The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats (first part)
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. . . .
W. B. Yeats wrote his poem The Second Coming while most of the world was trying to fit all the pieces together again after World War I, but legitimate leaders met obstacles and social troubles loomed ahead to grip the governments and institutions in a vise for many years. Yeats expressed concern while watching extremists on both the left and the right gain footholds with people grown weary and impatient in their post-war lives. The histories of Germany, Italy, and Russia during this period between the two world wars attests to that.
Now, on another scale and another time, look at today's political climate. I took a journalism class or two in in my college days, and in them the theory professed that when reporting news stick to the facts; if you want to state your opinion, call it an editorial and put it on a different page. Cable networks have grown notoriously guilty of opinion disguised as fact and people on the fringes repeat and are influenced by the jingoism and sloganeering they hear; some act as if it has substance..
For the most part, I quietly sit in the center of political thought and often wonder who represents me saying, "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of men and women."
In World War I, my grandfather fought in the 362nd Infantry Regiment of the 91st "Wild West" Division. On September 26, 1918 the entrenched U. S. troops received the order to go "over the top." Grandpa's regiment performed admirably while taking heavy casualties. They reached and took their objective, the town of Epinonville, only to be ordered to withdraw. Why? Because the regiments on either side of them had not kept pace and left the 362nd's flanks exposed. They had given up 50% of their unit in casualties, only to be told to retreat.
It seems to me in today's world the flanks are not keeping up to the center. Instead they slow up or impede it from moving forward.
