The Angry Exile: A new take on an old socialist favourite.

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Monday 1 February 2010

A new take on an old socialist favourite.

Medals for all. That's the clichéd view many opponents of British style socialism have held for, oooh, decades. Medals for all whether they were deserved or not. And it turns out we were wrong. It's really medals for all except, after a certain number has been reached, those who really fucking do deserve a medal.

A WHITEHALL quota system that restricts the number of medals given to soldiers in wartime has resulted in more than half the recommendations for awards for bravery in Afghanistan being turned down.

Fucking hell fire, how dribblingly stupid can you get? This is the flip side of the target culture, and just as repugnant. How the cunting fuck can there be a quota for acts of bravery?

Many senior serving and retired officers claim the system is outdated, fails to recognise the intensive fighting seen by British troops in Helmand and has resulted in hundreds of servicemen and women being denied recognition for their courage.

The Ministry of Defence places limits on the numbers of medals that can be awarded for each six-month tour of duty, meaning only about one in 100 soldiers deployed can be rewarded for bravery.

It's a recruiter's fucking dream, eh?

Join the Army. Get sent to some shithole where you'll be taught how to be shot at. Live in substandard accomodation and on shit wages. Possibly come home from deployments horizontally (breathing optional). But you will get the recognition you deserve... unless you're one of the majority who don't.

“The way the quota is used at the moment is very strict, the rules are very inflexible,” said Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan.

“Commanding officers are lucky to get a 50% strike rate for their medal recommendations due to the conservative nature of senior officers who sit in London and decide these things.”

Well at least the squaddies know that the regimental commanders or whoever sends the medal recommendation to London recognises their efforts. Maybe among soldiers that's enough, I don't know. But wouldn't official recognition be better still?

Service chiefs have expressed fears that if they did not place limits on the numbers issued, this would “undermine” the value of those given for valour such as the Victoria Cross and the Military Cross.

Look, nobody's suggesting everybody gets a VC just for showing up, but you can't be niggardly either. Nor does any kind of quota make sense. Acts of heroism and bravery aren't like a fucking bus timetable you know. If we accept, as probably everyone does, that there may be no VC-worthy acts of valour for years and then there might be two within a couple of years it follows that the same applies with other medals and commendations. Maybe in six months not one soldier among 10,000 deployed to a certain place will do something to merit a particular gong, but maybe it'll happen five times a week throughout the whole tour. And if the latter you can't just reward the first half a dozen and tell the rest 'too bad, boys and girls, the quota's been used up'. Doesn't that undermine the medal system as well, you fucking tools?