The moonbat teacher controversy reminds me of the first time I learned about “teacher brainwashing.” I remember distinctly, we read this poem in eighth grade, in Mrs. Lawless’ class. It’s stuck with me since then, as a Quaker pacifist, how far we’ve come in terms of not being brainwashed compared to the WWI era. I don’t think I’ve ever posted it in FPB.
I’m fairly certain Malkin and the neocons would like us to return to a world where teachers spend most of their time beating the drum and calling kids cowards for not joining the military. (Except, of course, the neocons’ own, who will be as far from the public schools as possible…)
Dulce et Decorum Est - Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!– An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.–
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
