Not my words, Rudy's; Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go, bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait, in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child. Take up the White Man's burden-- In patience to abide, To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain, To seek another's profit And work another's gain. Take up the White Man's burden-- The savage wars of peace-- Fill full the mouth of Famine, And bid the sickness cease; And when your goal is nearest (The end for others sought) Watch sloth and heathen folly Bring all your hope to nought. Take up the White Man's burden-- No iron rule of kings, But toil of serf and sweeper-- The tale of common things. The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread, Go, make them with your living And mark them with your dead. Take up the White Man's burden, And reap his old reward-- The blame of those ye better The hate of those ye guard-- The cry of hosts ye humour (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:-- "Why brought ye us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?" Take up the White Man's burden-- Ye dare not stoop to less-- Nor call too loud on Freedom To cloak your weariness. By all ye will or whisper, By all ye leave or do, The silent sullen peoples Shall weigh your God and you. Take up the White Man's burden! Have done with childish days-- The lightly-proffered laurel, The easy ungrudged praise: Comes now, to search your manhood Through all the thankless years, Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, The judgment of your peers. (R. Kipling)
copyrighted? Does that mean I can't post Andrew Dice Clay's poem? Hickory Dickory Dock Rumsfeld was all over Saddam's..
No, that's how long it will take for a wonderful, peaceful, model democracy to take hold so we can bring our mean and women home. Press Secretary Nick Sakawitz assured us of that.
Pissing on the very people who protect your right to do so. Awesome. "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -George Orwell
I wish I knew how to post photos cuz somebody sent me one (probably photoshopped) of an Iraqi kid pissing on the helmet of a crouching american. Amusing. Anyway, if you had not failed reading comprehension so badly as you must have, then you might have noticed the poem was about soldiers "occupying" a country and trying to run it. It was not about combat - it was about a crappy job forced on them bymisguided political leaders. Maybe I'll start a thread about "properties of conservatives: failed reading comprehension"
It'd be nice if you, yourself, knew what that poem was about. It was written during the decline of the British Empire's strength which coincided with the rise of American power. Kipling's poem was about his desire to see the Americans take up where the British would eventually have to leave off and "better" the lives of those "half-devils" and "half-children" who, he believed, couldn't do it for themselves. Naive and racist "benevolence" was on his mind, not the occupation and running of another country.
It's actually "We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." Excellent quotation non-the-less.
I would argue that these things were identical in his mind...and unlike some of us, I'll forgo the snotty asides.