I.
But yesterday, your noble fathers bled
Upon the fields of France, where countless dead
Had found among the vines their final rest,
To gild with fame a venerated crest
Whose princely brandishing from age to age
Outlasted armies and the tyrant’s rage.
But yesterday, you bravely fought and won
A war against the socialistic Hun
Who sought to clap you in the helot’s chains
And seize the free world’s economic reins.
Again, but yesterday, the darkest hour
Of all the world you lifted by your power,
When many owed so much to you, so few,
Across all continents and oceans blue;
No sacrifice too great, no effort spared,
You rallied to the battle and declared,
In England’s name, the inauspicious fight
Against the German Marxist and his spite.
When fire from your once-peaceful skies rained down
On London’s ancient temples of renown,
Your valour triumphed over every fear
Whose darkness could not mute your English cheer.
You fought, yet weeping for your sons that died,
And rose to glory on your fathers’ pride!
II.
Would you, brave sons of Britain’s best
Now crawl in servitude at the behest
Of Prussia’s despot and her Eastbourne stooge,
And let your nation fall to subterfuge?
Would you embrace their Novus Ordo plot
To make you into something you are not,
Abandoning your martyrs’ ancient faith
In globalist apostasy to bathe,
Or sanctify Mohammed’s violent hordes
Who now seize power from your local lords?
Your government, a servile rubber-stamp,
Transforms your world into a migrant camp.
Already London teems with Saracens,
But will not welcome us Americans!
Full many are the masks that Satan wears:
Take Corbyn and his self-anointing airs,
Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May,
Who nourish Brussels while your towns decay.
These bear no love for you and never will,
But count as meaningless the nation’s will.
For Britain’s debt you have these frauds to thank:
What is their “Europe” but a German bank?
Whose fattened bureaucrats, a pampered club,
Appropriate your wealth, your selves to snub!
Corrupt, they steal and loot without surcease:
What Hitler lost through war they grab through peace!
Would you allow their constant plundering
To go unspoken with their blundering?
Surrender speech to their repressive state
To share with the Chinese a eunuch’s fate?
Would you let England topple on the brink,
Whilst petty deskmen dictate what you think?
Or let robotic censors gag your cries,
Whilst leftists freely spew their shop-worn lies?
For, liberty is but an empty creed,
Until the day Tom Robinson is freed!
III.
Fair England, land of hills and columbine,
Most gracious isle of rills and eglantine,
Return to thy devout, ancestral ways,
The regal virtues of thy former days!
Come forth in all thy splendor, pow’r, and might,
Proclaim thy fealty to truth and right!
Arise, O England, take thy rightful place,
Let not the heathen thy good self debase!
The sun is rising on thy fields of green,
And glory waits for thee in stars unseen.
The sword of Arthur has ennobled thee:
Thou wast not made for chains and slavery.
The clang of battle on the winds of time
And shouts of knights that echo in my rhyme,
Resound this day in every village square
And rise to heaven like an antique prayer,
That there will always and forever be
An England where the mind and heart are free
To celebrate her once and future King
Whom prophets prophesied and poets sing,
That Mary’s Dowry not be spent in vain
But magnify the Holy Virgin’s reign,
When Christ shall every bond of hate unbind
And England hold a torch for all mankind.
Joseph Charles MacKenzie is a traditional lyric poet, the only American to have won Scottish International Poetry Competition. His poetry has appeared in The New York Times, The Scotsman (Edinburgh), The Independent (London), US News and World Report, Google News, and many other outlets. He writes primarily for the Society of Classical Poets (New York) and Trinacria (New York). MacKenzie has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Where did you get that crazy idea?
1.
“But yesterday, you bravely fought and won
A war against the socialistic Hun…”
Are Germans Huns? Were all Germans of WW1 socialistic?
2.
“In England’s name, the inauspicious fight
Against the German Marxist and his spite…”
Which German Marxist(s)?
3.
“Of Prussia’s despot and her Eastbourne stooge
And let your nation fall to subterfuge?”
Is Angela Merkel a despot, or a duly elected Chancellor?
Is Germany really only Prussia?
4.
“For Britain’s debt you have these frauds to thank:
What is their “Europe” but a German bank?”
Are May’s, Sturgeon’s, and Corbyn’s visions of Europe really only a German bank, or do they actually see more than that?
5.
“Corrupt, they steal and loot without surcease:
What Hitler lost through war they grab through peace!”
Which Germans are stealing and looting, or are some Germans just making excellent products?
“Der Irrtum ist viel leichter zu erkennen, als die Wahrheit zu finden…”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The absurdity arises from the commentator’s desperate, far-left attempt to vindicate Merkel and the EU.
This list proves Mr. Salemi’s point to perfection! Not a single attack on German music or mathematics.
As for provincial insularity, it is now completely evident that Mr. Diebes has not the faintest idea of what is going on in Europe.
For him, there is no hope.
Still, it is a testament to the power of the “Letter to England” that his life revolves it.
1. The questions remain unanswered, but I don’t expect any answers. “Not everyone is able to read or interpret poetry.”
2. The critical literary observation remains unnoted, but I don’t expect it to be, and “jealousy is blinding”!
3. It seems “there is no hope for” me. But I shall soldier on.
4. The “absurdity” of my comments comes from my “desperate far-left attempt to vindicate Merkel and the EU”. Hmm.
5. “Angela Merkel is Hitler without the mustache. The EU is the Fourth Reich.” Obviously Mr. Diebes is “nonsensical and factually incorrect”.
6. I haven’t the “faintest idea of what is going on in Europe”. I grant it is difficult. Think of what is going on in Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia…
7. Croatia took second @ the World Cup. Yeehaw! Here is Croatian poet Ivan Gundulič (1589-1638), from his pastoral “Dubravka” on the priceless value of God-given, fair, sweet, beloved liberty.
“O liepa, o draga, o slatka slobodo,
dar u kom sva blaga višnji nam Bog je do,
uzroče istini od naše sve slave,
uresu jedini od ove Dubrave,
sva srebra, sva zlata, svi ljudcki životi
ne mogu bit plata tvoj čistoj lipot.”
8. Apparently my “life revolves it”—the “Letter to England”. Huh?
9. I find I agree with Mr. Acrewe’s assessment, though he seems to be offering the “stage instruction of a disgruntled poet.
10. Here is a memorable previous quote of Mr. MacKenzie from July of 2017: “Mr. Wise, you made only one mistake in your” comments. “You failed to adore”.
None other than the EDL’s media team has stated, in this very thread, that my Letter to England “captured so well – albeit from half a hemisphere distant – the way millions of English men and women think and feel. ”
You’re always welcome to keep embarrassing yourself in front of the SCP’s British readers.
Don’t know what to tell ya…
I wonder if this tiresome gentleman could possibly desist from using these silly anagrammatic pseudonyms. Is there anything wrong with the name Bruce Dale Wise? Why this adolescent posturing?
His original “questions” were answered fully. The value of German Kultur in music, mathematics, or any other field has nothing whatsoever to do with the political question being discussed. But Mr. Wise seems to think that if you appreciate German Kultur, you must necessarily favor everything that the current German Republic favors. I guess that means if you appreciate the beauty of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture, you also favor daily human sacrifice.
But since Wise is so keen on having answers to his five original questions, let his chew on these:
1) No, the Germans are not ethnically Huns. But that was the derogatory nickname given to them in World War I, and there is no reason not to use it again. In point of fact they certainly did live up to a Hunnish reputation at the pointless destruction of the Louvain, and the introduction of poison gas to warfare. And no, they were not all socialistic — but imperial Germany was the most statist and bureaucratic and socialistically-influenced government in the Europe of 1914.
2. Which German Marxists were the English fighting? Well, how about Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, just to name the most prominent? Prior to the Russian revolution, Germany was the most communistically inclined nation in Europe. Its bureaucracy was world-famous for its mindless rigidity and regulatory nit-picking.
3. No, Germany is not all Prussia. But the savage authoritarianism of Prussia has left its mark on all of Germany, right up to today. And yes, Merkel is a would-be despot, which is why she is hanging on desperately to power with her fingernails, even though her own cabinet is screaming at her stupidity and leftist ideology. And it is well to remember that Angela Merkel was raised in East Germany, and served as an official propagandist for Marxism. This bitch was “duly elected”? Big deal. So was Adolf Hitler.
4. May, Sturgeon, and Corbyn are just stupid left-liberals, so why is their opinion important? The plain fact is that German arrogance and financial power are attempting to dictate to the rest of Europe how to live and what to think. Merkel has done everything to force Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and other smaller states to kowtow to E.U. orders. MacKenzie was perfectly correct to speak of Europe under the E.U. as a German bank.
5. Germany may make good products — so what? No one denies Germans the right to sell them and make a profit. The real issue is the financial stranglehold of multinational banks (many headquartered in Germany) that are hell-bent on reducing all of Europe and beyond to a kind of chattel slavery to their world-encircling network. Why do you think the Deep State in America and Europe is so fanatically Russophobic? The Russians have declined, quite correctly, to be a part of this kleptocracy.
Mr. Wise really doesn’t seem to know much about the European situation at all. I happen to have relatives in Germany and Italy, and believe me — people in Europe are well aware of the power-grab that Merkel and ideologues of her ilk are attempting. Perhaps Wise is unaware that there have been mass rapes of German women by Muslim immigrant scum, but the German Polizei (at Merkel’s order) have been forbidden to interfere, and any German male who attempts to prevent such rapes is himself arrested for disturbing the peace. Is that the Germany that you admire, Mr. Wise?
And Mr. Wise — please don’t answer under some asinine pseudonym. It just isn’t becoming. We all think that Bruce Dale Wise is a very nice name.
Bruce Dale Wise is now missing in action, because, of course, he has no answer.
And one suspects that his ignorance of history—to include those massive political movements which are the very hallmark of the present age—is ultimately coupled with a foundational lack of literary training and knowledge.
My, my, my—we are a bit of a Germa(no!)phobe. Nevertheless, I thank Mr. Salemi for Mr. Salemi’s answers.
As relating to the five questions, cf. above.
1. No. No. That is correct,
2. Is Mr. MacKenzie really referring to Karl Marx? Hmm. Was it not the English who gave Marx sanctuary?
3. No. That is correct. But, though Merkel is not perfect (nor Salemi, MacKenzie, Diebes, etc.), “would-be despot” and “bitch”—really? Yes, “duly elected” candidates do matter to England and to Germany—and to the United States of America too. And no, Hitler was not “duly elected”, as FDR was during that same time period, nor as Merkel has been in the New Millennium.
4. It was Mr. MacKenzie’s poem that brought up the opinions of May, Sturgeon and Corbyn. My question relates to his interpretation of their visions of Europe—a German bank? If I am not mistaken, wasn’t London a greater financial hub than any German city before Brexit? And now?
5. Multinationals doesn’t sound so much like specific Germans stealing and looting—certainly not Mr. Salemi’s relatives in Germany, nor my own. I do grant that international banking is corrupt in Europe, but also in the Americas, Asia, and Africa, though of course, at differening levels nationally. Ironically, these days it is the Russian economy that is most frequently discussed as a “kleptocracy” in economics.
Finally, thanks to Mr. Salemi’s cogent arguments, I’ve now realized for the first time in my life the vital importance of being Uwe Carl Diebes.
In fact, anyone who reads “Letter to England” immediately discerns that the first part is referring to a Germany that had fallen into barbarism in the First World War and a Germany that had fallen into Marxism in the Second—and that my use of qualifiers such as “socialistic” perfectly prevent the poem from being anti-German with the completely obvious subtext that the German people themselves have always been the first victims of false government as they are today….
…anyone, that is, who possesses enough historical and cultural literacy to read the poem correctly, which, so far, has been everyone but you, Mr. Wise.
Dr. Salemi has not only elucidated with perfect clarity my meaning, but he has exposed your motives for rejecting my meaning.
It is moreover ironic that as the founder of the St. John’s College String Quartet, I played a German violin and performed a number of German composers which your thin little copied-and-pasted list does not even include. Ironic, again, that my baptismal priest, the subject of Stanley Kubrick’s first film, “The Flying Padre,” was a German immigrant, and that my current bishop is also a German immigrant.
Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven belong to my Catholic heritage.
Again, you are free to continue embarrassing yourself, under whatever name you please.
But if I may suggest a more fitting pseudonym, one which more accurately conforms to the content of your writing, may I please suggest:
Ignoramus.
Push a man hard enough, and his true ideological loyalties emerge. Such seems to be the case with my treatment of Bruce Dale Wise.
His “answer” to point 3 makes it clear that Mr. Wise is still smarting over the 2016 election result in the United States. Perhaps — like so many left-liberals with Trump Derangement Syndrome — he thinks that Trump was not “duly elected.” Has he been seduced by the chimerical idea of Russian interference in that election, which allegedly prevented another bitch (the odious Hillary Clinton) from ascending to the presidency?
As for Hitler’s accession to power, it came about in perfect accord with the Weimar Republic’s laws. Hitler was legally appointed to the German Chancellorship on January 30, 1933, just as several other persons (e.g. Bruning and von Papen) had been appointed to the Chancellorship in prior years. Don’t blame me if the electoral rules of the democratic Weimar Republic weren’t the same as those of democracies today.
Karl Marx resided in England? Oh wow. I guess that makes England responsible for Marxism. Are you serious, Bruce?
I notice you haven’t answered my question about the legally protected rapes of German women by Muslim immigrant scum (the same issue, by the way, that brought Tommy Robinson to public notice in Britain, where the identical thing was happening to girls in the north of England). If you can come up with plenty of pseudonyms, surely can you come up with a defense of this atrocity.
By the way, “Hmm…” is not a logical argument. I can’t find a source for it in Aristotle.
For background on the present establishment in England and the UK, see the link below.
For specifics about the May 25th arrest of Tommy Robinson, also see the link below (starting from 22 mins).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RPoitFQQ8Y
Thank you, Mr. Robin for this invaluable information.
The video linked is completely horrific. It is as if England has already fallen. To think that the official press in Britain actually relies on the reprisal lists of hard-left communist organizations to target entities for suppression and press black-outs!
On the simple level of the violation of international norms of human rights, this is unacceptable.
1. I do think Mr. MacKenzie’s “Letter to England” is one of the better poems I have seen in the New Millennium. It is exciting, and it is polemical. I’m just merely pointing out historical errors in its iambic pentametres and some of its skewed positions that I frankly would do to any poem from Homer on.
One of my questions had to do with the following couplets. Note the excellent diction and ideas succinctly and artistically placed.
“In England’s name the inauspicious fight
against the German Marxist and his spite.
When fire from your once peaceful skies rained down
On London’s ancient temples of renown,
Your valour triumphed over every fear
Whose darkness could not mute your English cheer.”
Mr. MacKenzie tells us that “Germany…had fallen into Marxism in the Second” World War. My suggestion would be to replace Marxist with Nazi. Does the great statesman and historian Winston Churchill ever speak against “the German Marxist” in his renowned speeches of WW2?
2. From Realist Ambrose Bierce’s “The Devil’s Dictionary”: “Ignoramus, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.”
3. “It is clear that Mr. Wise is still smarting over the 2016 election in the United States.”
It actually looks pretty rosy over here.
4. “He thinks Trump was not ‘duly elected’. Hmm.
I think the final tally electoral college result is fairly clear: Trump/Pence 304 and Clinton/Kaine 227.
5. “Has he been seduced by the chimerical idea of Russian interference in that election…?”
Nope.
6. Yes, Hitler was legally appointed to the German Chancellorship in 1933. My reference was to all of the elections afterwards up to 1945, up through WW2 and the Holocaust.
7. I did not suggest England was responsible for Marxism, only that tolerant, Merrie Olde England gave a safe space to the German philosopher whom the German leaders had rejected.
8. I didn’t answer Mr. Salemi’s question, because I preferred to focus on Mr. MacKenzie’s poem. “If you can come up with plenty of pseudonyms, surely you can come up with a defense of this [kind of] atrocity.”
Okay. Here is just one, an unpublished tennos from 2016. If for no other reason, I do think it is incumbent upon poets to record the historical truths of our time, as Damian Robin has recently done in “Organ Harves͡t”.
For the Memory of Maria Ladenburger (1996-2016)
by Bleda Ur Ecweis
“In the beginning there was the Word and not the talk…”
—Gottfried Benn
She was last seen when she was cycling home from party fun;
her body was discovered in the Dreisum in the sun,
Maria L., in Freiburg, 19, a med-student, who
had volunteered as helper at a migrant refuge too.
Her father, an EU official, drowned in misery;
police identified the suspect on CCTV.
He was an Afghan Muslim migrant, who perhaps had raped
and killed one Carolin as well, aged 18. And there draped,
a black scarf, round that murderer, the night Maria died.
This hellish murk ‘ll finish off the innocent, one cried.
I suspect Mr. Salemi might appreciate the pun in line 10, though it is certainly not my overall assessment of the Chancellor.
9. The word “hmm” here suggests reflection on erroneous assumptions, united with an unwillingness of the speaker to expound. As to “hmm” not being in the work of Aristotle, the greatest logician of all time, I would respond first with “There are more things in heaven and Earth…than are dreamt of in his philosophy…” and secondly, though our native tongues are different, I am fairly sure my vocabulary is larger than Aristotle’s, and I suppose, Mr. Salemi’s is too. That is but one of the exciting things about writing in English.
10. Finally, lest I seem too brusque in my assessment of Aristotle’s vocabulary. Here is a poem on his legacy, an unpublished dodeca of 2016.
The Tomb of the Philosopher
by Erisbawdle Cue
An archaeologist says he’s found Aristotle’s tomb
in ancient Stagira, where Aristotle left the womb.
Konstantinos Sismanidis says there’s no evidence,
but indications reaching certitude and confidence.
It’s a reminder of the famed philosopher of old,
whose logic and whose syllogisms cross this spinning globe,
who took all knowledge as his college in reality,
and spawned a vision of the cosmic span’s totality.
He gazed on topics, from the sciences to social arts,
his golden meanings shining greater than his many parts.
Itinerant, meandering, he walked about the World,
with balance in his virtues, beauty in his truths unfurled.
I quote from an article by Mr. Watson in alt-left tabloid, The Independent, entitled “Hitler and Socialist Dream” and dated november 22, 1998:
“Hermann Rauschning, for example, a Danzig Nazi who knew Hitler before and after his accession to power in 1933, tells how in private Hitler acknowledged his profound debt to the Marxian tradition. “I have learned a great deal from Marxism” he once remarked, “as I do not hesitate to admit”. He was proud of a knowledge of Marxist texts acquired in his student days before the First World War and later in a Bavarian prison, in 1924, after the failure of the Munich putsch. The trouble with Weimar Republic politicians, he told Otto Wagener at much the same time, was that “they had never even read Marx”, implying that no one who had failed to read so important an author could even begin to understand the modern world; in consequence, he went on, they imagined that the October revolution in 1917 had been “a private Russian affair”, whereas in fact it had changed the whole course of human history! His differences with the communists, he explained, were less ideological than tactical. German communists he had known before he took power, he told Rauschning, thought politics meant talking and writing. They were mere pamphleteers, whereas “I have put into practice what these peddlers and pen pushers have timidly begun”, adding revealingly that “the whole of National Socialism” was based on Marx.”
And this is only the tip of the scholarly iceberg on tHitler’s Marxism, as whole dissertations have appeared on the topic.
May I please suggest, Mr. Wise, that you consider learning to research the facts before before parading your ignorance before the general public…
Paul Weston’s commentary is utterly devastating.
The left-liberal scum who now control Britain (both Tory and Labourite) are truly “the traitor class.”
As we say in the States, this guy Weston has a set of brass balls. What courage!
Watch how the multiculturalist scum in Britain now work to destroy the man. Like Tommy Robinson, Weston will be subjected to vicious attacks orchestrated by the government of another sick left-liberal bitch, Theresa May.
And once again, let me say it — Bruce Dale Wise won’t comment on the thirty-year ongoing rape of white working-class girls in England by Muslim immigrant scum. I guess he’s still trying to figure out what to say.
Oh, he knows precisely what to say: anything that will distract from the question, be it the creation of a major scandal over one word of my poem, or an elaborate change of subject. The predictability of the left is absolute.
I think I shall parade my ignorance before the general public, but not comment on the on-going rape of girls in England, leaving only a poem published here @ SCP on June 19, 2018.
The Imprisonment of Tommy Robinson
The sea is rough tonight. The tide is full, the moon in doubt.
The European lights of liberty are going out.
I’m hearing some reports that Tommy Robinson is jailed,
for streaming news on Muslim sex slaves, jailed with no bail.
In just one day he was locked up, and secretly was tried;
he has been tossed into the slammer, thirteen months confined.
And no one in the British press could say a thing at all;
but everywhere the truth broke out, an info waterfall.
Why was he tried and jailed for reporting on the rapes?
Has Tommy Robinson been bitten by judicial hate?
Has England’s legal system, once the envy of the World,
declined so far its citizens are fodder for misrule?
http://classicalpoets.org/confucius-institutes-and-other-poetry-by-bruce-dale-wise/
I wanted to offer you, Mr. Wise, a conciliatory note in saying that the only real shame is in failing to remedy one’s ignorance once it has been exposed. No sooner, however, did I conceive this thought, than you have demonstrated by this latest post a second form of shame: presenting one’s self as a poet without actually being one.
That’s a wrap, folks. Once someone tries to convince me that “rapes” rhymes with “hate,” or “tried” with “confined,” the game is over. Half-rhymes are simply not enough to overcome the insufficiency of half-truths.
“Half-truths are not concealed by half-rhymes” should be rendered into an immortal Latin proverb. It strikes at the very heart of the whole modernist movement.
Even worse, it seems we now have in Mr. Wise a self-made critic who was never a poet.
Yes, Mr. Anderson:
“That’s a wrap, folks!”
First off, I grant Mr. Anderson that the poem is not that good. I like what it attempts, the opening Arnoldian couplet, the placement of “Tommy Robinson” in the poem, and the concluding couplet with the rhyme “World/misrule”; but other than that the dodeca is marred by hasty balland [sic] writing. Though others may certainly see it differently, for me, one of the least flaws is the rhyme of “judicial hate” to “rapes”.
I only offered one recent poem because Mr. Salemi stated that I “won’t comment on the thirty-year ongoing rape of white working-class girls in England by Muslim immigrant scum. I guess he’s still trying to figure out what to say.” That is also the only reason I offered the poem on the murder of Maria Ladenburger.
However, as to Mr. Anderson’s “wrap”, I can repeat myself for those who have not read the Tim Myers’ strand. I like rhyme. Yet the obsession with rhyme in poetry is definitely not Classical. Rhymes (that is, all the different kinds of rhymes) are traditional in English verse, in balladry and song, since the time of great writers, like Geoffrey Chaucer; but poets certainly are not limited to exact rhyme.
Much of the greatest poetry in English does not rhyme, “Beowulf”, wide swaths of Shakespearean drama, Miltonic epic, Wordworthian musings, etc. One thing I was thinking about today, Shakespeare reaches his greatest poetry outside of rhyme. Since Mr. MacKenzie mentions “Henry V”. Here are four lines, not my favourite at all, but which I would argue, are poetry, though they do not rhyme (nor try to).
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility…”
And an example of imperfect rhyme from Dickinson. Here are four lines which I would also call poetry.
“‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—”
Oh, I think readers might agree that half-rhymes are the least of your many problems, Mr. Wise.
Mr. Abersuwe: To English ears, your poem sounds American whilst MacKenzie’s poem sounds English. I am not one to discuss the merits of American poetry, but can you see how MacKenzie’s Letter to England is more forceful in asserting truth which I believe is what Mr. Anderson is trying to get at? The Letter is getting round on social media where we’ve been seeing it.
It is still going round, as you say, on social media, Mr. Eliot, quite possibly because Mr. Robinson has recently become a prominent figure in UKIP.
News flash: Mckenzie has conversation with MacKenzie, I mean, Eliot. Gets Mr. Wise in on it too. Where is Mr. Sale when he’s needed?
I agree with Mr. Eliot: “To English ears, your poem sounds American, whilst MacKenzie’s poem sounds English”. And, I would add, that is intentional on both our parts. Mr. MacKenzie utilizes the English tradition in his excellent, iambic pentametre couplets, reminiscent of Shakespeare and Pope, whereas, I am drawing on the British tradition of the ballad form, using Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) and breaking with absolute rhyme. Mr. MacKenzie utilizes heroic echoes of English history, like Arthur, the once and future king, while I am focused on the present state of British law.
However, I disagree with Mr. Eliot (and peripherally Mr. Anderson, et. al.) when he states that Mr. MacKenzie’s poem is “more forceful in asserting truth”. I do agree Mr. MacKenzie’s poem is more forceful, but not in asserting truth. I need not repeat all of the historical errors of Mr. MacKenzie’s poem, but certainly Mr. Eliot should remember from his history the Battle of Britain was not against the German Marxist, but rather the German Nazi. I am sure the speeches of the great historian and statesman Winston Churchill confirm that.
Although I am first and foremost an American, I do believe that Winston Churchill, despite all of his flaws, was the greatest statesman of the 20th century. My father, who fought in the Pacific in World War II and in the Korean War, and was himself a deep reader in history, thought the two greatest figures of World War II were Eisenhower and Churchill. Nevertheless, it was English Socialism (Ingsoc), not German Marxists that replaced Churchill from 1945 to 1951.
Dear Mr. Wise,
You speak of a truth that is a bit higher than mere politics, and that is your dear father surviving the Pacific campaign (which is unimaginable) and also Korea, hardly any more conceivable.
That higher truth is the grace that leads men to sacrifice for others.
You are the son of a great man, however ordinary or not so ordinary all great men are. I think my harshness in answering your objections is convicted by that higher virtue, your father’s virtue I apologize to you for that and am very sorry for it.
In some way, what matters is that we Americans have played a role for so many others throughout the world. My poem should really strike the ears as American, because it, too, albeit in a lesser way to be sure, hopes to come to the aid of others whose condition is now dire.
May God bless you and all those around you!
To say, Mr. Abersuwe, that the Nazis were not Marxist, when the very founder of the German Nationalist Socialist German Worker’s Party on myriad occasions either wrote or spoke of his indebtedness to Marx is where I believe your argument collapses. The above quoted article from The Independent is fantastically revealing. Even that does not matter when you consider that every one of Nazism’s doctrines are Marxist. Simply substitute the word volk with proletariat.
To me, your argument is like saying the Russian front was a battle against Stalinism, not Marxism. As for Churchill, we understand him as a complex figure who lacked in many instances the foresight of history.
And this, I believe, why Mr. MacKenzie’s Letter to England speaks so profoundly to Britons at this moment.. No one will argue with you about his craftsmanship and I am not here to critique yours, but there is more to his poem than how it’s put together. The Letter to England shares our sense of history.
Thank you, Mr. Eliot, for your kind answer to the objections. Perhaps the discussion has been exhausted for now?
It is absolutely true that I do differentiate between Marxists and nazis, as well as other groups, like communists, socialists, Maoists, and fascists, though I agree with Mr. Eliot that they all show similar statist beliefs.
In reference to the English-speaking peoples, as relates to Churchill, even when I disagree with him, I feel he had more foresight, in an historical sense, than any figure in the 20th century; for, though he is not my favourite English-speaking historian of the 20th century, he possessed foresight in the approaching cataclysms of the mid-to-later 20th century back in the 1920s.
Yes, one cannot altogether discount Churchill’s foresight.
An update on Tommy Robinson: https://www.theepochtimes.com/anti-islamic-campaigner-tommy-robinson-is-free-for-now_2611077.html
Thanks, Evan.
We may well see Tommy Robinson as an MP for UKIP—his popularity has grown since “Letter to England” was published.
Thank you for this update, Mr. Mantyk.
Here is another update with the most interesting fact buried deep in the article:
“…but [UKIP] party officials say more than 8,000 new members have joined since Mr Batten’s leadership started in February.”
The high-profile defectors from, only a handful, are nothing compared to the numbers of new UKIP members joining for the same reason the defectors left: Tommy Robinson!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tommy-robinson-ukip-mp-parliament-brexit-betrayal-march-protest-gerard-batten-a8675156.html
This story is only getting bigger!
Tommy is a truth seaker, admired by many in this country because of his honesty. One who people can have belief in. Please watch his speech at the oxford union for an understanding of where he comes from and why he is who he is.
The Oxford Union speech Mr. Wall is referring to was delivered November 27 2014 and is one of the great, dramatic moments in the history of freedom.
Protesters from the Socialist Workers Party, Unite, Unison, and UAF gathered outside the window in front of which Tommy Robinson was speaking inside and their menacing chants can be heard during the first several minutes of the event.
Everyone should see the Oxford Union’s official recording of Tommy Robinson’s presentation which is available here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YQ94jFg_4A
Thank you, Mr. Wall, for bringing this to everyone’s attention.
‘History of freedom’ this is slack use of language that infects out national discourse. Whose freedom; if some are free others are enslaved; free to do what- bomb mosques.
I have never read such a well-framed tribute to a blundering racist thug.
Thanks Neil, I see the truth in what you say.
Truth can be beautiful as well as well or poorly said by all of us, including Mr Robinson whose physical expressions have often clumsily overstepped legal grammar’s requirements.
Of Tommy Robinson
With his body’s strengths
and gush of youth
He’s leaped the social fence
to flag the truth.
With sinews from his heart
he lifts his home;
With lines of common art
he rides a comb
Through piling, haystack tinder
of the state
Whose flint would wiff good folk
from fair debate.
Oops this should have gone under Neil’s poem.
Sorry, Mr. Rhind, the world since November 2016 has officially declared that it no longer buys into the leftist-fascist mantra that anyone who dares oppose Islamo-globalism is a racist thug.
You are, how shall I say it politely, passé, rather like bell-bottoms, headbands, and flower power.
Please go back to your mum’s basement, where you live, and light more candles in front of your “Oprah and Chelsea in 2020” poster. Perhaps it will give you comfort.
Thank goodness you don’t stoop to irrelevant personal attacks. And that’s “Dr” Rhind, BTW.
Yes, your’s is a better formed piece of verse. Strangely, though, mine is more true. Keats would be perplexed.
In Praise of Tommy
To protect his green and pleasant sward
He will not bow to Libtard Lords
Who bind free speech with weasel words.
(We shan’t mention the mortgage fraud).
If the MSM keep finding faults
In the Truth and Free Speech he exalts
We’ll take them with a pinch salt.
(Nor his conviction for assault).
For he found his sacred calling
Standing up in hope of stalling
The plight of Merrie England, falling.
(Nor two arrests for public brawling)
The good fight’s one that must be fought.
Muslamic Rayguns must be caught
And brought to trial in public court.
(Nor yet his counterfeit passport)
And if the media mock and titter
He’s neither coward nor a quitter
But soldiers on, blithely unbittered.
(Nor coming onto kids on twitter).
Caught by the Court’s peado-Cabal
For his investigative journo-trawl
To bring crime rings to their downfall.
(Nor that he’s caught just sweet f— all)
That’s why the Courts came to revile
The live reports that he compiled
On rings of Asian peadophiles
(Or just because they risked mistrials
Through taping while the court’s in session
Which could call convictions into question.
That, not Free Speech’s suppression
Was why they banged up Yaxley-Lennon).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Umjrnrp2s
“The World” has indeed spoken, as you say, with the resounding 158 votes this muppet received the last time he stood in a General Election. Clearly, his platform that the UK is ailing from White Genocide has been fully endorsed there. Voice of the people, innit.
To whom it may concern:
Most, if not all of these names listed here on this thread are fabrications of McSkirt’s fertile imagination. (I’ll get by with a little help from my friends.) (John Lennon)
Mike Marsh
Corallan
Jan Buchanan-Medina
Jo Patti
Taylor Thomas
David Whippman
EDL media
Mark wall
Dear Charles, off the top of my head, I can confirm with a high degree of certainty that Jan Buchanan-Medina (also known as Jan Darling) and David Whippman are genuinely who they say they are.
And obviously, dear Mr. Mantyk, these are all real people commenting under whatever name they please, as they are free to do in this particular venue.
Quite simply, Mr. Southerland is going to have to come to grips with the fact that the “Letter to England” has touched a chord with people in the UK where the poem is being read and shared within many echelons of British society, to include, as I have learned only yesterday, the political class.
I have many friends in Britain who have been instrumental in disseminating the poem while drawing attention to the Society of Classical Poets at the same time.
In thinking back on my Inaugural Poem for Donald J. Trump, I can recall how my detractors were just as useful as my admirers in catapulting the “Pibroch of the Domhnall” to international fame, and how their final act of desperation consisted of false narratives of “hidden identities”—one detractor writing that I was a failed Madison Avenue marketing executive while another proudly announced that I did not exist at all but was the “creation” of a group of conspirators.
Alas, I and others throughout the world who admire Tommy Robinson, who understand the communist underpinnings of the failing Remainer movement in Westminster, and who stand for British sovereignty, we are all real people—like it or not.
If anything, Mr. Southerland should be even more afraid of the many thousands of Brexit supporters who, for one reason or another, do not happen to leave comments in this venue, but who are nevertheless enjoying, sharing, and taking interest in the “Letter to England: For Tommy Robinson.”
@ Charles Southerland: Regarding your 2/1/19 comment, did I misunderstand you? Do you want ALL traces of your presence on SCP scrubbed from this website? Is so, do you (perhaps) wish to reconsider? I’ve enjoyed reading your poetry and will be sad to see you go.
Dear Evan; How about James Eliot, who has conversations with Mr. Mck and Mr. Wise? James Sale Knows the truth. Don’t you?
Dear Joseph —
I shouldn’t have to remind you that name-calling of this sort is really uncalled for. Whatever dispute you have with Charles Southerland should not drive you into uncharitable and un-Christian language.
I think it’s time for all of us to ask ourselves if we really want to turn this website into another horrid “Social Media” nightmare. Let’s just stop with the nasty sobriquets, OK?
I don’t want to hear any arguments or justifications or disputes over this matter. So please — no replies to this post of mine, from anyone.
@ JCM: I admire your poetic skill. Your rhyme and meter are perfect. Your message is never cryptic, but always clear. The Society of Classical Poets is one of the few remaining literary venues that still support the all-American right to Freedom of Speech!
Dear E. V.,
I thank you for your kind observation as to the clarity of my verses, and also for your support of the Society of Classical Poets (SCP). I have made every effort to bring the SCP to the attention readers outside of the United States. From the great interest shown the “Letter to England: For Tommy Robinson” among our colleagues in the United Kingdom and Europe, the Society is certainly gaining ground.
Above all, as the world focuses on the plight of the United Kingdom and the progress of Britain’s most courageous voice—that of Tommy Robinson—the SCP should be proud of its roll in making traditional poetry relevant to the aspirations of freedom in our time.
Dear Joseph —
I’ve only just looked again at this old thread, after learning that it had been revitalized recently as a result of your poem’s growing popularity in Britain and elsewhere. Congratulations — the heroism of Tommy Robinson is being recognized, and your tribute to that heroism is helping to bring about that result.
Things are slowly changing in Britain. The stinging parliamentary rebuke to that dumb left-liberal bitch May is a portent. She tried desperately to sabotage Brexit, and her own party kicked her in the teeth.
There are still leftist scum like “Dr. Rhind” infesting Britain, but they no longer have the floor all to themselves. In Brazil, Italy, Hungary, and plenty of other places, things are moving rightwards. As the counter-cultural jackasses from the 1960s sang, the times they are a-changin’.
The shift to the right in politics in a number of countries is anti democratic and leading to the 1930s madness that led to world war. Nationalism is the road to war and it is rooted in intolerance for others. The emotions it unleashes are irrational and appeals to the less intelligent who are enamoured by flag waving idiots like Farage. Genocide is often the result of arrogant nationalism. It thrives on hate for the ‘other’. Robinson is the epitome of this pathetic stereotype.
Dear Dr. Salemi,
And it is significant, indeed, that one of the illustrious supporters of this poem, whose comment can still be enjoyed in this thread (supra), was none other than Leo Yankevich, another great voice of freedom, who expresses that I produce more poetry along these lines—even as he attacks a liberal commentator in his signature manner!
To quote: “I find your poem well-made. I’d like more of the same kind, poems with gonads.”
‘Freedom’a term that is abused more than any other. Freedom for who? White nationalists? Invariably yes. Largely low intelligence and led by a scumbag fascist.
Maclean — has anyone ever told you that you are a walking cliche? You sound like a tape recording of a Corbyn rally.
No comment on what I said. Typical avoidance tactic moving in cliche circles. Nationalism leads to wars this is a fact. Blood and soil patriots are emotionally driven idiots clueless about the benefits of cooperation nationally and internationally. We have had peace in Europe for 70 years through E.U cooperation.
“Peace is not only the avoidance of war, but the enjoyment of order.” —St. Augustine
Was it not for the chaos created by the EU, there would be no nationalist movements.
The EU had nothing to do with the nationalism of Milosovic in the genocide of Yugoslavia. Tribal behaviour scars our social landscape. The EDF in England are the British manifestation of this rabid hate filled behaviour. They are happy to sow the seeds of disorder attacking minorities churches and individuals. You and Robinson are feeding this dysfunction.
The E.U. was founded by the Maastricht Treaty of 1992. Its purely economic predecessor, the European Economic Community (the Common Market), only came into being around 1958. There was no E.U. seventy years ago. Get educated, Hughie.
This is a really dumb debate! Many inherently good/benign things, if taken to an extreme, can turn toxic. Possessing a patriotic love and loyalty to one’s county is good … Creating a delusion of racial/ethnic superiority to justify sadism and/or aggression towards “the foreigner” is bad. The desire to preserve your country’s history, culture, and social norms belong to the former, not the latter. See, it’s not complicated. Grow up!
Yes. E.V., you are absolutely right in the abstract. But warfare (whether physical or intellectual) is never totally abstract. It’s complicated by the sheer hormonal malice of one’s enemies. A left-wing ideologue like Hugh Maclean, who just parrots mainstream-media muck, can’t be “debated” in any rational sense. (He’s so historically uninformed that he thinks the E.U. has been around for 70 years!) All you can do with an ignoramus like that is fling ridicule at him. It’s not pretty, but it’s the only way to fight. Leo Yankevich understood this sort of thing very well.
The first pan European agreement on Steel and Coal industries was agreed in 1946. Both industries that fed war machines. Churchill talked of the ‘United States of Europe’ in the same year. Further integration followed so it has been roughly 70 years of cooperation that has helped to maintain peace in Europe. Your ignorance takes the breath away.
I’ve never heard it articulated quite as well, E. V., thank you.
Distinctions are only for men substance, and there are fewer and fewer such men left in the world.
No ‘benign’ patriotism is the dog that turns when slighted and the emotions it feeds are violent and irrational. Given the conditions of an economic slump nationalists look to authoritarianism of the right for solutions. Populists like Trump don’t like democracy and his blue collar base want him to break with the constitution.
You really are clueless about American law and government, aren’t you, Hugh? Why embarrass yourself in public by talking about matters of which you know nothing?
Trump’s base (and it includes a helluva lot more people than just “blue-collar” workers) wants him to preserve our constitution — more specifically, the First Amendment that protects our right to unfettered free speech, and the Second Amendment that protects our right to bear arms. The American Left is desperate to destroy both of those constitutional rights.
You Brits don’t have either of those precious rights in the politically correct bureaucracy of permanent Leftist-Liberal-Labourite agencies that dictate how you can live. You can’t speak freely, and you can’t even own a shotgun without registering it.
And yes, your hero Corbyn (along with most Labourite activists) is an anti-Semite. That’s why British Jews are leaving your party in droves.
The second amendment is the right to kill people if you are having a bad day. Nothing can change the unhinged US obsession with guns where the murder rate is shocking by international comparisons. Trump supports this and the NRA reward him substantially for this support. Most of your two Houses are also in the pay of this supporter of domestic terror. The American left are concerned about free speech when Trump has a propaganda Channel,Fox, that is as effective as North Korea’s propaganda channel in brainwashing the public. Trump had the Russians help in winning the election -they discredited Clinton and used illegal information gathering on the electorate they wanted to target. Corruption is everywhere in the land of the free.
You are clearly clueless on the British unwritten constitution where free speech is practiced widely except where Rupert Murdoch imposes his bigoted views to uphold the Conservatives grip on power. Also the extreme right has been in control in Britain for the last decade so kindly leave alone things you are ill equipped to understand. Under this Right wing neoliberal agenda our country has been destroyed with inequality at record levels, our public services starved of funds and the poor stigmatised and left with little money to survive. As I call it we have been ‘Americanised’ where compassion for others is gone, individualism is rampant, and workers rights have been eviscerated.
Corbyn is not an anti-Semite he has a record of compassion for the plight of the Palestinians. He does not question the right of the Jewish State to exist and has said this on numerous occasions. You really show both your ignorance on such matters and your prejudices. You need to find some humility because your arrogance is overbearing.
It appears that Mr. MacLean is a conservative writing in the guise of a liberal, given that his posts are caricatural and ludicrous, emphasizing the intellectual narcolepsy of the left.
To say, for example, that the 2nd Amendment is the right to kill someone if you are having a bad day, is to confuse the fundamental right of self-defense with “free choice” which has led to over 61 million infanticides since Roe versus Wade in 1973.
Here’s a little history, Mr. MacLean, of what has happened after governments disarmed their citizens:
1911 – Turkey disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1915 – 1917 they murdered 1.5 million Armenians.
1929 – Russia disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1929 – 1953 they murdered 20 million Russians.
1935 – China disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1948 – 1952 they murdered 20 million Chinese.
1938 – Germany disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1939 – 1945 they murdered 6 million Jews.
1956 – Cambodia disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1975 – 1977 they murdered 1 million educated people.
1964 – Guatamala disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1964 – 1981 they murdered 100,000 Mayan Indians.
1970 – Uganda disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1971 – 1979 they murdered 300,000 Christians.
Given, Mr. MacLean, that the neuro-virus of liberalism prevents the brain from acknowledging facts and that history is liberalism’s enemy number one, your adroit, satirical caricature of the typical alt-left neo-fascist is spot on.
Strange answer to say the least. You give the impression with your odd take on deaths in countries under extreme regimes that a fully armed population were suddenly disarmed and governments proceeded to massacre their populations. Very odd take on these atrocities carried out by authoritarian regimes.
Of course the converse of this is a fully armed American population stopping Federal government slaughtering them. Mr Mackenzie you appear to be supporting this rather extreme view of a population fearing for its collective life. Surely checks and balances does not include an armed standoff of Americans and their government. I thought you had put the Wild West behind you in a bloody civil war.
Tell me, Shug, are you as keen to play chess with pigeons, or does your masochism only go so far.
I fear you’re wasting your time, but it’s nice to see someone trying even in this obscure outpost of the internet.
How creative! The original quote (by an anonymous author) reads: “Arguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are, the bird is going to shit on the board and strut around like it won anyway.” Unfortunately, Joseph Charles MacKenzie, the “pigeons” attempting to soil your board, and view themselves as moral and intellectual superiors, can’t even compose their own, original quote.
… because you’re (obviously) too refined for name calling.
I would never on principle bad mouth other decent people.
So … 1). YOU get to determine who’s “decent” and 2). Those people YOU deem indecent are not worthy of civility.
YOU are committing the exact demonization of the “other” behavior that you’ve accused Trump supporters of exhibiting.
Yes it’s reasonable to know and like people with similar values. I have been on the receiving end of abuse on this thread and cannot always turn the other cheek. It’s true I cannot fathom why people support Trump and do not think their judgement either sound or rational. I assumed it was the left behinds in the rust belt who voted for him but some other ‘classicis’ thinks the well heeled older folk backed him. My views are only my views and no one is claiming they are infallible. I do like a debate though even if it gets a bit heated. No shortage of angry Trumpeteers on here.
One other point while I have been threatened with exclusion by the moderator others have been very scathing in their attitude to ‘Muslim scum’ and ‘bitches’ both terms I find offensive. The ‘establishment’ people can say what they want apparently.
No. Mr. Maclean, you are NOT the victim here. The editor rebuked you for making factually incorrect statements. To paraphrase the famous quote, “One is entitled to one’s own opinions, but not one’s own facts.” Furthermore, anti-Jewish (and, by extension, anti-Israel) untruths escalate into existential threats against an ethnic group that has historically suffered so so much because of discrimination … and the libels that fuel those fires!
I disagree with your politically correct stance because it is trying to close down all discussion about the problems facing the Palestinians. You can be concerned about Palestinians and still support the existence of a Jewish state. This type of censorship is manipulative and designed to stop debate ensuring the Jewish lobby is the only one heard.
Didn’t you properly read the memo? Jews (and Israel) are the only ethnic minority group not protected by the left’s PC doctrine.
Furthermore, if you truly cared about the suffering of everyday Palistineans, how about addressing their refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist, a pre-requisite for a 2-state solution? How about condemning those terrorist acts which force Israel to protect its citizens? How about showing concern for Israeli victims of terror?
It’s hard to know how to deal with an idiot like Maclean (he can’t even remember to capitalize his last name), when all he does is spout the same old Mainstream-Media drivel put out by the BBC. Let’s puncture a few of his overinflated dirigibles, just to let our British readers know that we aren’t enslaved to left-liberal propaganda here across the pond.
1) He calls the NRA a “supporter of domestic terror,” when in fact it is one of the oldest and most patriotic civic organizations in the United States, and is financially supported solely by the membership fees and voluntary donations of millions of individual American citizens. It receives no money from anyone else, or from any governmental source. The NRA has power because the American people want it to have power.
2) He claims that FOX News channel is “brainwashing the American public,” when in fact it is the only conservative and rightist network in operation. The entire remainder of the media in the United States (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, BBC, and all the other networks and news outlets) are completely in the hands of the Left. Maclean apparently thinks that censoring FOX News (and censoring Rupert Murdoch in Britain) is perfectly OK. Like all left-liberals, Hugh believes that censorship of anyone on the right is acceptable and proper, while censoring anyone on the left is unthinkable. What a hypocritical jackass he is!
3) Maclean is still pushing the imbecilic fantasy that Trump had “Russian help in winning the election.” He must be living in a cocoon — not even the American left is pushing that canard anymore. It is a complete and total lie, without a shred of evidence to back it up. I guess it takes time for news to get across the Atlantic to the Labourite dimwits in Corbyn’s parade, most of whom seem to prefer to live in their own dreamworld of propaganda.
4) Yes, Jeremy Corbyn is trying very hard to cover his arse concerning the long trail of evidence that he has left over the years concerning his hatred of Israel, his support of Palestinian terrorism, and his visceral dislike of Jews. But he’s having little luck — the rank and file of his party are still insulting and berating Jews in Britain who dare to raise their voices in support of a Jewish state. Labour’s anti-Semitism is now so ingrained that it hard to hide.
4) If Maclean thinks the Britain of that insufferable wet, Theresa May, is under the control of “the extreme right,” he must be delusional. He thinks that stupid left-liberal bitch, who can’t even handle Brexit properly and who has tried surreptitiously to foil it, is on “the extreme right”? I don’t know what kind of heavy-duty weed Hugh Maclean is smoking, but it must be pretty powerful stuff.
If you think my “arrogance is overbearing,” Hughie, well then, too bad. Just bugger off, as you Brits say. I intend to continue flaming your arse here if you post more idiocies, just to let the good people in Britain know that we don’t have to tolerate left-liberal crap in the U.S.A.
And God bless Tommy Robinson, and his supporters. We’re with you!
My God, Joe!
Don’t you get it yet? You are most gullible. There is no persona,Brit,: Hugh Mclean. There is nothing in his speech pattern that identifies him as a Brit. He’s American. But not just that, here’s a whole bunch more: Nicole Davidoff, Mike Marsh, Hermina (Mia) Van Der Stam, Corallen, Jo Patti, Taylor Thomas, Mark Wall, and the now infamous: James Eliot.
There is no doubt that all of these “folks” are at best, two different people. I bet I know who Hugh Mclean is, and I’m confident who the others are. That alos includes Sally Lacey on the winner’s thread.
Joe, I don’t normally have revelations. However, a simple study on Wikipedia, (in depth) of Tommy Robinson, (not his real given name), surprise, revealed multiple identities of Mr. Robinson, and his and other’s proclivities to use pseudonyms whenever it was necessary and convenient to do so. They hide behind real masks, brawl and lie, intimidate, coerce and cajole whomsoever they can. “Tommy Robinson” is a convicted felon: for stealing a pretty substantial sum of money. He is a convicted felon for other crimes that are adjudged by any reasonable measure, fair and undeniable. How is he a hero? He is a criminal. He served time, real time.
You are being led down a dishonest path.
Oh for Pete’s sake, Charlie — how long are you going to go on about this theory of false names? What is this conspiratorial thing you have about some manipulative plot? Do you honestly think that everybody here at the SCP is writing under an assumed name?
I know very well that “Tommy Robinson” is not the man’s real name, but he does exist, he has been an activist in the North of Britain, and he was arrested by the British police. Do you think all the media in both Britain and the U.S. are lying when they report on him and his activities?
The Wikipedia article on Robinson was penned (and embellished and added to) by a huge group of anti-Tommy-Robinson leftist scum. They have dug up every true thing (or lie) that they can find to discredit him. And you fell for it.
I don’t give a damn about Tommy Robinson’s past, real or imagined. He is a real warrior for the English people.
And Charlie — when you come here with this silly distraction about false names and conspiracies, you only play into the hands of our leftist enemies.