I couldn’t escape some of the media’s deluge of patriotic nonsense at the loss of one of their imperial figureheads. What shocked me most about this outpouring was a clip on TV of young woman crying because the Queen had died. This young woman of what looked like ordinary working class family, crying at the death of a woman who lived in a world of obscene opulence, so divorced for her own working class standards, she would be unable to comprehend that lavish privileged world, a women she in all probability had never met, but somehow swallowed the patriotic fabricated rubbish that surrounds that whole family and missing what they stand for, privilege, wealth and power. Monarchy is an anathema to democracy and yet vast numbers of ordinary people fall for the illusion that they, the royal family are part and parcel of life with us. The peasant and the lord are never partners, the wealth power and privileges of the lord divides and creates a wall where the peasant must know their place, and it is not in the same big happy family. Patriotism is the narcotic used to dumb the minds of the population, create that illusion that we are all one big happy family, special, different from others, better.
Patriotism
No, I shall not die for the fluttering flag,
if truth be known, ’tis nothing but a multi-coloured rag
held aloft by some foolish hand
inciting worker and peasant to kill
on some green and wooded hill,
peasant and worker from some other land.
Nor shall I shed blood for the fluttering rag
that brings out fools to stand and brag
of brutal deeds painted grand,
deeds where rustic and craftsman lie so still
killed by my brothers' misguided hand.
No allegiance have I for the Nation
this man made autocratic creation
that divides my brothers in a world so small,
binds us to a country's cause, right or wrong,
bids us follow its drum, sing its song,
then sheds our blood in some border brawl.
No, I'll be no slave to flag or nation,
have no ear for power oration,
though its iron heel is on my breast,
my back feels its leather thong,
at patriotism's barracoon, I'll be no guest.
No, I shall not die for the fluttering flag,
if truth be known, ’tis nothing but a multi-coloured rag
held aloft by some foolish hand
inciting worker and peasant to kill
on some green and wooded hill,
peasant and worker from some other land.
Nor shall I shed blood for the fluttering rag
that brings out fools to stand and brag
of brutal deeds painted grand,
deeds where rustic and craftsman lie so still
killed by my brothers' misguided hand.
No allegiance have I for the Nation
this man made autocratic creation
that divides my brothers in a world so small,
binds us to a country's cause, right or wrong,
bids us follow its drum, sing its song,
then sheds our blood in some border brawl.
No, I'll be no slave to flag or nation,
have no ear for power oration,
though its iron heel is on my breast,
my back feels its leather thong,
at patriotism's barracoon, I'll be no guest.
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