The readers of these essays are known to be upstanding, honest, far-sighted, and are generally free from all sin, original or otherwise. There may be one or two who have sin-sick-souls, but they have other offsetting characteristics such as being kind to animals and being gracious to grandparents to make up for all other deficiencies.
It is my intention to cushion the blow to my righteous and delicious readership who must be informed that soldiers, such as some of us were, often use profane language as they conduct their business of soldering. The Army has failed for 230 years to make soldier speech as gentle and as inoffensive as the language used at Aunt Verna’s bridge club. Simply put, the Army has tried to erase all vulgarities from GI language, but the obscenities and the lewdness inevitably appears in soldier speech. In many cases, one sentence may embrace three or four references to foul, filthy, nasty, ungodly, iniquitous, nefarious and villainous words. Rather than to upbraid them for their speech delivered in the costume of the United States Army, there are those who applaud them for their inventive and imaginative use of the language of the Anglo-Saxon race which we now call English.
In any case, this old soldier still understands the language of the GI. He knows that politicians and preachers, including bishops, cardinals and ayatollahs, often speak glowingly about things they must know to be completely false. Banning condoms in HIV infected regions of Africa, for example. But worse than that, is the sense of martyrdom, pity and grievances that politicians and preachers use to appeal to and to embarrass us. They say, “The world is against us. We are standing here alone in righteous defense of liberty, propriety, godliness, life and the pursuit of happiness. What are you going to do about this evil?”
When any public figure uses pity or a sense of grievance as an appeal, every old GI will respond by saying that those seeking martyrdom are engaging in the practice of “Pissing and Moaning.” In the language of soldiers, there is absolutely nothing inelegant about identifying a pitying statement as “P and M.” Universally, this phrase is used in response to those seeking pity and to those who seek entitlement for their sense of grievance. If Private Jones complains that he has been treated poorly by Corporal Smith, Private Jones’s remarks will most likely be dismissed as nothing more than run of the mill P’ing and M’ing. If Corporal Smith says he wants to go home, the same decision will be made. P’ing and M’ing is not frowned upon or discouraged. It is simply a part of being a soldier. It is quite likely that every soldier has at one time or another engaged in P’ing and M’ing. Former Corporal Calvin Tuggle of Yulee, Florida is expected to agree with me wholeheartedly on the universal nature of P’ing and M’ing. There are others among my readership, such as officers, who will be shocked to know that such a thing goes on in our military services. Lieutenants Harry Livermore and James Reese in Homosassa, Florida will probably know not much about this phenomenon. Colonel Howard Davis of New York City may well dismiss news about P’ing and M’ing as part of a plot to bring down Mayor Bloomberg.
Before we identify some of the prominent among the P’ing and M’ing set, it might be well to point out that the first half of this phase appears often in GI speech as well as in the speech of civilians. Old essay writers don’t often claim to be etymologists, but there is a long history of the P’ing part appearing in the English language. Page 944 of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, tells us there are phases in English having to do with piss and vinegar, pissant, piss poor, piss off as well as the situation that describes many of us, that is, no pot to pee in and no window to throw it out of. All of these are familiar terms in GI speech with no attempt to be smutty. These phrases happen naturally when GI’s and some members of the clergy speak.
Now as to those seeking pity, Protestant and Catholic preachers lead the pack. Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson and a host of other Protestant evangelists say Christianity is always under attack. Frank Pavone and Mitch Pacwa lead the nay-sayers for the Roman Catholic faith. It is being trampled and threatened. The current Pope, who has dabbled in American and Italian politics, is quoted as saying that beliefs that are not in accordance with the church’s infallible doctrine are threatening the Roman Church.
In point of fact, due to the Bush Administration ministrations, Christianity has clearly crossed over the church-state divide. While Bush has not publicly acknowledged the primacy of the Pope, he has adopted Catholic teachings almost across the board on stem cell research and on abstinence. For the Protestants, we have several billions of dollars to support faith based programs within the American government. Yet, preachers of every stripe ask us to pity them because Christianity is under attack.
This is nothing more than ecclesiastical P’ing and M’ing. Under the current administration, Christianity is doing remarkably well in this country.
Moslem preachers in the United States ask our pity and in some cases, they may have a point. The cops in this country are often quick to distrust Moslems. Their mosques are often under the gaze of police. This is a thorny problem for the American courts. It is clear that a person with a Moslem name is going to have a rougher ride with the cops and the courts than someone named James Smith, unless he happens to be black. But the Moslems are quick to claim that they operate under the constant threat of being wiped out. For those exaggerations, they should become acquainted with the American concept of P’ing and M’ing. They may want to include that concept in their religious services by saying it is time to P and M.
Among politicians, the leading seeker of pity is Tom Delay followed by Doctor Bill Frist, the Senate Majority leader, and George Bush, who wears his American flag in his lapel so you will know he is an American. His pajamas have a place for his lapel pin in the event he is called to his God during his sleeping hours.
This cabal got together to push the clearly unconstitutional action of the Congress in the Terry Schiavo case. When the courts rejected their repeated appeals, they asked for our pity because the conservative movement was being threatened. Delay and Frist said this was a monumental moment in American history. Bush flew back from his oft-used ranch in Texas to Washington to sign the bill to continue to force feed Terry Schiavo after 15 years of such morbid denial of her wishes.
Delay made a point of contending that opposition to the Schiavo legislation and his other excesses, told him that other forces were trying to destroy him. Delay is certainly among the leading P’ing and M’ing in the American electorate.
Now we come to a report from Amnesty International in which the American government was reprimanded for running a prison system which A.I. called a “Gulag.” In former days when Amnesty International was beating up on China or North Korea or Iran, the Bush Administration was saying to A.I., “Sic ’em.” But when the spotlight was turned on our torture of Iraqis and other Mideastern people, Bush and his pals screamed bloody murder.
Bush actually called a press conference so he could call the Amnesty International report “absurd.” He said we treat prisoners with great care and decency. We give them gourmet meals and annotated Korans. He said all this knowing that, under his direction, interrogators who were free of the Geneva Convention, were authorized to torture people stopping just short of killing them. A good many were killed, however.
Cheney, Rumsfeld and Coldoleeeeezzzaaa read exactly from the same script. “Absurd” they said. Cheney adlibbed “ridiculous.” Rumsfeld in Singapore seemed to be losing a battle with jet lag, but he read his “absurd” speech. Madame Rice read her speech as well.
The script said, “We don’t ever torture prisoners.” The hundreds of photo graphs tell a contrary story. So are you going to believe Bush et al or your lying eyes. This country is under attack, so they said, by a handful of people at Amnesty International, so we ask you to believe the fairy tale that we don’t torture prisoners – and we ask your pity as we battle the forces of evil represented by Amnesty International. This is the supreme use – and abuse – of the sacred principle of pissing and moaning.
This little essay if offered as a public service. On one hand, it acquaints the readership with the glorious matter of speech by American GI’s. Secondly, it offers a philosophy that tells us things are not always what they seem to be. When Tom Delay or people of the Christian faith seek your pity because they are going to be wiped out, you may classify such claims as foolish and consider them no more than a feeble attempt at P’ing and M’ing.
This essay comes to a close with a happy circumstance. While the Christians and their right wing conservatives are pointing to gloom all around us, the Jews take care of their religious business. If anyone in the Western world has suffered more than the Jews, it simply doesn’t come to mind. Are the Jews asking for our pity? Are the Jews saying their faith is about to be wiped out by sinister forces? Are the Jews suffering from a martyr complex? The answer is of course, no. And for all that this old soldier–essayist salutes the oldest monotheistic religion known to the Western world and wishes them “L’chaim, To Life.”
The Jews and the Irish have always gotten along well. In recent years, Robert Briscoe and son Benjamin, two prominent Irish Jews, have held the office of the Lord Mayor of Dublin. This Irish American appreciates the Jews in this country who don’t ask for your pity or aspire to be martyrs. They tend to their religious duties and don’t tell the rest of us that their faith is the only way to go. An Irishmen would say, “Up the Republic.” In this country we might say, “Hurray for the Jews.” The Jews give no one a reason to say that they are P’ing and M’ing about their faith. For the Jewish contribution to the enjoyment of life, there is an Irish blessing. It goes:
May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
May the rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May your God hold you in the hollow of his hand.
Simply put, the Jews deserve a blessing for taking care of their own business. The fact that this is an Irish blessing serves to honor the long happy relationship between the Jews and the Harps who call Ireland our ancestral home.
E. E. CARR
June 13, 2005
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Man, I somehow didn’t know that “Harp” was slang for a person of Irish descent, so I googled “Jews Harps” and wound up going down a Jew’s Harp rabbit hole on YouTube. Worth.
Anyway, you can read more on army speech below. It has been rather thoroughly documented across the span of these essays.
https://ezrasessays.com/?p=410
https://ezrasessays.com/?p=800
https://ezrasessays.com/?p=1436
https://ezrasessays.com/?p=1054
https://ezrasessays.com/?p=231
https://ezrasessays.com/?p=40