Comments on Pro Libertate: Shadows and Foreshadowing at Nagasaki

Yeah, I found the reference to all the songs on th...

2010-08-11T14:20:35.114-06:00

Yeah, I found the reference to all the songs on that board too.

While [93] isn't identified, the quotes seem to go to Paul Kramer's book __The blood of government: race, empire, the United States, & the Philippines__, p141. (it on google books)

The claim there isn't that everyone knew that this song was sung by troops marching. It is part of (a despicable person) Albert Gardner's writings, and the most Kramer says is "the song form suggests singers and possible public performance".

So we have an awful song from the scrapbook of an awful guy in the cavalry, and bad things done by soldiers too. could be that everyone sang it, but not sure. Just was concerned that it sounded like every last person who did the water cure was monstrously happy about it, when the evidence isn't so direct.

But thank you for your research. Its interesting sorting out all the ins and outs of history.

Dixie Dog, my brother, You state: "He bath...

2010-08-11T11:33:36.427-06:00

Dixie Dog, my brother,

You state:

"He bathes the Clinton regime with "peace and love" accolades, conveniently omitting Fostergate, the slaughter at Waco, Chinagate, the Lizard Queen's cattle futures controversy festering since their early days as Arkansas' first couple, and the whole Whitewater scam."

You neglected to mention Clinton's 1999 78 day "peace and love" bombing of Serbia!

How's that for American "exceptionalism" at work?

The statists of both wings of the National Party make me sick to my stomach.

I curse them all.

pduggie -- here's a link to a lengthy (and per...

2010-08-11T06:18:20.118-06:00

pduggie -- here's a link to a lengthy (and perhaps somewhat tendentious) academic essay about the FILAM war, in which the "Water Cure" song is mentioned:

http://japanfocus.org/-paul_a_-kramer/1745

Here's the relevant excerpt about the "Water Cure" song, in context:

U.S. soldiers also increasingly defined the entire Filipino population as the enemy. Race became a sanction for exterminist war, the means by which earlier distinctions between combatants and non-combatants—already fragile—eroded or collapsed entirely. As long as popular support for the rebellion was conceived of as “political”—as a matter of decisions, interests and incentives—within an ultimately pluralistic Filipino polity, the task of the U.S. Army was to “persuade” Filipinos of various sectors to accept U.S. sovereignty. That this “persuasion” might take terrible, total forms was something that U.S. officials readily acknowledged. But no such persuasion was possible where “ethnological homogeneity” governed over reason. The Filipinos were one united “race”; its “savagery” placed it outside the bounds of “civilized” warfare: the two explanatory halves converged, pincer-like, into racial exterminist war as the only means to “peace.”

Close ties between race and exterminist warfare can be found in the ever-present racial terms employed by U.S. soldiers’ in their descriptions of violence against prisoners and civilians. In 1902, for example, Albert Gardner, in Troop B of the 1st U.S. Cavalry, composed a would-be comic song dedicated to “water-cure” torture—in which filthy water was poured into the mouths of Filipino prisoners, drowning them--sung to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic:

1st
Get the good old syringe boys and fill it to the brim
We’ve caught another nigger and we’ll operate on him
Let someone take the handle who can work it with a vim
Shouting the battle cry of freedom

Chorus
Hurrah Hurrah We bring the Jubilee
Hurrah Hurrah The flag that makes him free
Shove in the nozzel [sic] deep and let him taste of liberty
Shouting the battle cry of freedom. [93]

pduggie -- Thanks for the kind comments. The &quo...

2010-08-11T06:11:55.322-06:00

pduggie -- Thanks for the kind comments.

The "Water Cure" song does seem like a parody, but there was a lot about the Spanish-American War that, in retrospect, blurs the line between official propaganda and contemporary satire. (Vide the Life magazine cover I used as an illustration, which was actually a protest but could just as easily been a celebration, given the tenor of the time.)

The author of that song, as far as I can tell, was a soldier named Albert Gardner from the 1st U.S. Cavalry. It was described as a "would-be comic song," but not as a satire; this would make part of the "Napalm sticks to kids" genre.

In researching this piece I signed up for a BBS for history buffs and reenactors of the FILAM(Filipino-American) war --

http://pinoyhistory.proboards.com/index.cgi

A thread there on FILAM War Songs listed "The Water Cure Pt.I" as a legitimate marching song from the period, set (as you point out) to the tune of Sherman's abominable "Marching Through Georgia." (Incidentally, the Japanese Army reportedly used that same melody -- with different lyrics, of course -- during its occupation of the Philippines decades later.)

In the interests of brevity, I'll post a second comment about this matter anon....

Mr Grigg: Fine article. One question: Do you hav...

2010-08-10T22:15:33.042-06:00

Mr Grigg:

Fine article. One question:

Do you have any references on the claim that the Water Cure song was actually sung by soldiers willingly doing the deed? It sounds too much like a sarcastic song parody.

Indeed, there seems to be evidence it is a parody of Marching Through Georgia

Life magazine seems to attribute it to S. E. Kiser, who wrote poetry and was published in the Chicago Record Herald. Not sure he didn't mean it with heavy sarcasm.

Thank God for you, Will. Your efforts are appreci...

2010-08-09T21:56:13.526-06:00

Thank God for you, Will. Your efforts are appreciated by me, for one, and many others.

I hope to be able to continue to support your efforts, even in very small ways, for a long time to come.

Keep up the great work.

The Brown Man's Burden by Henry Labouchère 18...

2010-08-09T21:28:38.717-06:00

The Brown Man's Burden
by Henry Labouchère
1899

Pile on the brown man's burden
To gratify your greed;
Go, clear away the "niggers"
Who progress would impede;
Be very stern, for truly
'Tis useless to be mild
With new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

Pile on the brown man's burden;
And, if ye rouse his hate,
Meet his old-fashioned reasons
With Maxims up to date.
With shells and dumdum bullets
A hundred times made plain
The brown man's loss must ever
Imply the white man's gain.

Pile on the brown man's burden,
compel him to be free;
Let all your manifestoes
Reek with philanthropy.
And if with heathen folly
He dares your will dispute,
Then, in the name of freedom,
Don't hesitate to shoot.

Pile on the brown man's burden,
And if his cry be sore,
That surely need not irk you--
Ye've driven slaves before.
Seize on his ports and pastures,
The fields his people tread;
Go make from them your living,
And mark them with his dead.

Pile on the brown man's burden,
And through the world proclaim
That ye are Freedom's agent--
There's no more paying game!
And, should your own past history
Straight in your teeth be thrown,
Retort that independence
Is good for whites alone.

Alan, I LOVE the title of your essay! Incidental...

2010-08-08T20:00:32.523-06:00

Alan, I LOVE the title of your essay!

Incidentally, J. Reuben Clark is one of my favorite 20th Century American statesmen. His was a brave and often lonely voice.....

Another slam-bang, Will, and just when I needed it...

2010-08-08T19:56:14.075-06:00

Another slam-bang, Will, and just when I needed it.

I maintain a blog directed at Mormons, and I'm constantly fighting the gung-ho brand of "patriotism" that is all too often exhibited by my fellow latter-day Saints who don't have a clue that their religion forbids the kind of foreign adventurism they find so laudable.

I linked to your piece above in response to someone who considers the American role as always lily-white, and the enemy as always the instigator. That response can be found here:

http://puremormonism.blogspot.com/2009/03/toby-keith-and-destruction-of-nephites.html#comment-form

MoT, that is a photo of an actual Life magazine co...

2010-08-08T16:13:14.750-06:00

MoT, that is a photo of an actual Life magazine cover. It was actually intended as a criticism of the "water cure," since the figures in the background represent self-satisfied European imperial powers who recognize that America no longer had the moral standing to condemn colonial abuses.

When it came to promoting the core ethical teaching of the Christian faith (the Golden Rule), Twain the unbeliever was consistently a better "Christian" than the statist clergy of his era, or ours.

Here's a link to a blog about the sword Tojo w...

2010-08-08T15:27:42.140-06:00

Here's a link to a blog about the sword Tojo wanted to kill himself with.

http://tojos-hara-kiri-sword.com/?p=525

Will, not trying to litter the comments with only ...

2010-08-08T11:05:39.696-06:00

Will, not trying to litter the comments with only my thoughts seeing as I can't edit past musings, but is that or is that not a cover of THE Life magazine with someone getting tortured? Now that's a shocker. I wonder if anyone from Time/Life would comment on that today? Maybe someone needs to do an updated cover for today with a montage of the past and present.

And having read Twains take on the Moro massacre it becomes clearer to me, and makes me all the more appreciative, of the man who penned The War Prayer. He saw things painfully as they were. Now if only the knuckleheads in our congregations could do likewise we'd not have the sort of government and be involved in the evil adventures we currently are engaged in. But, alas, its been over a hundred years since that time and things haven't improved. The message conveyed? The Church, more specifically mainstream Christianity, has failed, failed over centuries, and failed miserably. How so? Because if it really was doing what it was supposed to do, we wouldn't be having these sorts of debates. It would simply be a given. Should good men an women stop "trying" to make the world a better place? Never! Individual conscience, and not the collectivist non-thought exhibited by our failed "leaders" and their congregants, whether in church or governance, should compel us to move forward.

Thanks for the link to the Album, David. Dr. Men...

2010-08-08T10:36:09.350-06:00

Thanks for the link to the Album, David. Dr. Mengele would be proud. Who knows... maybe he even got hold of a copy while honing his craft at Auschwitz busily "profiling" the sub-humans for his eugenics studies.

Dixie... "Fostergate"? Whoah Nelly! Now talk about rattling old bones. Mustn't we, like the great and mighty "O", look beyond the past and instead forge a glorious goose-stepping future? Let not the sins of yesterday dim our resolve to commit fresh ones tomorrow!

Here's a link to the "Album of Philippine...

2010-08-08T00:26:54.698-06:00

Here's a link to the "Album of Philippine Types" that Will speaks of - view free online:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=philamer;idno=afl1247.0001.001

Finally, a question Will. When are you going to be...

2010-08-07T18:07:36.548-06:00

Finally, a question Will. When are you going to begin your YT (or other video service) video commentaries(?) or debates(?) and such? I'd really like to see you invite for debate, and go head-to-head, on the issues you write about so fervently on your blog here with some of the very folk that figure prominently in your pieces. Sigh...well, we've retained our right to dreams of grandeur for Pro Libertate anyway.

Looking forward to your radio show as always. Peace out.

I went to James Bradley's website and explored...

2010-08-07T18:06:22.972-06:00

I went to James Bradley's website and explored it a bit, time allowing. I tried in vain to quickly get a firm image in my mind of his worldview/philosophy in general and was unsuccessful. He's a sly individual, or is the word shy? Nah, he can't be shy since he's appeared on the media circuit and speaker circuit many times. I did, however, come away with a superficial idea of his bent, which no doubt further ingrains my deep cynicism about folk in general, and well-heeled folk in particular.

He's a fan of MSNBC. A fan of any media outlet, national/international or local (all are pro-Leviathan, state-sanctioned) statist communication medium, is suspect right away.

Reading the first chapter of his upcoming book he writes:

The years in which I wrote Flags of Our Fathers--from 1995 to 1999--were years of peace and plenty. We weren't at war and we were experiencing the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history, which included a balanced budget and a federal surplus. Now, in 2010, things are very different.

He bathes the Clinton regime with "peace and love" accolades, conveniently omitting Fostergate, the slaughter at Waco, Chinagate, the Lizard Queen's cattle futures controversy festering since their early days as Arkansas' first couple, and the whole Whitewater scam. Yeah, I know, it would take a whole book to describe these matters alone, but why shower the Clintler-era with such positivism? Nonsense. Each Führer simply expands on the previous regime's Leviathanic triumphs and it all aggregates the burdens upon we commoners, or us ...uh... "mere" mundanes.

I'd venture to say Mr. Bradley is likely to be someone who favors statist policy in some critical areas, with the dubious exception of war, perhaps. He seems to think peace can triumph with his "Peace" Foundation. I wish him good luck with that endeavor, but I think he labors in vain to that end as I don't believe there will be any lasting worldwide peace until the Prince of Peace returns. But I digress...

About your synopsis of the 26th Führer of the United State, much of it culled from Mr. Bradley's penmanship, I would agree. I never did think much of Theodore Roosevelt and that was even before having an inkling of his secret machinations with Japan in 1905. After all, Roosevelt was a regulatory freight train beginning its first hallowed journeys (Wilson later accelerated and further fueled it) and started the national park system. I think the "green outside, red inside" eco-Leviathan movement got its true genesis during his reign. Nixon many decades later in 1970 only stamped perpetual eco-Leviathanism in concrete with the creation of OSHA and the EPA.

But I'd say the creation of the DOI (an idea supported by many previous Führers, but had lain dormant) by Congress during the waning days of Polk's regime was the genesis of all subsequent centralized Leviathanic machinations that have since germinated pertaining to domestic non-LE affairs, Indian displacement, natural resources, etc. ad nauseam.

That all said, the non-fiction subject matter -- which seems to be loaded with statist intrigue -- nevertheless piques my interest so I may just get Imperial Cruise for in-depth perusal. And, of course, being that it's supposedly a true chronicle, it's got to be more interesting a read than the other contemporary favorites of the mundane mass of our day, such as various award-winning wereseal and unicorn fantasies.

Okay, so it's no longer fashionable to talk ab...

2010-08-07T14:17:46.649-06:00

Okay, so it's no longer fashionable to talk about our grand Anglo-Saxon superiority. We have a new name for it, but I heartily agree with Mr. Swanson on how little has changed otherwise. Even after God has struck us down in the coming years, most will never understand why.

Teddy the Roughrider, another example of giving Ch...

2010-08-07T11:47:02.053-06:00

Teddy the Roughrider, another example of giving Christianity a bad name.

When the bombs are coming in I will hoist a middle...

2010-08-07T10:56:42.603-06:00

When the bombs are coming in I will hoist a middle finger and grab my privates by the concrete wall. Nagasaki was just to test a different style of bomb and was not a military necessity. Civilians were a target in WW2 for all sides from Guernica, Rotterdam, London, Dresden, Hiroshima.

Manifest Destiny and Social Darwinism were stylish...

2010-08-06T22:44:57.462-06:00

Manifest Destiny and Social Darwinism were stylish political philosophies around 1900. Cecil Rhodes was heavily influenced by British professors espousing the latter and worked during his final years, cut short by painful heart failure, to establish the Council on Foreign Relations with the (original) intention of advancing the idea of natural Anglo-Saxon supremacy. American politicians were, of course, compelled to add a dash of force-laden Christianity to the brew.

I've lived in Japan for several years, not as ...

2010-08-06T20:44:11.683-06:00

I've lived in Japan for several years, not as military mind you, and have even stood at ground zero in Nagasaki. It's sobering to say the least. Likewise I've been in Dresden and took in the city from a Cathedral tower and looked upon what even to this day are the remains of firebombed buildings and basements. The flippant attitude exhibited by our military towards the "enemy" is something I believe will come back to haunt them. Never the less it would take quite a slap in the face to wake up the sleep walking masses. Today we have the same attitudes being brought to bear on Afghans, Iraqi's and, heaven forbid, Iranians. Twains War Prayer should be required reading in every church pulpit come Memorial Day. Now THAT would be speaking truth to power.