Plus ca change - plus c'est la meme chose !
The more things change - the more they remain the same. I would love to think that politicians voted with a conscience rather than support a dishonest leader or just follow a party line - but I doubt that it will ever happen. As politics goes round and round, so does the world ...... and the actions within it. Politicians propose - ordinary people deal with the outcome.
On 4th November 1918 - in "the war to end all wars" - the poet Wilfred Owen was shot in action and died. Not a "wilting violet" - he had been awarded the Mlitary Cross previously. He died one week before the armistice.

To show the "bravery" of the politicians of today who send people to war on lies, please read the following - Three by Wilfred Owen - theirs is a resonance that comes through, even today. The final one is by another poet who wrote of war - but survived his time in war - Siegfried Sassoon, M.C..

Smile, smile, smile
Head to limp head, the sunk eyed wounded scanned
Yesterday's Mail; the casualties ( typed small)
And (large) Vast Booty from our latest Haul.
Also, they read of Cheap Homes, not yet planned;
For, said the Paper,"When this war is done
The mens first instinct will be making homes.
Meanwhile their foremost need is aerodromes,
It being certain war has just begun.
Peace would do wrong to our undying dead -
The sons we offered might regret they died
If we got nothing lasting in their stead.
We must be solidly indemnified.
Though all be worthy Victory which all bought,
We rulers sitting in this ancient spot
Would wrong our very selves if we forgot
The greatest glory will be theirs who fought
Who kept this Nation in integrity.

Nation ? The half-limbed readers did not chafe
But smiled at one another curiously
Like secret men who know their secret safe.
This is the thing they know and never speak
Pictures of these broad smiles appear each week,
And people in whose voice real feeling rings
Say: How they smile ! They're happy now, poor things.


Disabled

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark
And shivered in his suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
Voices of play and pleasure after day
'Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.

About this time town used to swing so gay
When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees
And girls danced lovelier as the light grew dim
- In the old times before he threw away his knees.
Now he will never feel again how slim
How girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands
All of them touch him like some queer disease.

There was an artist silly for his face
For it was younger than his youth last year.
Now he is old; his back will never brace;
He's lost his colour very far from here,
Pour'd it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry
And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race,
And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.
One time he liked a blood smear down his leg,
After the matches, carried shoulder-high.
It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg
He thought he'd better join. He wondered why.

For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;
And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;
Esprit de Corps, uniform for young recruits.
And soon he was drafted out with drums and cheers.

Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheered "Goal".
Only a solemn man who brought him fruits
Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.
Now, he will spend a few sick years in Institutes
And do what things rules consider wise,
And take what pity they may dole.
Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes
Passed from him to the strong men that were whole,
How cold and late it is  Why don't they come
And put him to bed ? Why don't they come ?


The End

After the blast of lightning from the east
The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot throne
After the drums of time have rolled and ceased
And from the bronze west long retreat has blown


Shall life renew these bodies ? Of a truth
All deaths will he annul, All tears assuage
Or fill these void veins full again with youth.
And wash with an immortal water age?

When I do ask white age, he saith not so -
"My head hangs weighted down with snow"
And when I harken to the Earth she saith
My fiery heart sinks aching - it is death
Mine ancient scars shall not be glorified
Nor by titanic tears the seas be dried.


and finally, by Siegfried Sassoon :


I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soudly through the lonesome dark
And whistled early with the lark

In winter trenches, cowed and glum
with cramps and lice and lack of rum
He put a bullet through his brain
No-one spoke of him again.

You smug faced crowds with kindly eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The Hell where youth and laughter go.

Just think on, both you politicians who send them - and the people who cheer them in the headlines. It doesn't always stop when the war does !
Politicians like Blair, Bush and Brown propose - they are not there to dispose ! Nor are they willing to pick up the pieces. That is both the sadness and the truth ........ perhaps Kipling ( who lost his son in war) was correct :
It's "Tommy this" and "Tommy that"
And "Kick him out, the brute"
But he's the "Saviour of his Country
When the guns begin to shoot !"

Sometimes it certainly seems that way.