Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Thursday, July 04, 2019

Pray for a Debacle


So Twittler has decided to hijack the national Independence Day celebration and turn it into a celebration of himself. Commandante Bonespurs, flanked by the chiefs of staff (who actually have military experience, oddly enough) is going to review tanks and fighter jets, then make a speech about his exceptional greatness.

The New York Review of Books has compiled a photo essay of national celebrations featuring tanks so we can be reassured that there is plenty of historical precedent for this. This one should be even more exciting because in addition to the special fireworks display ordered up just for the Narcissist in Chief, the forecast calls for thunderstorms. Apparently protesters have gotten a permit to fly the Trump Baby Blimp, though I don't know where they will be an if it will be visible to him. Thunderstorms will get in the way of that but either way, his narcissisgasm may be spoiled.

While the symbolism of all this is disturbing, let it not distract us from a couple of substantive issues.

The nation of which we are so proud is torturing children. Perhaps that deserves some attention.

As I believe I have mentioned before, there is the minor issue of substantial, densely populated parts of the planet becoming uninhabitable by humans, an inconvenient fact which the Stable Genius insists is not actually happening.

Orange Julius is the most vile, repulsive human being imaginable. But 43% of the people tell pollsters they approve of his performance in office; and screaming, adoring fans flock his campaign rallies. He is bringing out all of the darkness in our culture, but of course it was there all along. However, cruising on the momentum of the economic expansion since the 2008 crash has been a necessary condition to keeping it going. That will end, because the business cycle has not been repealed, and conditions are not favorable for continued expansion thanks to the trade wars (whose idea was that), continually growing inequality, and disinvestment in public infrastructure. When the economy turns down, these folks will grow even angrier.


2 comments:

Don Quixote said...

BRAVO!

I loved "narcissisgasm."

It's the only kind he'll ever have.

BRING ON THE THUNDER!

Don Quixote said...

Happy Independence Day! Link at https://poets.org/poem/let-america-be-america-again
----


Let America Be America Again
Langston Hughes - 1902-1967


Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!

From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used with permission.