Spare Me: 4th of July 2022

Spare me your red, white and blue claptrap

I don’t want to hear it this year

not in 2022,

when theocrats in dusky judicial robes

strip our rights away

by twisting the law to impose their 18th century notions

on the rest of us;

Spare me myths of wise Founding Fathers, 

George Washington was a greedy land speculator,

and the sage of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson, had a yen

for Negro flesh and spread his pale seed among the people

he owned,

never once believing that 

all men are created equal;

Spare me tales of divinely inspired destiny,

wave your blood-soaked stars & stripes someplace else,

because no moral God could condone centuries of chattel slavery,

Black men, women, and children bought, sold, traded, 

insured, mortgaged, beaten, whipped, 

raped,

burned alive and lynched at will;

atone for that and we can speak of Liberty

and Justice for all; atone 

for genocide on the plains, for the Trail of Tears and

Wounded Knee, 

for the invasion of Haiti

Mexico

the Philippines and 

Guatemala

for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for Afghanistan and

Iraq;

Spare me your fireworks until Donald Trump 

is held to account for attempting a coup;

every minute the sociopathic former president 

and his traitorous retinue walk free

they mock the rule of law

and make the Department of Justice a euphemism;

Spare me your patriotic speeches and odes to democracy

as long as Mitch McConnell

runs the U.S. Senate like his personal kingdom;

Spare me your 4th of July sales, deals, discounts

I’m not buying;

Spare me your backyard BBQ’s and all-American BS

as long as white Christian fascists

care more for the unborn than they do for the living,

and venerate their guns more than their wives,

sisters and

daughters;

Spare me, America, until you muster

the moral courage to look in the mirror

and not flinch at the 

reflection

that makes you so

uncomfortable and afraid.  

Star Spangled Fantasy

 “It is the burden of life to be many ages/without seeing the end of time.” Jim Harrison

Another 4th of July. Life, liberty and the pursuit of property and profit. We hold these truths to be self-evident (for white men). The many myths of America, shining city on the hill, beacon of freedom, cradle of liberty, welcoming arms for huddled masses from every corner of the globe. Rockets red glare. Dawn’s early light. Remember the Maine! Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My Lai. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. The reality withers the myth like the burning sun shrivels the Pacific Northwest. Un-American you say, love it or leave it, Commie-Pinko-Socialist-Liberal. Get out if you don’t believe that America is the greatest country in the world, if you refuse to acknowledge the essential goodness of the people who inhabit this blessed nation. We’re No. 1!

America is a Land of Lies and Fantasy. Our history is littered with reverence for ignorance and fear. We avoid staring Truth in the face the same way Superman avoids kryptonite. We can’t accept or reconcile our long history of racism, violence, genocide, and destruction of our forests, rivers, lakes, and mountains because not enough of us have the courage to acknowledge the truth. We prefer to divide into our camps, red and blue, liberals and conservatives, the woke versus the Trumpian Zombies, and ride our fairy tales over the edge. After all these years and all the trauma, millions of white Americans can’t let go of the notion that there is something inherently inferior about black people. Am I alone in thinking that America is a madhouse, an air-conditioned nightmare as Henry Miller called it back in the 1940’s? 

The foundation is cracked and crumbling. Tears fall from the eyes of Lady Liberty, splash into the roiling waters of New York harbor. Huddled masses yearning to breathe free are no longer welcome here. The Republican Party is as conformist and sclerotic as the Communist Party was in the old Soviet Union, as adverse to facts and logic, reason and evidence. America is a fearful nation, not a confident one. Mainstream Democrats put up limp resistance, compromised as they are by corporate cash. The Supreme Court is ruled by political operatives in dark robes. As a country we’re not prepared for the coming crisis; there’s too much disunity and distrust within our borders, too much blatant celebration of our ignorance, fanned by Trump and his many enablers and imitators. Fire and flood and drought and famine are in our future, but we ignore the warning signs and dig ourselves in deeper. 

Raise Old Glory and aim your fireworks into the night sky. It’s Independence Day in the indispensable nation. We’re No. 1, remember? 

Star Spangled Nightmare

It’s the 4th of July and part of me feels compelled to write something high-minded about America. Land of the free, home of the brave, 1776, beacon of liberty -- all that stuff. Yes, take the exalted path and pen something in praise of the birth of a free nation, steeped in the principles of the Enlightenment. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Hancock, a few of the fabled founding fathers that Michelle Bachmann always refers to in her speeches to Tea Party faithful – as if to say: if we only return to the time-tested values of our white fathers, all will again be well.

Today the star spangled banner will play from thousands of loud speakers, Gob Bless America will be sung in ballparks and arenas, hot dogs will hiss on BBQ grills, bands will march…

Damn it! Why is a vision of a leering George W. Bush slipping across my mind? Why is Dick Cheney sinking his teeth into Jefferson’s neck? Why is that skinny bitch Ann Coulter flashing her insipid tits at John Adams? Am I losing my mind? Am I having a waking nightmare? Is this what psychosis feels like when it finally takes hold?

Wow! Where did that come from? It was like 2003 all over again, when Dick and W ran roughshod over the Constitution and lied through their teeth about the need for America to invade and occupy Iraq. But it’s better now, right, and if the Founding Fathers are gazing down on this fruited plain, surely they are smiling?

OK, maybe not. Washington is teary-eyed and Jefferson is livid with rage, John Adams can’t believe what has become of America, and John Hancock simply mutters, “Bastards, bastards, bastards” over and over. The venerable Founders look at the current Congress, aghast that a single great leader cannot be found beneath the dome. Instead they see a house filled with clowns, idiots, shysters, fools, pederasts, homophobes, morons, perverts and criminals, all of them grubbing for money from corporate lobbyists and shilling for wealthy donors. Of the two political parties, one is in thrall to a failed ideology and the other is craven and intellectually bankrupt. Meanwhile, the president is a serial coward who repeatedly raises the white flag and flees the battlefield before the first shot is fired.

And the people, the good, decent American people that Mitt Romney and Bachmann and Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry are always droning on about, how are they getting on? Not so well. Many are running scared in the face of a bewildering economy that serves the few on the backs of the many, swimming in debt or waiting to lose their homes to the maw of a pitiless foreclosure machine. The cost of living rises but decent jobs at living wages are harder to find than a moderate Republican, and the playing field that once made sense and held promise is now tilted against wage earners.

Washington, the military hero, cannot fathom how easily the nation commits its sons and daughters to murky wars in distant lands, and how little sacrifice is asked from the people, and how these wars go on without end, long after the rational for them expires. The military generals cow the politicians and in turn the politicians frighten the population with predictions of dire consequences should our soldiers come home before the mission is complete. The huge footprint left by the American military colossus on the globe – particularly in places where oil is found -- tells Washington that something besides national security is in play…

Whoa, man, this is getting heavy. Don’t be such a downer. What about fireworks and cold beer, juicy hamburgers, and American flags snapping in the breeze? Don’t stress about the economy, distant wars, political gridlock or the fact that the FBI and the NSA spy on us. Forget all that dark stuff. Crack a cold Budweiser and stick your head in the sand. Now you’re behaving like a patriotic American.

At the Expense of the Many

My family and I watch the fireworks arc over Stearn’s Wharf on the 4th of July. The beach and waterfront are jammed with people and the air is heavy with the smell of a hundred BBQ grills. Traditional American rah-rah music plays from a loudspeaker on West Beach. Most of the people sitting on the sand around us are speaking Spanish. Cameras flash as the sky overhead bursts into bright green, red and gold; I see faces illuminated by the light from cell phones.

Happy birthday, America.

On this holiday night I want to think about what is right with our country, but so many things are out of whack that I can’t focus on the positive – two wars dragging on, the long term implications of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the tanked economy, the largest prison population in the world, and the perils of climate change. This is what I’m thinking about as the fireworks rise up and explode.

How do citizens change a system dominated by two political parties who tap dance to the same corporate drummer? How do we restore a healthy balance of power between capital and labor, government and big business, domestic needs and geopolitical realities? How can we fight against the enormous power wielded by corporate lawyers and lobbyists?

Under the guise of taming the Federal deficit, President Obama’s blue-ribbon deficit commission is mounting a rationale to reduce Social Security benefits, raise the retirement age (again) or both. The campaign is built on fabrications since Social Security is actually a program that pays its own way and does not contribute to the deficit, but don’t bother telling that to the commission members who have concluded (in advance) that reducing Social Security will send the right message to the financial markets. In other words, it’s once again more important to place the perceived needs of the financial sector over those of millions of average citizens.

Are we going to stand for this?

There are far better ways to reduce the Federal deficit than eviscerating Social Security, which, by the way, has been the Holy Grail of GOP conservatives for decades. How about cutting the bloated defense budget, reducing the number of U.S. bases that straddle the globe? How about eliminating subsidies for Big Oil?

Our society is structured for the enrichment of the few at the expense of the many. For the most part, the people we elect to do our business make a mockery of representative democracy. There are, to be sure, some bright, committed people in Congress, but they are overshadowed and out numbered by mediocre partisans. It took many years to bring this society into being, and it figures to take many years to unravel it in favor of something more just and sustainable.

If you want to know what a nation values, you need only watch where it spends its resources. As the fireworks soar through the summer sky, I ask myself how this country can always find money for war but rarely for peace; I ask myself why taxpayer subsidies for profitable corporations arouse little or no ire, while help for the needy or a dignified retirement for senior citizens drives the political right into a self-righteous frenzy.

The finale has begun. Boom, boom, boom, red, green, gold, star bursts and molten streamers, and the voice of Lee Greenwood singing Proud to be an American echoing on the loudspeaker. I don’t feel that pride. Instead I feel a sense of loss, of wasted opportunities, and I wonder when the people will say, “Enough.”