‘…nor build an impassable wall…’

My wife and I continue to object to the government’s tax money being spent for that ridiculous wall that Trump keeps trumpeting.Over coffee, we challenged one another to come up with examples of literature or history that place the Trump “wall” in its proper perspective – idiotic.

We then narrowed our choices to these two examples that we feel express the viability of the project and the future projection of it’s success.

(Yes, we considered both parts of Pink Floyd’s 1979 “The Wall” album – but, in the end, it was just another brick.)

(However, please comment with any that you believe say it better.)

Abraham Lincoln’s Speech

In a plea of reasoning to the disaffected South during his First Inaugural Address, President Abraham Lincoln expressed a practical opinion about the viability of walls between areas sharing a geographical commonality, like the North and South (or like Mexico and the U.S.).

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. [1]

Even in 1861, Lincoln saw the folly of such a structure – literally and figuratively – as a solution.

That leads to an old memory from my wife’s high school literature class.

“Ozymandias”

The following passage comes from a sonnet-form poem published in 1818 by Percy Shelley. The poem – Ozymandias – is about an ancient, broken up statue lying in the desert.

…Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk,a shattered visage lies… And on the pedestal these words appear; ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains, Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The long and level sands stretch far away. [2]

Final Commentary

Nine months after his inaugural speech, Lincoln told Congress in his Annual Message for 1861: “The struggle of today, is not altogether for today – it is for a vast future also.” [3]
The war on illegal drugs and people, in one form or another, will last for generations to come. “Ozymandias” reminds us that physical structures – like walls – are static; whereas, crime bends and flows, using barriers as channels to another direction until ‘…nothing beside remains.’

Food for thought.

Mac

Works Cited

[1] Lincoln, Abraham. “First Inaugural Address.” Retrieved February 27, 2018 from http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html

[2] “Ozymandias” Retrieved February 27, 2018 from https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/ozymandias

[3] Lincoln, Abraham. “Annual Message for 1861.” Retrieved February 27, 2018 from http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29502