Eerily Relevant Mark Twain Quotes About America

  

(1)

'Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.'

 

 

 

(2)

'God created war so that Americans would learn geography.'

 

 (3)

 'Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.'

(4)

'Men think they think upon the great political questions, and they do; but they think with their party, not independently;they read its literature, but not that of the other side.'

 (5)

 'It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.'

(6) 

'...it is not proper to brag and boast that America is a Christian country when we all know that certainly five-sixths of our population could not enter in at the narrow gate.' 

 

(7)
'A man accustomed to American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe; but I think he would gradually waste away, and eventually die.'

 

(8)

 'Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.'

(9)

'We have the best government that money can buy'

 (10)

 'In America, we hurry--which is well; but when the day's work is done, we go on thinking of losses and gains, we plan for the morrow, we even carry our business cares to bed with us, and toss and worry over them when we ought to be restoring our racked bodies and brains with sleep. We burn up our energies with these excitements, and either die early or drop into a lean and mean old age at a time of life which they call a man's prime in Europe. When an acre of ground has produced long and well, we let it lie fallow and rest for a season; we take no man clear across the continent in the same coach he started in--the coach is stabled somewhere on the plains and its heated machinery allowed to cool for a few days; when a razor has seen long service and refuses to hold an edge, the barber lays it away for a few weeks, and the edge comes back of its own accord. We bestow thoughtful care upon inanimate objects, but none upon ourselves. What a robust people, what a nation of thinkers we might be, if we would only lay ourselves on the shelf occasionally and renew our edges!'

(11) 

'If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.'

Gay Propaganda of WWII

With the recent SCOTUS ruling making gay marriage officially legal in the US, I've been reflecting on how far the States and many other countries have come in LGBT rights. 

 

It's also been a time to reflect on how cultural attitudes regarding homosexuality and notions of what we consider homoerotic have changed. 

 

During World War II all sides produced propaganda to rally their forces. What's interesting about some of the material however is how homoerotic it seems to contemporary eyes. 

 

However, many people of the time would have seen these posters and pamphlets and not drawn that conclusion. It's particularly interesting when you consider that at the time gay people in most countries were deeply closeted, couldn't serve openly in their nation's armed forces, risked imprisonment if they were open about their sexuality, or in case you were under Nazi rule, risked being sent to a Concentration Camp.  

 

These are some of the more explicit pieces I've come across. 

 

 

1) American 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2) Soviet 

 

3) Japanese 

4) German 

 

 

 

 

American Amnesia- Thoughts on Memorial Day

Yesterday was Memorial Day in the US. For those who don't know, it's a national holiday in America where US soldiers who have died while in uniform are honored and remembered. While that might sound like a very solemn occasion, and yes there are ceremonies and parades remembering fallen soldiers across the country, the truth is most Americans spend the day picnicking, barbecuing, and drinking.  Not surprisingly there is also a considerable spike in arrests related to drunk driving.

 

Like all US national holidays, Memorial Day is not something that arouses any deep seated feelings of patriotic loyalty in me. I grew up in Thailand and while our family celebrated certain US holidays from time to time, I can't say they were as exciting to me as Christmas or Thai New Year. Getting older, traveling to new corners of the globe, all while delving into the darker chapters of US Foreign Policy and History at college didn't exactly make the Star Spangled Banner a favorite tune of mine either. 

 

That said, I don't hate the US. It's a very great country. It's accomplished quite a lot and provides a great deal of philanthropy across the world...for better or worse. As far as the US military goes, I'm wary and sympathetic. I disapprove of the power of the military industrial complex and the fact that US spends more money on its armed forces than the next twelve countries under us combined at the expense of important social services. 

 

On the other hand, the US military is often at the tip of the spear when it comes to responding to humanitarian disasters and catastrophes around the world. I know people in the US army. Some of my friends were military brats. The soldiers I know on an individual level are great people; ideal driven, highly motivated and often very humble. 

 

Overall, it's good that the US has a holiday to remember its fallen soldiers. All countries around the world commemorate those troops who've died in combat. No one should expect the US to be any different. 

 

However, when I see pictures circulating social media showing the funerals of US soldiers, when I catch commercials on the TV from a local news station ending with 'We'll never forget', and yes the abundance of American flags, I can't help but feel discomforted. Because we do forget...and no I'm talking about forgetting that US soldiers died. Nor am I referring to the supposed sanctity of the day being tainted by Americans deciding to clog their arteries with saturated fats.

 

I'm talking about how Americans' remembrance of their soldiers and the wars they've fought in is often tainted by a selective amnesia. We remember that soldiers have died fighting in wars. Yet we deliberately neglect thinking of the wider context of these conflicts.

 The false narratives that have driven us to unnecessary conflicts, PTSD and physical disability, the deaths of non-American civilians in wars across the globe, often unintentional, the chaotic and bloody mess we have left behind in countries we had spent trillions of dollars to rebuild or develop; these are all aspects of wars past and present that we choose not to include in remembering US soldiers who died. 

 

Why? Well, I suspect a number of people would feel that it makes the deaths of the soldiers, particularly those who died in Iraq and Afghanistan, in vain. Somehow, criticizing the nature of the justness or necessity of the wars they died in is an attack on them as people and lessens their own lives.

 

I don't view it that way. A soldier is a soldier. They follow orders. They obey their superiors. While they may harbor doubts about why they're trying to hold onto a remote outpost in the Afghan mountains (Restrepo), they will continue to hold it. Soldiers, regardless of nationality, do not decide where they are sent. They don't choose which field to fight in or which cause is just.  

 

Leaders do that. In the States it's leaders we elect, leaders we choose to go along with. Ergo, the buck stops with the ordinary American.

 

And this is the true reason we dislike talking about the unjust and tragic nature of some of our wars on days like yesterday. Because we don't want to indict ourselves. We don't like to acknowledge that we are the reason these men and women have gone off and killed others before being killed themselves all for causes we told them were worth their weight in life. 

 

I can think of no clearer example of this than Iraq. In 2014, 50 percent of Americans believed that decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was the wrong choice. This shouldn't come as a surprise. Nor should it be a surprise that in March of 2003, when the invasion was underway, 72 percent of Americans believed that using military force in Iraq was the correct decision.  

 

Sure, George W. Bush sold the American people a yarn about Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction but we bought it. 

 

The talking heads at Fox and CNN prattled on about shadowy ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq's military. We swallowed it up. 

 

US officials told us the American soldiers we were sending would be greeted as liberators and that a new democratic society would blossom in the desert. And we said 'Of course it will! America can do no wrong!' forgetting that we are an imperfect nation made of imperfect people and that we knew next to nothing of this country who's future was now going to intertwined with our own. 

 

I lived through that time. I remember it vividly. American news covered Iraqi Freedom like the Super Bowl. The excitement and electricity among the students at the US public school I went to was palpable. We believed in the war. I believed in the war and ultimately we the people of the United States had no damn clue how much harm we were going to inflict on Iraq's people, ourselves and the American soldiers that we claim to love so much. 

 

Fast forward through 4493 dead American soldiers hundreds of thousands of slain Iraqis, and the country we promised to liberate and make a democracy in our own image is engulfed by political discord, the terror of ISIS and even more sectarian bloodshed between Sunni and Shia.

 

None of this changes the fact that many US servicemen and women served selflessly and to the best of their ability. None of this changes the courage they showed in extreme hardship.Yet how many of their lives, which we insist must be remembered, could we have saved if the American people had been more hesitant to plunge forward into war?

Will we learn our lesson and honor the American soldiers of tomorrow by promising them that the next time our government tells us that a war is worth waging we will be better informed?  Will we make damn sure that we have thought long and considered the loss of life on all sides before sending them into fire and flame? I can only hope so. I can only hope. 

 

US Army Spc. Jerral Hancock- Photo by David Jay via NPR

Only the Sky is Forever- Preview

Below is a short excerpt from my new book, 'Only the Sky is Forever'. It's the opening prolouge which provides the foundational story for the book's universe. 'Only the Sky is Forever' comes out this week exclusively on Amazon.

 The Making of the World

The Maker created our world and the two that came before it.

In the world before ours, the people of the land were powerful and blessed by the hands that made them. They lived well off the land. There was game to hunt in the forests, water to drink in the streams, corn to harvest in the fields.

But the people of the land grew greedy, proud and took much more than they needed. The animals and other creatures began to suffer and starve.

Seeking to rebuke them for their trespasses, the Maker appeared to the people of the land and gave them a warning.

'Take only what you need,” the Maker said. “Do not abuse the other creatures or each other and I shall promise to one day give you all my power and wisdom. Become greedy again, and I shall sweep you away and make a new people in your place.”

The people of the land consented to their Maker's offer, promising not to take as much as they had before.

Yet within a short time the people turned their backs on their promise, slaughtering all the animals, cutting the trees and spoiling the soil.

Enraged and saddened, the Maker took vengeance. From the Maker's shed tears Unktehi the horned water serpent of deconstruction was born. She covered the land in a flood, drowning the people.

When all were gone and the lands submerged, the Maker looked over the waters with the Sun above them. Playing four songs on a medicine lute, the Maker created a new world, the one we know today.

The first song, caused the earth to rise from beneath the waters

The second song, caused the mountains, trees and animals to rise from the earth.

The third song, brought forth the new people, other walking and speaking beings and those great spirits that are both human and animal.

The fourth song, removed the heart of Unktehi from her body which caused the great snake to fall into the lake on the top of Serpent Mountain where her body remains to this day.

The Maker hid Unktehi's heart, that the serpent could not return. To this day, the Maker keeps the new watch over the world and all those who inhabit it. 

 

 

Only the Sky is Forever- Plot Summary

“Life is not separate from death. It only looks that way.” -Blackfoot Proverb

For as long as their world has existed, skin-changers Coyote and Iktome have walked its fields, traveled its forests and climbed its mountains. One day, all that they know is put in danger when a force of nature known only as 'the girl' emerges from the South. As the 'the girl' threatens everything they care for, these two old friends embark on a journey with a group of companions to find the key to unlocking the girl's past and their future.

Creation, destruction and finding purpose in the face of annihilation are some of the themes in this Native American Fantasy novel, 'Only the Sky is Forever'. 

 

 

 

Available on Amazon in E-Book Format April 28th. 

The Ides of March- 15 Things that Happened on My Birth-Date

44 BC - Julius Caesar is Assassinated 

 

 

 

1391 - Anti-Jewish Riots Occur in Seville, Spain as a Precursor to the Spanish Inquisition

 

 

1493 - Christopher Columbus Returns to Spain from the Americas After His First Voyage Across the Atlantic

 

 

1783 - George Washington Convinces Disgruntled Military Officers Not to Launch a Coup Against the US Congress

 

1820 - Maine is Admitted to the US as its 23rd State

 

1892 - Jesse W. Reno Patents the Reno Inclined Elevator; the World's First Escalator

 

1907 - Finland Becomes the First Country in Europe to Give Women the Right to Vote

 

1917 - Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia, Abdicates Bringing an End to the Three Hundred Year Old Romanov Dynasty

 

1939 - Nazi Forces Occupy Czechoslovakia 

 

1951 - Iranian Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, Nationalizes Iran's Oil Industry. This Paved the Way for a CIA Backed Coup that would Overthrow Him, Restore the Shah to Power and return oil rights to US and British Companies

 

1965 - In a Joint Address to Congress, American President Lyndon Johnson Asks Both House to Ensure Voting Rights for All Americans in the Wake of The Civil Rights Act

 

1972 - Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Godfather' Premiers in New York City

 

1985 - The First Internet Domain Name is Registered (symbolics.com) 

 

1990 - Mikhail Gorbachev Becomes President of the Soviet Union. 

 

 

2011 - Activists in Syria Call for a "Day of Rage" Across The Country to Protest Against Their Government. At Least Two Hundred People Protest in Damascus and the Syrian Uprising Begins.