Mark Twain in 1907 from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3a08820 / Public Domain
“Who are the oppressors? The few: the King, the capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat.” Mark Twain from Philip S. Foner, Mark Twain: Social Critic
O Lord, our father,
Our young patriots, idols of our hearts,
Go forth to battle – be Thou near them!
With them, in spirit, we also go forth
From the sweet peace of our beloved firesides To smite the foe.
O Lord, our God,
Help us to tear their soldiers
To bloody shreds with our shells;
Help us to cover their smiling fields
With the pale forms of their patriot dead; Help us to drown the thunder of
the guns With the shrieks of their wounded,
Writhing in pain.
Help us to lay waste their humble homes
With a hurricane of fire;
Help us to wring the hearts of their
Unoffending widows with unavailing grief; Help us to turn them out roofless
With their little children to wander unfriended The wastes of their
desolated land
In rags and hunger and thirst,
Sports of the sun flames of summer
And the icy winds of winter,
Burdened in spirit, worn with travail,
Imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it –
For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord,
Blast their hopes,
Blight their lives,
Protract their bitter pilgrimage,
Make heavy their steps,
Water their way with their tears,
Stain the white snow with the blood
Of their wounded feet!
We ask it in the spirit of love –
Of Him who is the source of love,
And Who is the ever-faithful
Refuge and Friend of all that are sore beset And seek His aid with humble
and contrite hearts.
Amen
ain photographed in 1908 via the Autochrome Lumiere process courtesy of Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1966) – The Art Stack / Public Domain
MARK TWAIN began his career writing light, humorous verse, but he became a chronicler of the vanities, hypocrisies, and murderous acts of mankind. At mid-career, he combined rich humor, sturdy narrative, and social criticism in Huckleberry Finn. He was a master of rendering colloquial speech and helped to create and popularize a distinctive American literature built on American themes and language. Many of his works have been suppressed at times for various reasons. A complete bibliography of Twain’s works is nearly impossible to compile because of the vast number of pieces he wrote (often in obscure newspapers) and his use of several different pen names. Additionally, a large portion of his speeches and lectures have been lost or were not recorded; thus, the compilation of Twain’s works is an ongoing process. Researchers have rediscovered published material as recently as 1995 and 2015. One relatively recent discovery was by Shelley Fishkin, Joseph S. Atha Professor of Humanities and Professor of English at Stanford University. Fishkin rediscovered Mark Twain’s 1898 play Is He Dead? in the archives of the Mark Twain Papers at the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley. She published an edition of it in 2003 and was a producer of the play on Broadway, where it debuted in 2007, adapted by David Ives and directed by Michael Blakemore.
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“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
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All the material in this post belongs to Michael Moore and is shared here simply by way of alerting readers to his new program should they be interested. / J.D.
“This podcast, “RUMBLE with Michael Moore,” after just 17 days since we launched it, has had over one million downloads and sits at or near the top of the podcast charts! Frankly, I’m speechless. And sincerely humbled by this response. Thank you, exalted listeners!
“No one in pod world prepared me for this. All I wanted to do was get a few things off my chest, maybe suggest a way or two out of this mess we’re in. Stop the bs and be the anti-pundit. Help an old friend named Bernie who’s devoted his whole life to helping everyone else. I said I tried to do it once a week; but after my niece and her husband bought me a microphone, I just started talking and I couldn’t shut up. Now it seems like I’m doing one of these nearly every day because, in the end, what choice do I have, what choice do any of us have? This is not the time for silence or casual observing or being a bench warmer. This is not the time for cynicism or despair, even though each one of us has every friggin’ right to be in deep despair and to just lose it, but what would the neighbors say if they saw us tying Stephen Miller to a fence or strapping Jared to a drone while the rest of the family is building an ark in the backyard, hoping to get to Greenland — but when they get there, Greenland is gone because someone said it melted this morning into the sea… “but have you tried Iceland? I hear it’s beautiful this time of year!”
“So I’m stuck back here, doing a podcast — not a movie, not a TV series, not a book, not my next Broadway show, not even “Disney on Ice” — no, a podcast! Where I get to say all the things we’re not allowed to say, and I find myself not giving a shit anymore but then realizing that by being here with just myself and you in a tiny studio on top of a movie theater beaming our free speech out across the universe with no censors, no owners, no lawyers, no insurance companies, no boots on our necks — and then, suddenly, there are one million downloads after just 2+ weeks and it all feels so damn worth it because I see an army of citizens with no guns, just ideas and a rugged determination to halt the insanity and restore the imperfect democracy. NOW! And if this RUMBLE can help bring it all together, then so be it! I’ll keep thinking and talking and turning the mic over to new voices you haven’t heard but should. Thank you all for helping us launch — blast off! — this new podcast. Please subscribe! It’s FREE! We have no time to lose. More to come! Much more to come!” Michael Moore
Michael Moore at the 66th Venice International Film Festival courtesy of Nicolas genin under CC BY-SA 2.0
MICHAEL MOORE POLITICAL VIEWS: Although Moore has been noted for his political activism, he rejects the label as redundant in a democracy: “I and you and everyone else has to be a political activist. If we’re not politically active, it ceases to be a democracy.”According to John Flesher of the Associated Press, Moore is known for his “fiery left-wing populism” and publications such as the Socialist Worker Online have hailed him as the “new Tom Paine”. In a speech, he said that socialism is democracy, is Christianity. However, he later said that economic philosophies from the past were not apt enough to describe today’s realities.” MORE [Wikipedia]
Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.
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FEEL THE BERN
For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice
The Poet by Day officially endorses Bernie for President.
Link HEREfor Bernie’s schedule of events around the country.
“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
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