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The origin of Mother's Day is a story that few people know. Its true intention and purpose has been exhumed by writers such as Geov Parrish and first rate women's action groups such as Code Pink.
Julia Ward Howe, a mother in Boston, issued the following proclamation in 1870 during the aftermath of the Civil War which claimed the lives of over 600,000 American fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands.
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Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
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Damn nation Julia, get on with your bad self! Did you get all that? I know you s kimmed it. Reread it right now and pay attention to every word. The great and general interests of peace are the real origins and meaning of Mother's Day. Our modern version, a Sunday in which flowers and "I Love You" cards go out to our mothers, is a pretty fantastic inheritance of Julia Ward Howe's original intent in its own right. Who is going to argue that the mothers of the world deserve a gift and night out? Not me.
As such, this column will balance Julia Ward Howe's historic call to debate (you thought it was going to be "arms" didn't you?) and our more recent traditions. It will progress in a way another outstanding woman, Tina Turner, famously describes:
You know, every now and then, I think you may like to hear something from us, nice and easy. There's just one thing, you see we never ever do nothing nice and easy. We always do it nice and rough, and we're going to take the beginning of this song and do it... easy, but then we're going to do the finish... rough. That's the way we do "Proud Mary.
And that's the way we do Crackpot Press. We are in B
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Think you don’t have time? Elizabeth Cady Stanton, mother of 7, still managed to start the women’s rights movement  |
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olgia Eleven of the Inferno after all (please see introductory article), and though I do not normally discuss the Canto and Circle around which I build a column, on this occasion I feel the need to explain.
I've chosen Dante's Tyrants -- Dylan's Masters of War. This Mother's Day is certainly a celebration, for many reasons some of which we will get to here, but for 1,595 American mothers it will only be a painful reminder that their son or daughter is gone. It will be a day of insufferable pain. I dedicate this column to these mothers. And thousands of miles away, this pain will spread over sands and cities and increase exponentially over each square mile. Nobody can say for sure how many are gone. Nobody is counting. I dedicate this column to these mothers as well. And to all of them I promise I will try and be better man.
This is the nice and easy part. I'd like to tell you about the mothers that are the most dear to me -- my mother (of course!), my three older sisters, and my sister-in-law. I'm going to tell you the thing I most admire about each of them.
My Mom: I am the son of immigrants. My mother was unable to finish college because she married my older father (just by several years, but enough) and came to the United States before she had a chance to finish. When she arrived she did not know the English language. She had and raised five children -- the three aforementioned older perfect sisters and two sons -- your not so humble narrator and his fraternal twin brother. At age forty-five, my Mom decided that she wanted to return to school and finish her college undergraduate degree. She did just that -- graduating magna cum laude and sharing the college's President's Cup, the award given to the most outstanding students, with another woman in her 40s. Do you love that? I do. But she didn't stop there. When all was said and done, when all papers had been written, when all the degrees had been distributed, my Mom, the woman who still can't say the letter "h," received her PhD in Psychology the same day my brother and I graduated from college. She did not attend her own graduation. She attended mine (my brother's ceremony was that day many states away, but he graduated a semester early and honestly had no desire to be at his ceremony). That is the inspiration and lesson I carry with me into my adulthood from her -- that you can choose to do anything you want at any age you want and you can exceed your own expectations. When I think of age 45, I do not feel some kind of impending mid life crisis, I think about the PhD program I plan on enrolling in, and wonder what field I will choose, and I wonder what will happen between now and then that will determine that fiel
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Rose K ennedy and Son |
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d. But I will do it and it will be for only one reason -- so I that can force people to call me Doctor! I almost can't wait. Almost. Yes, my Mom is beautiful.
Sister #1: Sister #1 is ten years older than me and is what you would call a free, but very tough, spirit. She was and/or is a talented ballet dancer, painter, photographer, writer, and baseball fanatic. One time my parents banned my brother and I from her room because she was introducing us to very loud punk rock and at that moment I knew I would be just like her. I've always wanted to be just like her. But that is only a dream, because no matter what heights I could ever attain in this life, I would always look up to find her. She waited until she was age 40 to have her first, and only, child -- an absolutely brilliant son. He turns 5 on June 30th. He knows every baseball player in the Majors and all the minor league teams within a one hundred mile radius of his house. Did I mention he has a bigger vocabulary than me? Which is not surprising given his mother. Oh -- did I not mention that she is eloquent and can speak like an aristocrat one moment and curse like a sailor the next? Yes, Sister #1 is beautiful, and he is beautiful.
Sister #2: Sister #2 is seven years older than me and gave me literature and the Beatles, which are strong enough on their own merits, but even those powerhouses do not rise to the level of what I admire most about her. She had medical problems growing up, and though they were serious, and sometimes dangerous, they did not stop her from excelling in private high school, college, and law school. Not to mention her sense of humor and the fact that she just shines like a new silver dollar. Just like my mother, and certainly Sister #1, she can not be stopped. She has three amazing children. A son (9) who is the perfect combination of introvert and extrovert, a kind angel of a daughter (7) -- my goddaughter so don't mess with her or I'll bury you in the desert. I'm just kidding but not really -- and her little sister (4) who can only be described as completely crazy and, I am not afraid to say, an official future trouble maker of epic proportions,. We are all bracing ourselves. She definitely has some of her Uncle in her. What I love most about these kids is how kind and big hearted they are -- just like Sister #2. They will love books and music. And college basketball! But most of all they will love other people. Yes, Sister #2 is beautiful. And he, and she, and she are beautiful.
Sister #3: Sister #3 is only two years older than me. Two years. I know you know what that means. That's right. Trouble. Sister #3 was the social butterfly. She knew people at every school in town, and in turn, each of them spent at least one night in my parent's house partying like rock stars (not to mention your not so humble narrator and his twin brother). She was the lucky sister, and what I mean by that is that she won everything and somehow gold would fall into her lap. It's like the planets would align just for her. She won three TVs in college raffles alone, no lie. But no one is lucky all the time, and it must have been difficult to put up that happy face when the chips were down with all that teasing, but s
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Some words from Mother Theresa:
I do, because I must do something.
People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Love them anyway.
Give the world the best you've have and you'll be kicked in the teeth. Give the best you've got anyway.
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he always did with dignity and humor. She parlayed all her amazing luck into a long successful career working for the American Red Cross, the United Way, and now in a private company that helps non-profits who help their communities in every way imaginable raise money to carry our their important and altruistic work. She has two incredible children -- a little girl (2) with blond Shirley Temple locks who looks like she's just been grabbed out of a Renaissance painting, and tiny Henry (9 months) who is almost as big Sister #3, but she takes care of him while her husband takes care of my tiny precious niece. She IS lucky, and bold, and fearless. Yes, Sister #2 is beautiful. And she, and he are beautiful.
Sister-In-Law: Sister-In-Law has been burdened by the Cosmos to shepherd my twin brother through life. She does not ever have to prove her courage in any other way, just as my wife is surely on her way to the Congressional Medal of Honor. I am convinced she can read his mind. I admire my Sister-In-Law because, like all modern women these days, she is ready to take on the challenges of motherhood, education, and career (not to mention move states several times). She has impeccable taste. I don't care how snobby that sounds, but I can not emphasize enough how important that is. There is a reason Plato and Aristotle wrote abut aesthetics.
Read them. She has two wondrous children -- a daughter (3 1/2) that is so pretty and effervescent its sickening, and a son -- just born weeks ago -- the heir to our family name. A name, like so many immigrants, unique only to our family's experience in America. It is a name we know he will carry to glory as a) a college basketball player, b) a Major League baseball player, c) a Senator (on second thought...), d) an Astronaut, e) a Rock Star, f) a poet, g) a doctor, h) a philosopher, i) a peace maker. But no pressure. Yes, Sister-In-Law is beautiful, and she, and he is beautiful.
I do not have children yet, but I do want to give my wife an honorable mention for taking care of our kitties, as this is simply smart politics. I must stop there, however, because if I start writing about my wife I'm liable to fill up the internet, so I will conclude by saying that I love them all more than even love will ever know. And wouldn't you know it, my father, my brother, and my brother-in-laws aren't too shabby either. Yes, my family is beautiful, and America is beautiful, and she has been a very kind and generous mother to us all.
The nice and easy part is over. Now we must finish hard, and I mean HARD, because nothing in life is ever “nice and easy.”
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Upon his right breast Chiron wheeled about,
And said to Nessus: "Turn and do thou guide them,
And warn aside, if other band may meet you."
We with our faithful escort onward moved
Along the brink of the vermilion boiling,
Wherein the boiled were uttering loud laments.
People I saw within up to the eyebrows,
And the great Centaur said: "Tyrants are these,
Who dealt in bloodshed and in pillaging.
Here they lament their pitiless mischiefs; here
Is Alexander, and fierce Dionysius
Who upon Sicily brought dolorous years.
Canto XII, Circle Seven, The Tyrants
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I like to think of this column as being a chaotic combination of two things, the literary and the inflammatory, so it is completely against my nature to offer up statistics, but if you pay attention numbers can sometimes tell a story worthy of Homer himself (see how I slipped that in?).
A great unfolding tragedy of willful ignorance has muted this nation's never perfect but always striving to be perfect soul. Our collective fears are buried deep inside us, and we do not want to think, or contemplate, and certainly not accept what is happening in our name in Iraq and Afghanistan (let us not forget our soldiers in Afghanistan!). There is, I believe, a mass cultural denial of the human cost, the monetary cost, and the spiritual cost. We have walked this long road before, but somehow we forgot yet again how much we swore we would never walk it again. This truth really hit home for me when I read the following:
President Bush beat Senator John Kerry 59% to 40% among married voters with children under the age of 18. Among married women with minors, 56% to 42%.
The same source goes on to report that American mothers' public enemy number one is popular culture. All that violence and sex in television, movies, and music seems to be their most pressing concern.The mothers of this country are more concerned with bad television, fake violence, and the human body than the growing and very real possibility that their children will grow up to be sacrificed in a series of ill advised imperial wars dreamt up by "intellectual" sociopaths with no military experience.
Let's look at the next set of numbers:
Invasion of Iraq: March, 2003 American dead 1,595
Number of years in Iraq: 2 years, 1 month Withdrawal from Iraq: ???
Year the first American advisors were sent to Vietnam: 1950
First American dead in the Vietnam War: 1959
1961-1965: 1,864 (KIA & Non-hostile)
1966: 6,053
1967: 11,058
1968: 16,511
1969: 11,527
1970: 6,065
1971: 2,348
1972: 548
Total dead: 54,112
Year last American forces leave Vietnam: 1973
Evacuation of the US Embassy: 1975
Number of years of Vietnam conflict: 25
Okay, now reread them. See the plot? See the story? Do you see the tragic characters? They are your children. See history repeating itself? I certainly hope not, but consider the fact that mankind has been engaged in continuous warfare, in one part of the world or another, since 3000 B.C. (and that is just what we have on record).
Our government's estimate of how long our troops will be in Iraq vary from 2 - 10 years? That is hardly reassuring. Given the government's failure rate with other preemptive war predictions (WMD? liberators? invasion will pay for itself?), and given that the insurgency will soon give way to civil war, I predict, against all of my most genuine hopes, that it will be 10 years... at least.
Let's go back to the Vietnam numbers. If you had an 5 year old son in 1959 when the United States recorded the first official casualties of the war, it is possible that he may have been one of the last 548 casualties recorded 13 years later in 1972. So if you have a child 5 years old today, boy or girl, they could very well be killed in Iraq in 2016. Does that seem far fetched? We already have the same number of dead in two years as we had in Vietnam in the first five years.
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The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality." -- Rose Kennedy’s Son
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I am not saying that we will reach 54,000 dead (please no) and I am not saying that Iraq and Vietnam are the same. They're not. But would the analogy of the French in Algiers make you sleep better? What of Syria? Iran? North Korea? Are you willing to bet your children's lives and roll the dice? Are you prepared to take the folded flag and walk the lonely walk through Arlington?
Peace? There is no peace in this world, only short gaps in our eternal war against each other so there is time to procreate and create fresh souls for the inevitable slaughter. It is time we accept the fact that America is an aggressor nation, that we are a war culture, and our very brief history is characterized by genocide, slavery, and corporate despotism.
Mothers, look at your children on this fair Sunday, really look at them, for they may be tomorrow's flag draped coffins. They will be shipped back in a box in the dead of the night, unworthy, even, of a photograph in your hometown newspaper. The announcement of their sacrifice will be buried in the back of our newspapers or bumped from our nightly news in favor of the latest celebrity scandal. You will grieve alone.
In Aristophane's "Lysistrata" the protagonist, Lysistrata, which means "releaser of war," tries to rally women to bring an end to the bloody Peloponnesian War between the Greeks and the Spartans (431-404 B.C.). Perhaps it is this most ancient of Greek comedies (yes, it is considered a comedy) that Julia Ward Howe found her inspiration. The Greek women go on a sex strike in attempt to force an end to the war. Will American mothers go on a sex strike to eliminate unsavory influences emanating from that evil scapegoat Hollywood?
Considering the recent ratings of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES (I think we know who watches this show, don't we?), I don't think so. It is a deeply sad and American irony that our mothers protest fictional murders on television, but vote for an administration committing very real murder all over the very real world. War? What war? Why worry when the (not so honored) dead are in the 'hood and the barrio?
I know I will work every day, and do whatever I can, to make sure that my precious young nephews and nieces, and my own future children, and your children, and your nephews and nieces, and brothers and sisters, and mothers and fathers, will never be the casualties of the Iraq war, or whatever war the neo-cons are drawing up now, or any war that is being drawn up anywhere, I guess, for that matter, if I may be so bold; any war that can be, or most certainly could have been, prevented with just a little more vision, just a little more courage, just a little more honor. There's a word you don't hear so much these days. The world of our children can be greater than our most vivid imaginations, but it will be for nothing without honor.
I would never tell any mother how to raise her children, but I will say one thing. Just as I believe that the most important thing a father can do for his children is to love the mother, I believe, these days, that the most important thing a mother can do for her children is to refuse to buy into the lies. Do not be seduced into the 59% who voted out of fear or a "wedge issue" personal belief for an agenda of endless war, endless debt, endless greed, and endless tragedy. Your children mean nothing to our "representatives" in Washington D.C. The only role that is being created for your children is expendability, and the children of those writing the rules and reaping the gold of the bloody game in Iraq, and beyond, will never face a bullet or a draft. That is a fact everyone needs to consider very carefully.
Heed Julia Ward Howe's words, 135 years later they are more relevant than ever. Mother's Day is a celebration of the greatest kind of female empowerment -- to secure a peaceful and loving world for their children. I wish all mothers everywhere, and America, the greatest and most peaceful holiday, this Sunday and for all the rest of the Sundays until the end of days.
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