Doomed As History Repeats Itself

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

From Wikipedia:

George Santayana (16 December 1863 in Madrid, Spain – 26 September 1952 in Rome, Italy), was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. A lifelong Spanish citizen, he was raised and educated in the United States, invariably wrote in English and is considered an American man of letters. He is perhaps best known for his oft-quoted "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" from Reason in Common Sense, the first volume of his The Life of Reason.

A poem from Russ Vaughn originally published in The American Thinker:

The Words of Santayana (a poem)

Words of Santayana will be with us sure mañana,
When we face a fascist menace once again.
What we term a win today, we will learn to our dismay,
Is perceived as lack of will by evil men.

A lord of Britain led us, to a place where Nazis bled us,
Believing he’d found peace within his time.
At cost of untold billions and deaths of unknown millions,
We paid high price for this lord’s crumbling crime.

New fascist fires are burning, anti-Semitism churning,
Low priests of paparazzi pile the pyres;
With photos of destruction doctored with their foul corruption,
Our world’s again at mercy of bold liars.

Freedom’s slowly burning as new Fascists now are learning
Santayana knew his history, knew of men.
Events we face today have through history been in play,
Ignoring them we face chaos again.

The crime of man’s existence is his unexplained resistance
To take to heart hard lessons fathers learned;
To play again the fool, turn his back upon the cruel,
Till everything he loves lies dead and burned.

Wake up you fools and hear, Santayana’s voice is near,
For your children’s sake please take his words as truth.
Desire to just appease is a deadly vile disease,
Which will seal a deadly fate for your own youth.

Don’t listen but to me, just look back at history,
Never once has weakness ever been prevailing;
The only way to meet these new fascists is with heat,
The heat of war that dooms their dreams to failing.

Russ Vaughn 8 19 06