The Pirate Flag

 For months, critics of Trump have been accusing him of despoiling Venezuela. 

Yesterday, he got up in front of the assembled nations of the world and said that that is exactly what he's done. He boasted openly that he was seizing Venezuela's natural resources. 

"To the victor belong the spoils," he crowed, in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly. 

Tell not the deed to blushing Europe's ears;
The ocean queen, free [America, in this case], bears
The last poor plunder from a bleeding land:
Yes, she, whose generous aid her name endears,
Tore down those remnants with a harpy's hand.
Which envious eld forbore, and tyrants left to stand.

To quote Lord Byron's comments on the theft of the Elgin Marbles, in "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." 

One thought for a time that one could score a point off Trump by accusing him of theft. But when he gets up there and admits himself that that's exactly what he's done—what force does the critique retain? 

To quote Julien Benda's citation of a line from Tolstoy (Aldington trans): "Others were at least ashamed of being brigands; but what is to be done with this man, who is proud of it?"

There's no word for it but disgrace. 

I've been quoting a lot recently from Ernest Crosby's great 1902 collection of verse, "Swords and Plowshares." Given that Crosby was writing in response to the first great wave of U.S. imperialism, he just continues to prove all too relevant to our current moment. 

Thinking over Trump's UN speech, and his boasts about plundering Venezuela of its oil reserves, I went back to look up Crosby's response to the U.S. invasion of the Philippines, "The Pirate Flag". I found it to be altogether too on-point for the Trump era as well: 

Then when the last defender fell

The men rushed in with glee,

And from each house they came with loads

Of plunder sad to see;

And soon we sent a boat ashore—

Blue-jackets and marines—

To get our share of loot and swag,

And spoil the Philippines.

I turned and asked a sailor lad—

For now they stood at ease—

What pirates we might chance to be

Who plagued these summer seas.

"Oh, we're no pirates," he replied,

"Don't ask me that again;

This is a ship of Uncle Sam

And we are Dewey's men."

That reference to Dewey is especially relevant to our time as well. Apparently, in honor of this colonial attack on the Philippines, the U.S. government at one point proposed to build a "Dewey Arch" in Manhattan celebrating the general who fought the Battle of Manila Bay. 

Given that Trump—in the intervals when he is not threatening to "annihilate" or despoil the other nations of the world—is spending the rest of his time trying to win court approval for the construction of a "triumphal arch" in his own honor, Crosby's poem on the "Dewey Arch" proves all too relevant as well. 

I propose that if Trump's "arch" ever does get built, we emblazon this poem on its pediment: 

Build up your arch. Lay snowy stone on stone

To herald to the world your glittering pride

In foreign conquest. Lightly fling aside

That irksome creed of Liberty outgrown.

Let your new toys, your ships and guns, atone

For broken faith and precedent defied.

Proclaim your marble goddess far and wide

Freedom no more, but Might, and Might alone!

Nay, 'tis a whited sepulcher you raise,

Whereon shall this stern epitaph be read:

"Here at the silent parting of the ways

Fell Liberty, betrayed, beguiled, misled.

Pray for her, stranger, that in happier days

She may be raised immortal from the dead."