Monday 1 April 2024

Baltimore Connections


 

Baltimore Connections - a Pamphlet

Both sides having expressed mutual condolences for recent disasters, we segue into The Great Bear pointing to Uncle Sam with a smirk, “Behold the crumbling fortunes of a Rogue state.” Allies to the South and East prick their ears & tune in while The Bear continues, scratching at a scar, “Far from leading the so-called free world, Amerikar is now tumbling down the rabbit-hole of her own lies and self-deceptions.” Like most inveterate mendicants, falling into the error of believing the fibs they have told, Amerikar once again dallies at the brink of Precipice. Not eight years have passed since they elected a Slimy Greaseball formerly known as The Don, and now they stand on the very cusp of repeating that Supreme Error.

And yet, let us not view Baltimore through Slavic eyes, but rather with London’s long-suffering insight. The poor City, in the form of Lloyd’s, is set to fork out some three billions Sterling, as the loses of life and infrastructure are adjusted and settled, putting no small Dent in the Profits of the world’s largest Maritime insurance house. Is the time not nigh, after more than two centuries’ mounting impatience, to cry halt to these Proceedings? These Yankee Rogues – aka Rebs  – have strained at the long leash long enough. Let go, away with them! England shall have their full Brexit now, rejecting this Wishy-Washy half-way house.

Baltimore featured in Madison’s War (the War of 1812). Google the Eponymous battle for proof of Amerikar’s Mendacity, and Madison’s cowardice. Indeed, so brazen are they, it only behoves one to read between the lines & glean yr Actual Truth. The Canadian Mace was held for over a century - just down the coast at Annapolis!

One could neither condone nor defend the British Empire or its Colonial Warts & all, and one will say, by the standards of the day with Hypocrisy e’er the refuge of the Cad, that the 1812 invasion of Canada should live – as does the bombing of Pearl Harbour, in the Urinals of Infamy. The Brits - in their Titanic struggles with Napoleon Bonaparte - Amerikar’s boom chum in Revolutionary Tyranny - were hard pressed to come precipitately to the aid of their Canadian subjects, many of whom French speakers, yet who, for the most part Conspicuously, chose not to embrace the invaders as Liberators and prospective Fellow Citizens. It wasn’t until the Corsican - self-styled - Emperor of the French was temporarily bilked from Power into exile on the isle of Elba, that the Brits were in a position to deal with Americkarn incursions onto Canadian soil. Toronto (then styled York), having twice been sacked in 1813, when huge quantities of booty were lifted and the Legislative Assembly building burnt to the ground, it was decided that Punitive Acts of Retribution were Required. Thus a force of Veterans from the Peninsula War were assembled at the Bahamas prior to sailing for the US coast and disembarkation at various points stateside. First, in revenge for the burning of the Canadian Parliament, President James ("Let's grab Canada for the Union") Madison was chased from Washington; whereupon, after his Evening Meal had been dispatched by a Contingent of British Officers, the presidential mansion (formerly George Washington’s home, and later to be known as The White House) was torched. Thereafter, private and federal storage buildings along the East Coast of Chesapeake Bay were emptied & the goods impounded in Reparation for losses the civilian merchants had sustained at York & elsewhere. Finally a bold attempt was made to overrun and burn the very port of Baltimore, but there the Revengers faced a spirited defence and so retired, the Honours being mostly theirs. Yr Actual Truth - seen by the light of these stars - was a successful punitive raid, not some attempted invasion or landgrab. Also, as a fledgling Rogue State, Amerikar learned its lesson. Time to remember it, eh?

Of footnotes, it is interesting to note the Citizens of Baltimore had rioted in opposition to Madison’s Declaration Of War on the owl Mother Rogue. Though the town was principal base for many of the Privateers that would harass British merchant shipping in the Caribbean and off the Nova Scotian coast, an outrage which would have provided poor London itself with the excuse to Declare War on its former colonies had it not been engaged in more pertinent conflict elsewhere; nevertheless, the folk of Baltimore had little to gain from war with Great Britain - and much to lose - as trade with Liverpool and Bristol was the basis of their Prosperity. Also of note is that the words of the Star Spangled Banner (later to become the National Anthem of the USA) were composed to celebrate the successful defence of that town. A gigantic Stars & Stripes had remained in place throughout the place’s shelling and rocket attacks by the Royal Navy. Incidentally, it is indicative of the Internecine nature of the Wars between these two Rogue States that the music to which Francis Scott Key’s lyrics were sung was composed by an Englishman, John Stafford Smith - having been the Club Song of The Anacreon (a forerunner of London’s Garrick Club for Gentlemen). And so to the Abolition of the Slave Trade and the pursuit of slavers by His Royal Majesty's navy...

Slavery and the Slave Trade, then even hotter potatoes than Human Trafficking and the Sorry Plight of Refugees today, formed the background (or Leitmotif) of early Nineteenth century World Politics. But leaping forward to the Present day, is not the death of six Latino Boys From the Blackstuff on the Francis Scott Key bridge Indicative of the economic State of Affairs? Just as the Economies of Europe and the United States at the turn of the eighteenth century were bound up in the misery of Black African slavery, so is their present day reliance on cheap, often illegally hired Labour from failing states in the Global South.

Amerikar, as the Great Bear will attest, is the Greatest Rogue State in History. Hypocrisy is written into their Constitution. They were founded by a group of scoundrels determined to avoid paying their dues on the French Indian War, and who then Smiled upon those to whom a Frown was Appropriate. To this day their school books make fun of the hero General Braddock, while jealously guarding the sword which he presented to Colonel Washington. Let it, like the Mace of the York Parliament, be returned to its rightful owners. And let the rebuilt Francis Scott Key bridge be renamed Convenience O’er Truth. 

No, not then, nor ever!