Wednesday, September 2, 2020

The Democrat Playbook - City of Brass




With LL I think this as pertinent as it ever was, perhaps more so. The City of Brass by Kipling:


In a land that the sand overlays – the ways to her gates are untrod –
A multitude ended their days whose gates were made splendid by God,
Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall,
And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all!

When the wine stirred in their heart their bosoms dilated.
They rose to suppose themselves kings over all things created –
To decree a new earth at a birth without labour or sorrow –
To declare: “We prepare it to-day and inherit to-morrow.”
They chose themselves prophets and priests of minute understanding,
Men swift to see done, and outrun, their extremest commanding –
Of the tribe which describe with a jibe the perversions of Justice –
Panders avowed to the crowd whatsoever its lust is.

Swiftly these pulled down the walls that their fathers had made them –
The impregnable ramparts of old, they razed and relaid them
As playgrounds of pleasure and leisure, with limitless entries,
And havens of rest for the wastrels where once walked the sentries;
And because there was need of more pay for the shouters and marchers,
They disbanded in face of their foemen their yeomen and archers.
They replied to their well-wishers’ fears – to their enemies laughter,
Saying: “Peace! We have fashioned a God Which shall save us hereafter.
We ascribe all dominion to man in his factions conferring,
And have given to numbers the Name of the Wisdom unerring.”

They said: “Who has hate in his soul? Who has envied his neighbour?
Let him arise and control both that man and his labour.”
They said: “Who is eaten by sloth? Whose unthrift has destroyed him?
He shall levy a tribute from all because none have employed him.”
They said: “Who hath toiled, who hath striven, and gathered possession?
Let him be spoiled. He hath given full proof of transgression.”
They said: “Who is irked by the Law? Though we may not remove it.
If he lend us his aid in this raid, we will set him above it!
So the robber did judgment again upon such as displeased him,
The slayer, too, boasted his slain, and the judges released him.

As for their kinsmen far off, on the skirts of the nation,
They harried all earth to make sure none escaped reprobation.
They awakened unrest for a jest in their newly-won borders,
And jeered at the blood of their brethren betrayed by their orders.
They instructed the ruled to rebel, their rulers to aid them;
And, since such as obeyed them not fell, their Viceroys obeyed them.
When the riotous set them at naught they said: “Praise the upheaval!
For the show and the world and the thought of Dominion is evil!”
They unwound and flung from them with rage, as a rag that defied them,
The imperial gains of the age which their forefathers piled them.
They ran panting in haste to lay waste and embitter for ever
The wellsprings of Wisdom and Strengths which are Faith and Endeavour.
They nosed out and digged up and dragged forth and exposed to derision
All doctrine of purpose and worth and restraint and prevision:

And it ceased, and God granted them all things for which they had striven,
And the heart of a beast in the place of a man’s heart was given. . . .

               .          .        .          .          .           .          .          .          

When they were fullest of wine and most flagrant in error,
Out of the sea rose a sign – out of Heaven a terror.
Then they saw, then they heard, then they knew – for none troubled to hide it,
A host had prepared their destruction, but still they denied it.
They denied what they dared not abide if it came to the trail;
But the Sword that was forged while they lied did not heed their denial.
It drove home, and no time was allowed to the crowd that was driven.
The preposterous-minded were cowed – they thought time would be given.
There was no need of a steed nor a lance to pursue them;
It was decreed their own deed, and not a chance, should undo them. 
The tares they had laughingly sown were ripe to the reaping.
The trust they had leagued to disown was removed from their keeping.
The eaters of other men’s bread, the exempted from hardship,
The excusers of impotence fled, abdicating their wardship,
For the hate they had taught through the State brought the State no defender,
And it passed from the roll of the Nations in headlong surrender!


Some scorn Kipling, not least the admirable GK Chesterton, but he wasn't infallible, unlike the Church he defended. Regardless, Kipling's surely prophetic.

Swords Up,

LSP



10 comments:

Jim said...

Kipling fund a lot of truth.

Undergroundpewster said...

Mobs burn poetry.

drjim said...

I never sat down and spent the time to read the entire work until LL did his post.

It almost reads like a history lesson from a hundred years from now.

"Swords Up", indeed....

Anonymous said...

Kipling has been required reading at every military training establishment of worth for decades for a reason. (I was even given a copy of his collected works by a certain Royal after one Gazetting. He is ‘the’ soldiers poet because he speaks to the nitty-gritty, ‘dirty’ truths of conflict, the men who wage it and the contrasts with those in power and ‘safe at home’, and precisely because those observations lack the PC filters of more ‘refined’ writers).

The fact that he wrote this does not indicate some prophetic gift, but that he was an astute observer of people and peoples. He did not foresee the now, he simply pointed out what had happened (many times) before, and he was seeing happen right then.

And what does that say about us?

It is not just in the major country, culture and world shattering events that that this ‘failing’ is evident. It affects every aspect of our lives, who and what we are.

We “value only that which we must work hard to win”. That which we must labour, strive and suffer for is simply worth more to us than that which is easily achieved, or worse given from the labour of others (which has no value at all).

So the maxim:

“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” - G. Michael Hopf

Leads predictably and inexorably to a people, as now:

“... who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing ...” Oscar Wilde

But it’s not just value. Without the effort, the work, the striving, the test how do you improve, learn, grow to become an independent adult? If everything is easy, or given to you, you will never become capable, responsible, independent.

We aren’t fully paid up members of the human race spontaneously. It takes effort, study, errors, failure, suffering and loss to make us, and even then we’re ‘works in progress’.

Those that fail ‘this’ test remain ignorant, selfish, savage and bestial ‘children’, pawns and playthings for those in power. Just as the Other would want us.

LSP said...

I'm a fan, Jim.

LSP said...

And Bibles, pewster.

LSP said...

LL, inspired me to post it, drjim. Good stuff, eh?

LSP said...

I agree, Anon, he saw the signs of the times in the light of the truth. Are you sure that's not prophetic? Well, he was "telling it like it is" as he saw it.

"Those that fail ‘this’ test remain ignorant, selfish, savage and bestial ‘children’, pawns and playthings for those in power. Just as the Other would want us."

Well said!

LL said...

Thanks for putting this up to your readers, LSP.

LSP said...

Thanks for the reminder, LL, timely.

Speaking of Kipling, the junior school (they call it a prep school) I went to as a kid in England had a dining hall called Gunga Din. It was noisy, so an amusing play on words and it brought Kipling into the minds of the young, ahem, gentlemen in an unofficial sort of way. Good stuff.

But I heard today that the school's changed the name of Gunga Din to "Dragon Hall" because GD was racist. Apparently the sons of Indian aristocracy who attended the Dragon on their way to Eton etc were being called "Gungas." I'd have thought that a compliment but perhaps they chose to ignore the poem and its message.

If I was a typical alum I be cancelling my considerable Georgian Country House tithe. As it is, they'll just have to suffer utter contempt for their wokey, hypocritical, erase history, Marxist race theory, identity politics pandering.