But It Rhymes

In the beauty of the lilies
Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom
that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy,
let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.


It has been said that history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes perfectly.

There are many in this nation who are laboring under the delusion that they will sort out their political differences at the polls during the midterms and all the way out as far as November of 2028, as if that date were not an impossible millennium away.

Many Americans are, however, waking up to the fact that their vote is not going to matter as long as this regime continues its reign of terror. If the elections go forward as scheduled, the regime will simply seize the ballots, as they did in their recent dress rehearsal in Georgia.

Anyone who thinks that the seizure of those ballots was really about the 2020 election is not paying attention to what is happening.

But even those who are slowly rousing from their slumber and realizing that democracy is lying flat on its back, too many of these are failing to grasp the moral weight of the trial which this perilous hour presents us.

Let it be known by all Americans, this slide into tyranny will be nothing whatsoever like life under Communism. For the average despot is concerned mainly with holding onto power regardless of the consequences.

But it is the exceptional tyrants of history who we must be extra cautious of, those who are driven by two equally despicable motives, those of power and hatred. We have such a monster in our midst.

In the beginning, even Hitler managed to make things better for the average German citizen—the ones he deemed worthy in his warped view. But in the end, his hatred of the Jews drove him to fling even Berlin itself into the flames.

Many dictators at least somehow managed to strengthen their countries in some manner, before eventually destroying them through a toxic stew of avarice and hate.

But America’s current “leadership” is a comic farce, nothing but the rising costs of everything, the disappearance of all hope for a stable climate and the education of our children, senseless violence, and the emergence of World War Three being only a hair’s breadth away from us.

Absolutely nothing good has come from Republican governance. Nothing even remotely close to useful has arisen from this nightmare dystopian fever dream of useful idiots.

No, our dance with the Devil will be nothing like life under complicated figures such as Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Lenin, or Nicolae Ceaușescu.

Our American rendezvous with darkness will be more like the wholesale slaughter of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, or the genocides which have so often ravaged African nations and Muslim countries. [See list of genocides.]

If you believe this untrue, then ask yourself why, why in the name of all things holy, would the “president” of the United States send innocent people to CECOT?

If this was not a litmus test for what is to come, then what else could it be?

The Southern States never fully yielded the war of 1861, and they vowed to rise and fight again.

And this is what we face now on this expanded ground, all of it stolen from Native peoples, and drenched in the blood of all races and religions.

And the festering boil of Neo-Nazi philosophy is even now raising its ugly head, right in front of us.

The pseudo “philosophy” of White Supremacy, an idea so thoroughly stupid that it may be adequately summarized in a mere Fourteen Words, is promising to annihilate all semblance of the country in which you have lived your entire life.

If these people (a bastardized word, as used here) should succeed in holding power in this nation, then we shall, all of us, have failed.

We will not have failed to win the midterms. We will not have failed to win the White House.

We will have failed the ultimate test, the test of Good versus Evil.

We will have quietly surrendered the last vestiges of our very humanity.

I beg you, do not surrender this effort unless you and I both are lying mortally wounded in the streets, having given what Lincoln called “The last full measure of devotion.”

Only then, will we have the justification of saying that we did our best to stem the tide of what can only be called the purest form of evil that we are likely to ever bear direct witness to with our own eyes.

Anything less is the failure which cannot be stomached, can’t be slept with, and cannot bear to look upon itself in the mirror.


The following quote is attributed to a French officer who was serving in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was reflecting on the profound shift in the war’s purpose, following the Emancipation Proclamation.

It was no longer a question of the Union, as it was, that was to be reestablished. It was the Union as it should be, that is to say, washed clean from its original sin. We were no longer merely the soldiers of a political controversy. We were now the missionaries of a great work of redemption, the armed liberators of millions. The war was ennobled. The object was higher.

I’ll Just Leave This Right Here


The Battle Hymn of the Republic

by Julia Ward Howe

Mine eyes have seen the glory
of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage
where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning
of His terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires
of a hundred circling camps,⠀
They have builded Him an altar
in the evening dews and damps;⠀
I can read His righteous sentence
by the dim and flaring lamps:

His day is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ
in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners,
so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman,
crush the serpent with his heel,⠀

Since God is marching on.”

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet
that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men
before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him!
be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies
Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom
that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy,
let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

He is coming like the glory
of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty,
He is Succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool,
and the soul of Time His slave,

Our God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.


Americans Don’t Play Chess

Americans don’t play enough chess
It’s the reason we’re in this political mess
The Right has carefully studied for years
Constitutional weaknesses, racist fears

They’ve put in long hours, learning the game
Motivating their base, pointing the blame
Spinning problems as the fault of their foes
Scuttling each bill that would end those woes

Like Morphy, Alekhine, Karpov, Nimzowitsch
Dangling carrots; a cheap bait-and-switch
A Fischer sacrifice; playing the long-game
The board no longer looks quite the same

Their rooks and bishops, now in key places
We watch with horror, mud on our faces
We slept through opening, developing play
Their knights are posted; it seems they’ll stay

Kiss of Death at the Opera, then it’s too late
Anastasia smiles, threatens Legal’s mate
A double-bishop pin, a dovetail, strategic
Is needed, or our king will be quadriplegic

Having good pawn structure is fundamental
And theirs is proving to be quite instrumental
Mate is possible with any piece on the board
Except the other king, who may be ignored

Unless, that is, he works his way up the file
Blocking the enemy king’s movement, while
The officers sweep in to deliver last blows
A game is often over before the loser knows

We’d better learn the game, or we’ll be through
It’s less checkmate, more authoritarian coup
A king can be smothered by his own pieces
It only takes a few with deceptive caprices

If the game may be saved, our wits must return
Or “How to lose everything” is all we will learn
We scoffed at haughty, four-dimensional claims
But, with distractions, they hit all their true aims

We’re playing an opponent who is happy to win
By legal means, if possible; they’ll nod and grin
Beaten fairly, he gives no handshake reward
But balls up his fists, and knocks over the board

The only way to beat a cheating, spoiled brat
Is to win fairly, but be ready to pick up a bat
For this one believes they must win at all cost
And will not admit or accept that they lost

The one sitting on the other side of this table
Is wily, unscrupulous; cheats when he’s able
Demanding to rewrite how the game is played
Promoting a pawn, says “A new king is made!”

Yes, win… but don’t be surprised if the liar
Pulls a gun or a knife, upon losing their desire
We all must fight hard to get out of this mess
We must become better at political chess


©2022 Kevin Trent Boswell

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