next to of course god america
“next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn’s early my
country ’tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?”
He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water
-ee cummings
Battle of Verdun (976,000 total casualties)
Of course cummings poem was written in 1926 following the FIRST World War. But when will it stop? When will we evolve?
‘Next to of course god America’, copyright 1926, 1954, © 1991 by the Trustees for the E E Cummings Trust.
Steelman The Humanist 
According to Steven Pinker in his latest book, we are becoming less violent. There has to be a better way than mass slaughter of mostly innocents. In the whole scheme of things, we are newly evolved from our warring primate ancestors, so perhaps we still have generations to go. Maybe we just aren’t praying hard enough for peace. Where did I put those rosaries????