kovaleski, August 17, 2017 about a “diverse collection of anarchists, communists and socialists” in this country finding “common cause in opposing right-wing extremists and white supremacists,” that there are small-minded and literally empty-headed people in this country to whom nothing means anything at all?
What is an anarchist, afterall?
Wasn’t it an anarchist whose bullet started WWI?
Closer to home, at pp.368,369 of “I ROSE LIKE A ROCKET – The Political Education of Theodore Roosevelt” by Paul Grondahl, we read as follows concerning anarchists in this country:
Roosevelt issued a call to battle against anarchy, the authors of its nihilistic tracts, and those who supported the philosophy of lawlessness.
end quotes
That is Teddy speaking after President McKinley had been shot by an anarchist, putting Teddy into the White House as president.
A “philosophy of lawlessness.”
So I ask again, why are we surprised when we hear about these people in this country dedicated to a “philosophy of lawlessness” acting in a lawless manner, destroying that which is around them?
Consider the Introduction by Kevin Phillips in 2002 to the paperback edition of “Wealth and Democracy – A Political History of the American Rich,” for example:
By the 1990s data showed the United States replacing Europe as the pinnacle of Western privilege and inequality.
This, of course, is part of what made the United States the prime target of terrorism in much the same way as the Europe of czars, kings, and grand dukes was during the period of 1880 to 1920.
Finance itself had been a target before – in 1886, an anarchist flung acid and fired shots at the stockbrokers of the Paris Bourse, and in September 1920, terrorists set off dynamite on Wall Street in front of the offices of J.P. Morgan.
Thirty-four people were killed and more than two hundred injured.
end quotes
There is what anarchists are made of – COWARDICE and VIOLENCE!
Bomb throwers and acid throwers, destroyers, not builders.
Consider the article “May Day Eve Quickly Turns Ugly in San Francisco” by Dashiell Bennett on May 1, 2012:
A day that is expected to be filled with anti-establishment protests all around the globe began early last night with a roving band of “anarchists” smashing car windows and store fronts in San Francisco’s Mission District.
The mini-riot (which was technically on April 30, but still) may have started as a “ruckus street party” organized by Occupy Oakland protesters who invaded their sister city last night, but whoever was responsible appeared to show little regard for the property of either the 1% or the other 99.
Various witness accounts say a group of between 50 and 100 people moved down Valencia St. smashing windows, throwing paint balls, and even attacking an unsuspecting police station.
The blog, Mission Local, has a good round up of the scene from last night.
Many in the Occupy movement are blaming outsiders and “Black Bloc” anarchists who have a habit of hijacking peaceful protests for the own purposes.
Unfortunately, most regular citizens won’t know or care to make the distinction — particularly if they wake to find their automobiles destroyed.
end quotes
So why are we surprised when people in this country with a philosophy of lawlessness smash and destroy that which is around them?
Said Teddy back then, “We should war with relentless efficiency not only against anarchists, but against all active and passive sympathizers with anarchists.”
end quotes
Well said, Teddy, but really, how do we do that today, when we read in a Tribune News Service article entitled “Democrats move to formally censure Trump over Charlottesville” By Lesley Clark, McClatchy Washington Bureau, 17 August 2017, that House Democrats are introducing a formal resolution to denounce President Donald Trump for saying that “both sides” are to blame for a violent encounter in Charlottesville, Virginia between white supremacists and neo-Nazis and the activists who showed up to protest them, when those “activists” happen to be the “diverse collection of anarchists, communists and socialists” in this country finding “common cause in opposing right-wing extremists and white supremacists,” that we read about in the New York Times article above here?
Quite obviously, from that article, it is the Democrat party itself that is supporting and protecting these property-destroying anarchists, so how do we “war with relentless efficiency not only against anarchists, but against all active and passive sympathizers with anarchists,” when those active sympathizers with anarchists happen to be one of the two major political parties in this country, which takes us back to Teddy Roosevelt:
“Moreover, every scoundrel like Hearst and his satellites who for whatever purposes appeals to and inflames evil human passion, has made himself accessory before the fact to every crime of this nature, and every soft fool who extends a maudlin sympathy has done likewise.”
Roosevelt was alluding to Hearst’s newspapers’ relentless attacks on President McKinley’s policies and on the politician personally.
Hearst’s Journal reached a nadir in its barrage against McKinley in April 1901, shortly before McKinley’s second inauguration, by editorializing in favor of political assassination.
“If bad institutions and bad men can be got rid of only by killing, then the killing must be done.”
The scorn heaped upon Hearst was swift and overwhelming from Republican-affiliated newspapers, which blamed the publisher’s editorials for spurring the assassin to pull the trigger against the president.
end quotes
And that takes us to the topic “Yellow journalism” from Wikipedia, where we have as follows:
Hearst placed his newspapers at the service of the Democrats during the 1900 presidential election.
He later campaigned for his party’s presidential nomination, but lost much of his personal prestige when columnist Ambrose Bierce and editor Arthur Brisbane published separate columns months apart that called for the assassination of McKinley.
end quotes
With all that said, why on earth would we be silly enough to think that the “Star-Spangled Banner” is going to mean a thing to a “diverse collection of anarchists, communists and socialists” in this country, or Democrats, for that matter?
I don’t think anarchists have a “national anthem,” and if communists and socialists do, it sure is not going to be something American like the Star-Spangled Banner.
As to the Star-Spangled Banner, every Sunday, I play what I would call a rousing version of that tune on my banjo to a small group of people to whom the words of that song, “and the flag was still there” still have some traditional meaning about living in a land of liberty, as opposed to an anarchist hellhole or a communist worker’s paradise where thought is prohibited, and as long as I have fingers on my hands that can still pick the strings, I will continue to play that song, because as a military veteran from a family of military veterans, it means something to me, and if this “diverse collection of anarchists, communists and socialists” in this country including all of these overpaid professional football players don’t like it, **** them!
Frank Dorsch says
Well said Mr. Plante!!!!!
Paul Plante says
In his concluding statement, the author of this thread states, “I hope and pray no country comes at us full fledge because all you kneelers, protesters, and entitled people will probably go running,” and I would concur that with respect to these pampered and vastly overpaid football players who are kneelers, and the entitled people, that is very likely so.
It was that way during the VEET NAM times, so it is not surprising that it would be that way with them again today.
Like many in this nation, they are here for what they can get out of it, without having to put anything back, which they would claim as their privilege for being born in America, and who can deny them that?
As for the so-called “protesters,” they are a different case, as we shall soon see, and what is surprising, or would be surprising if we were living in a different time in a land long ago and far away where things were not so surreal as they are in this country today, is the supposedly venerable New York Times glorifying anarchists, communists and socialists in the article “‘Antifa’ Grows as Left-Wing Faction Set to, Literally, Fight the Far Right” by Thomas Fuller, Alan Feuer and Serge F. Kovaleski on August 17, 2017, wherein we were informed:
Last weekend, when a 27-year-old bike messenger showed up at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., he came ready for battle.
He joined a human chain that stretched in front of Emancipation Park and linked his arms with others, blocking waves of white supremacists — some of them in full Nazi regalia — from entering.
“As soon as they got close,” said the young man, who declined to give his real name and goes by Frank Sabaté after the famous Spanish anarchist, “they started swinging clubs, fists, shields.”
“When you look at this grave and dangerous threat — and the violence it has already caused — is it more dangerous to do nothing and tolerate it, or should we confront it?” Frank Sabaté said.
“Their existence itself is violent and dangerous, so I don’t think using force or violence to oppose them is unethical.”
When not attending what he called “big mobilizations” like the one in Charlottesville, Frank Sabaté has done ordinary community organizing, advocating prison reform and distributing anarchist literature at punk rock shows.
end quotes
Ah, yeah, okay, I think I get it, but what it is I get isn’t exactly clear.
We have a dude who is a bike messenger, apparently from California, who won’t give his real name, showing up clear across the country in Charlottesville, Virginia, ready for battle, and he calls himself Frank Sabaté after the famous Spanish anarchist, and when the dude is not attending what he called “big mobilizations” like the one in Charlottesville, Frank Sabaté has done ordinary community organizing like Barack Obama, advocating prison reform and distributing anarchist literature at punk rock shows.
So why are we thinking this dude who thinks he is a Spanish anarchist, notwithstanding this is not Spain, and who distributes anarchist literature at punk rock shows, would be fighting for the United States of America while waving the American flag and singing the Star-Spangled Banner?
Why aren’t we thinking that if there was to be any real fighting in this country against an enemy bent on the overthrow of our Republic, for which our flag stands, that it would be against this Frank Sabaté and his violent, anarchist kind?
Why is the New York Times glorifying this anarchist dude instead of condemning his violence?
What is the agenda of the New York Times here, as they glorify this nation’s internal, domestic enemies such as these violent anarchists who call themselves “antifa,” although their tactics are very much those of the fascist Hitler Youth, an integral part of Hitler’s Sturmabteilung, the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, with its primary purposes being providing protection for Nazi rallies and assemblies, disrupting the meetings of opposing parties and fighting against the paramilitary units of the opposing parties.
According to the New York Times, which seems to be venerating these people and glorifying them as the apparent hope for our future, or at least the futures of the writers and editors of the New York Times who are getting some good print from these anarchists, members of antifa have shown no qualms about using their fists, sticks or canisters of pepper spray to meet an array of right-wing antagonists whom they call a fascist threat to American democracy.
HUH?
A fascist threat to American democracy?
From who?
How about from Emily Rose Nauert, a 20-year-old antifa member who according to the New York Times said as follows:
“You need violence in order to protect nonviolence,” Ms. Nauert added.
“That’s what’s very obviously necessary right now.”
“It’s full-on war, basically.”
end quotes
Whose side does anyone think she is on here with her statement that “You need violence in order to protect nonviolence,” which is absurd, like fornicating to protect chastity.
Would she be standing for the Star-Spangled Banner with her hand on her heart, does anyone think, or would she be trodding on an American flag down in the dirt at her feet?
Is she more likely to be one of those who sees the American flag as a symbol of everything she hates?
And then there is the dude named Tony Hooligan, who the New York Times glorifies as follows:
In the days after the violent events in Charlottesville, some antifa members responded with an angry call to arms, saying they could not back down from what they described as the “aggressors” on the right, even if it meant an escalation into gunfights.
“I hope we never get there,” said a 29-year-old antifa anarchist from California who goes by the pseudonym Tony Hooligan.
“But we are willing to get there.”
end quotes
Whose side would he be on if the nation was under attack?
Wouldn’t he be one of the attackers?
As to their use of indiscriminate violence against members of society, the New York Times tells us that in the past, antifa activists have engaged with people who were clearly something less than outright neo-Nazis, raising questions about who, if anyone, deserves to be punched and whether there is such a thing as legitimate political violence.
To those people, anyone they fell like punching deserves to be punched, just because, so of course, to them, there is such a thing as legitimate political violence, so long as it is those people who are dealing it out.
So why do we mistake those people for being “our fellow Americans” who would be on the line with us defending the nation from threats from its domestic enemies, when its domestic enemies are those same people?
When we read in the San Francisco Chronicle article “Masked anarchists violently rout right-wing demonstrators in Berkeley” by Lizzie Johnson, Erin Allday, Michael Cabanatuan and Nanette Asimov on 28 August 2017 that “An army of anarchists in black clothing and masks routed a small group of right-wing demonstrators who had gathered in a Berkeley park Sunday to rail against the city’s famed progressive politics, driving them out – sometimes violently — while overwhelming a huge contingent of police officers,” why are we thinking that these people overwhelming a huge contingent of police officers in Berkeley, California have any interest in who Francis Scott Key might be, or what the words to the Star Spangled Banner might mean to an old veteran like me who has fought for the liberty these people misuse as they use violence against others to suppress thought they don’t like?
What sense does that make?
Does anyone have a clue?