It’d be wild if that country had a national anthem that glorifies carnage and mythologizes a battle in a bourgeois revolution. Or maybe even if they forced their youth to pledge loyalty to that flag. I don’t know, I’m just spitballing. Sounds pretty cartoonish don’t you think?
The Battle of Baltimore took place during the War of 1812, not the Revolutionary War, and it doesn't really glorify the carnage since the poem is about the American defenders getting their teeth kicked in by the British Navy, but the flag remaining over the fort defending the entrance to the city till the British ran out of ammunition.
Despite that, the anthem still sucks. It was a good poem, but awful as a song. Pledge of allegiance is also absurd.
What can I say, I’m a product of the American education system.
Edit: Lol now after reading more about what the poem is actually about it’s even worse than I originally thought. There’s more verses that become increasingly more deranged.
Wow, it’s genuinely awful. Never read the entire original poem, but that’s disgusting, Key should have quit while he was ahead with the first verse.
Looking it up- holy shit, you're right. And naturally the author was a slave-owner, an anti-abolitionist lawyer, and noted racist, which isn't particularly surprising when one reads the third verse onwards
Truly, America has left no corner of humanity unmolested, not even vexillology
The kind of place that would put "In God We Trust" on the only thing they really worship, which is their money. Oh, but they also worship guns, so throw some bible verses on those too.
Also the US: "So there's these black messiahs that could unify and liberate their people from us. Let's kill as many of them as possible."
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit— and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate— died of malnutrition— because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
What is this from, comrade? Did you create this? This is poetic in how it is written. If you wrote this, well done! If this is from a source, please inform.
Good book but also long and kinda boring. Couldn't finish it. Can only read so much suffering before I too suffer.
Thats not entirely accurate... they also seem to like poitless suffering
It's not pointless. It's just the point isn't good. Slave owning, poverty, imperialism, colonial violence is all rational and benefits them. It just doesn't compute to us because we happen to be human, not demons.
Thank you for creating this! After watching reactionaries and their takes in NaziReddit, this post is a relief to see
Also their flag if they weren't even succeeding at being at the top of GDP growth.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
