July 30, 2005

This Day In Military History

Today is the 141st anniversary of the Battle of the Crater. If you don't know what that is, i suggest renting Cold Mountain tonight. i love that movie.

Anyways, the Battle of the Crater was one of the craziest episodes of the Civil War. It was an idea that should have worked in theory, but in execution was fucked up from start to finish. If you think of all the Federal blunders committed during the Civil War, it's a wonder we're not two countries today. But we stuck it out, thanks to a man named Abraham Lincoln, whose resolve did not waver despite innumerable setbacks and intense opposition to the war.

Speaking of Civil War films, one movie that i saw recently, which doesn't get enough credit as a fabulous CW movie, is The Horse Soldiers from 1959. It was directed by John Ford, and starred John Wayne and Bill Holden. i think that's all you'd need to know in order to go rent it ASAP.

Posted by: annika at 08:36 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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July 08, 2005

Where Is This Britain?

i wonder, where is the Britain celebrated in this poem by James Thomson and set to music in 1740 by Thomas Augustine Arne?


Rule Britannia!

When Britain first at Heav'n's command, Arose from out the azure main;
This was the charter of the land, And guardian angels sang this strain;

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never never never shall be slaves!

The nations not so blest as thee, Shall in their turns to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free, The dread and envy of them all.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never never never shall be slaves!

Still more majestic shalt thou rise, More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast that tears the skies, Serves but to root thy native oak.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never never never shall be slaves!

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame, All their attempts to bend thee down;
Will but arouse thy generous flame, But work their woe, and thy renown.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never never never shall be slaves!

To thee belongs the rural reign, Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main, And every shore it circles thine.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never never never shall be slaves!

The Muses, still with freedom found, Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest Isle! With matchless beauty crowned, And manly hearts to guide the fair.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never never never shall be slaves!


HMSVictory.jpg

i hate to rain on everybody's parade, but i don't see that kind of fighting spirit when i look at today's Britain. What i see is a bunch of effete multiculturalist apologists. And a "blame Bush and Blair before the terrorists" attitude that will only get more people killed.

This We're not Afraid! site, which everybody's linking to, is great but you know... so what? i think the problem with Europe in general is that they haven't developed a healthy enough fear of the enemy in their very midst. And courage without action is not courage at all. Britain, i fear, is paralyzed by their own liberalism. They don't get it.

Check this firsthand report of Londoners' opinions by Charmaine Yoest at Reasoned Audacity.

'It's Tony Blair's fault! They've killed 100,000 people [repeating the now discredited Lancet statistic] it's like a boomerang.' Later she repeated this, talking about 'killing innocent people' and 'invading other peoples' country . . .'

When we asked her the question about the calm, she shrugged too. 'We're used to it,' she replied. 'Americans get patriotic over anything silly.'

9/11 was silly? What can i say? i know that was one ignorant person's reaction, but it's so typical of what i hear all the time from people. Invading other people's countries is the cause of terrorism? That idea has been debunked so many times that it's almost useless to keep trying. People have a choice about where they get their information and whom they can choose to believe. It seems that in England, and in Europe in general, they consistently choose wrong.

So to my original question. What happened to that Britain that will never never never be enslaved? Maybe it's still there, below the BBC-ified surface. i knew a Brit in undergrad, a huge Celtic fan, who loved to sing the chorus of Rule Britannia at the top of his lungs when he got a few Guinesses in him. i don't know whatever happened to that guy, but i'd bet he be as pro-kicking ass as Christopher Hitchens was on the Ron Reagan show today.

A poster at the We're not Afraid! site quoted a recent movie with its own anti-Bush/Blair undertones:

The irony is too obvious to pass up. As most of you remember, in The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda also said

"You will be..."

You will be afraid, Britain, if you don't stop working against this "War On Terror." If you don't stop blaming Bush and Blair for the actions of murdering criminals. If you don't demand truth from the BBC. If you decide to emulate the Spanish, who by the way, will be attacked again. (OBL himself has said that he wants Andalusia back. Don't think he's forgotten about Spain.)

And look, memo to the rest of Europe: You're all targets. If you don't like the way we're doing things, if you think we've been sidetracked by Iraq and we should be concentrating on Afghanistan, nobody is stopping you from going over there and taking care of the problem yourself. You all got armies don't you? Go get OBL. He's your problem too. Or is it all you can do to criticize Bush and Blair, who at least are trying to do something?

Posted by: annika at 06:25 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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