The crimes of the Reagan administration made Nixon look like a jaywalker. Nobody gave a good god damn, let's just dance instead. This was the "me" generation when Saddam Hussein was such a good friend of ours that we sold him nerve agents. Then we sold his enemy weapons funneled from Israel. Manuel Noriega was such a good friend of ours that the CIA kept their money in Noriega's Panamanian banks. Then when Noriega nationalized the banks he was fingered by the CIA as drug trafficker. They would know, after all they were his partner.
In this time I'd given up my own musical ambition and rock star dreams to play business man and junior executive. The last Horatio Alger generation where with hard work any boy or girl can be president. I'd bought a house and a new car as I made more money each year than the year before. I wasn't rich or even affluent that was just the carrot being held out in front of me.
As I watched Clinton prosecuted for a blow job I thought about Nixon's crimes and the Reagan White House pressuring NASA to launch a billion dollar space shuttle on a frosty morning for a TV stunt. Another accident, another massacre of innocents on top of more wars and incursions. American planes and missiles and nerve agents all excusable under the broad tent of traditional family values.
As we entered the new century I watched as any plausible belief in Democratic government disappeared under faux judicial robes that explained away their ruling as "just this once." A tragedy worthy of Shakespeare, a government worthy of Stalin, "It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything. "
The Democratic opponent dutifully resigned the campaign acutely aware of what happens to those who resist. Four years later the Democratic nominee couldn't resign from the campaign fast enough leaving his own Vice Presidential nominee standing stunned.
Eight more years of carnage and massacre, of subterfuge and infidelity. A government served up as a smorgasbord for special interests. The pretexts for war become flimsier and the carnage is glossed over. Media gladly portrays wrong as right, murder as justice just for a seat at the table. It was as if the entire nation became the living embodiment of that drunken frat boy sadistically burning the Freshman pledges.
A moonless night had fallen and it is better that we not see ourselves for what we have become. Our treasury plundered, taxes on the wealthy cut, taxes on corporations not enforced. A savage, lawless nation. A nation without pity, a nation that loves the god it urinates on. Pro-life, pro-poverty, pro-death, pro-corporations, pro-war. A country with no political touch stones, a country that does not even know left from right nor up from down.
We voted en mass for hope and change and got instead bipartisanship. Deals with the devil, dancing bears and circuses with no bread. A Democratic death cult afraid of its own ghosts. Republican lunacy at the eclipse of sanity, of dark madness at high noon. A nation bedecked with corporate clothes and corporate logos, of corporate food and corporate personhood. Where television says only consume and the music says nothing. Look at my clothes, look at my car, look at my money, look at my dick. A culture of cave paintings.
The President, after his party gets shellacked over the poor economy, flies off to India to promote free trade. He is reflective after the party's losses and promises to work closely with Republicans even though Republicans state their primary goal is to run him out of town. Clueless or toothless? Take your pick, as the wars go on, as the spending escalates, the robot bombs rain down on innocents, as the body bags come home.
I have absolutely no reason to feel hopeful or optimistic. I know longer recognize this country as the land of my birth so I got drunk last night, and read Woody Guthrie just to remind myself that liberalism is an all night struggle waiting for the dawn.
In this time I'd given up my own musical ambition and rock star dreams to play business man and junior executive. The last Horatio Alger generation where with hard work any boy or girl can be president. I'd bought a house and a new car as I made more money each year than the year before. I wasn't rich or even affluent that was just the carrot being held out in front of me.
As I watched Clinton prosecuted for a blow job I thought about Nixon's crimes and the Reagan White House pressuring NASA to launch a billion dollar space shuttle on a frosty morning for a TV stunt. Another accident, another massacre of innocents on top of more wars and incursions. American planes and missiles and nerve agents all excusable under the broad tent of traditional family values.
As we entered the new century I watched as any plausible belief in Democratic government disappeared under faux judicial robes that explained away their ruling as "just this once." A tragedy worthy of Shakespeare, a government worthy of Stalin, "It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything. "
The Democratic opponent dutifully resigned the campaign acutely aware of what happens to those who resist. Four years later the Democratic nominee couldn't resign from the campaign fast enough leaving his own Vice Presidential nominee standing stunned.
Eight more years of carnage and massacre, of subterfuge and infidelity. A government served up as a smorgasbord for special interests. The pretexts for war become flimsier and the carnage is glossed over. Media gladly portrays wrong as right, murder as justice just for a seat at the table. It was as if the entire nation became the living embodiment of that drunken frat boy sadistically burning the Freshman pledges.
A moonless night had fallen and it is better that we not see ourselves for what we have become. Our treasury plundered, taxes on the wealthy cut, taxes on corporations not enforced. A savage, lawless nation. A nation without pity, a nation that loves the god it urinates on. Pro-life, pro-poverty, pro-death, pro-corporations, pro-war. A country with no political touch stones, a country that does not even know left from right nor up from down.
We voted en mass for hope and change and got instead bipartisanship. Deals with the devil, dancing bears and circuses with no bread. A Democratic death cult afraid of its own ghosts. Republican lunacy at the eclipse of sanity, of dark madness at high noon. A nation bedecked with corporate clothes and corporate logos, of corporate food and corporate personhood. Where television says only consume and the music says nothing. Look at my clothes, look at my car, look at my money, look at my dick. A culture of cave paintings.
The President, after his party gets shellacked over the poor economy, flies off to India to promote free trade. He is reflective after the party's losses and promises to work closely with Republicans even though Republicans state their primary goal is to run him out of town. Clueless or toothless? Take your pick, as the wars go on, as the spending escalates, the robot bombs rain down on innocents, as the body bags come home.
I have absolutely no reason to feel hopeful or optimistic. I know longer recognize this country as the land of my birth so I got drunk last night, and read Woody Guthrie just to remind myself that liberalism is an all night struggle waiting for the dawn.
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