President Bush marked National Hungary Day yesterday in a ceremony at the Capitol, by way of noting the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, as the AP dispatch says, "the first significant move against Soviet dominance in central Europe." Bush: "The Hungarian example is an example of patience, and an example of the fact that freedom exists in everybody’s soul. It’s an example that tyranny can never stamp out the desire to be free. It’s an example that -- of a country that, once becomes free, joins with other freedom-loving countries to keep the peace." About 20,000 Hungarian freedom fighters died in a few weeks; as did 1,500 Soviet troops. Over 200,000 people left the country with a population of 9 million.
Thanksgiving, 1965
ee cummings
a monstering horror swallows
this unworld me by you
as the god of our fathers’ fathers bows
to a which that walks like a who
but the voice-with-a-smile of democracy
announces night & day
"all poor little peoples that want to be free
just trust in the u s a"
suddenly uprose hungary
and she gave a terrible cry
"no slave’s unlife shall murder me
for i will freely die"
she cried so high thermopylae
heard her and marathon
and all prehuman history
and finally The UN
"be quiet little hungary
and do as you are bid
a good kind bear is angary
we fear for the quo pro quid"
uncle sam shurgs his pretty
pink shoulders you know how
and he twitches a liberal titty
and lisps "i’m busy right now"
so rah-rah-rah democracy
let’s all be as thankful as hell
and bury the statue of liberty
(because it begins to smell)