9/12/2011

Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of 9/11/2001. It was certainly a significant day in our history, and it was horrible. However, I remember more the damage of what came after, when the Democrats lost all backbone and caved into every ridiculous assertion that the Bush Administration made in curtailing civil liberties and pursuing personal family vendettas that embroiled us in a costly war against Saddam Hussein's regime.

I do not agree with those who find 9/11 to be the worst day in our nation's history. I'd say the outbreak of the Civil War probably beats it. Pearl Harbor is undoubtedly a contender for the title, but at least in the wake of that attack, we had a clear enemy. The tragedy of 9/11 didn't stop when the towers fell; it continued through years of mismanagement, as Bush first squandered the world's good will prosecuting an illegal war against an essentially powerless target unrelated to the 9/11 attacks and as he continued to bankrupt our nation fighting two wars while ignoring the economic crises at home.

Our greater tragedy is that Barack Obama, elected to remove us from these wars and restore economic stability, has refused to make the hard choices to do either. True, we have left Iraq, but we have escalated Afghanistan, propping up a hopelessly corrupt regime that has as much chance of standing as any of the South Vietnamese puppet governments we supported in Viet Nam.

In one sense, we have won the war on terror: Al Qaeda is a shell of itself, its leader dead and its leadership decimated. So for the first time, we mark the anniversary of 9/11 with a sense that some measure of justice has been done to the perpetrator. However, we have allowed this pursuit of external enemies blind us to the ongoing and accelerating damage done by domestic policies inimical to our nation's long-term interests. Most of these principles are on display in the Republican primary fights, but Obama has offered only moderate resistance to the continued assault on the American middle class and working poor, and our nation faces the prospect of extended recession.

The result of the Great Depression was a system of government regulation and labor activism that saw the United States become the most prosperous nation in the world, with a solid middle class. Capital has chipped away at those gains, beginning in the 1970's, and in a time of terror we need to look not only at the enemies who build the bombs and point the guns, but also at those who seek to gut government oversight, consumer protection, and labor power.

Both these enemies seek the collapse of the American ideal.

An overview of the past year.

2009 was not a stellar blogging year for me. Only one month did I manage double-digit posts, and two months I didn't post at all.

Here's the thing: I rarely missed it.

Sure, every now and then I would feel bad that I was neglecting the blog, but the main problem is that I've been out of touch with the District for too long.

It's not the so-called blogging community with their meet-ups and flame wars (I only met another blogger once, and that was by chance) that I've lost touch with, but the feel of place. My blog was mainly political, and much of that national, so it wasn't really a strict DC-living blog, but that's where the energy came from.

I'm not exactly shutting down the blog, at least officially. I might keep writing.

Who knows. There's so much disappointment everywhere.

Schadenfreude

There's nothing sadder than watching your team fail to show up for big games.

OK, so I exaggerate. There are far, far sadder things than that. Like reading the Washington Post comment boards and realizing that most of the people who take time to write on them are reactionary half-wits. Yet still literate. That's sad.

However, in the context of college football, a team with a good record that fails to deliver in the big game is pretty hard to top in the sadness area. And Penn State has delivered that in spades this year, with losses at home to Iowa and Ohio State, the only two decent teams we will play this year (until the bowl game). In both cases, the offense simply didn't show up. The Ohio State game is harder to swallow, because they essentially have one player, and he's not exactly stellar.

But hey, we lost, and have been deservedly kicked to the lower echelons of the top 25 (19 AP, 18 BCS). We should climb up a few spots by beating Indiana and Michigan State, although I can remember a few late season collapses where we went from big bowl contenders to simply bowl bound.

The bright spots on an otherwise disappointing Saturday were that Florida State and Notre Dame lost.

I really don't take much joy anymore in reading the Florida State espn message board, because the people on there are defeated and nasty and would love to kick Bobby Bowden to the curb -- a bunch of ingrates who wouldn't know football and tradition from next week's flavor of the month hot "new" offensive scheme.

The Notre Dame board still provides great amusement, though, because they are still in denial. They still believe that the nation looks to them as a city on the hill, that every coach and every recruit would love to be part of their mid-tier program, and that every team they play treats Notre Dame as "their bowl game" (I suppose since Notre Dame plays mostly losing teams, it might be their bowl game...most of them end up ineligible to play in real bowls). Oh, and before I forget, that Ty Willingham personally and maliciously destroyed Notre Dame football...some posters, like 73Champs, are rather vehement about this charge, calling him "Willingsham" and "Entitlement Thief" and 73Champs has even provided this little "gem" that provides insight into his asininity: "And then based on the color of your skin, bamboozle another un suspecting employer to hire you so you can drive their business into the ground." He usually pulls that one out when he's called out for still backing Charlie Weis, whose record is a full percentage point (yes one point) above Willingham's despite Charlie's having played far worse competition (Willingham played nearly half his games against top25 opponents; Weis has played fewer than a quarter against that caliber of competition...and their records in those games: Willingham, 8-9; Weis, 1-12...the lone Willingham defender on the board, Cardfan, points this out repeatedly and is generally reviled for backing up his argument with numbers. After all, it's much easier to act like Willingham only got hired because he was Black and, according to 73Champs, was fired because he was "lazy").

It's going to get worse before it gets better.

Well, this shooting spree at Fort Hood will send the nation into a tizzy for a few days, and set right-wing shitheads off for far longer. Already, the Washington Post's comment boards are filling up with assholes opining that Muslims should be barred from military and police duty, among other things. Here's a fine example:

We should not have muslims in the armed forces, police departments and anywhere they can cause the havoc they live by. Matter of fact, after knowing that several groups of muslims and mosques such as the one depicted spread hate and anti western rethoric we should put them on a watch list. If they find our system draconian then they can go back to the Middle East. After all, the United States of America belongs to Americans, not the rest of the world. I as an American cannot simply go and live in any muslim country safely, thus why should they be safe here. Time to stand up and state: Respect our country or leave. And spare me the "he was born here" routine, time to judge Americans by their allegiance to this country and not by simple birthright. Take a look at Obama, he may have been born here but is the biggest traitor to our nation.

Note the final shot: Obama, for some reason, is the "biggest traitor," although the poster allows that he "may have been born here." Other posters repeat false quotes attributed to Obama that they claim emboldened the shooter. It's insane. I didn't realize so many right-wing retards read the Post. I thought they hated it and read the Times. I mean, I don't go hanging out on the pages of the Washington Times all day long commenting about their race-baiting stories.

The shooting is horrific: a long-time officer shooting his fellow soldiers should be troubling to everyone. The victims died at the hands of a colleague, and while we've become somewhat immune to the notion of workplace shootings, since this workplace happens to be a military base, we're paying more attention. The fact that he's Muslim, of course, is the only thing the right wants to hear, and it is the loudest noise in the media. It's convenient, too, for the racists and ethnocentrists -- the descendants of those who wanted to deport African Americans to Africa and round up the Japanese Americans in World War Two (Yes, FDR, I'm looking at you...) -- who like to believe that the U.S. is a white, Christian nation. They have little understanding of the difference between having a majority population of a certain race and creed and basing your government on racial or religious factors.

But it's going to get worse. It was bad enough for American Muslims after 9/11. Major Hasan's actions will only elevate the calls for state-sponsored religious and ethnic discrimination to more "legitimate" levels. In other words, instead of being the province of racists like David Duke, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh, this bile will also issue from the mouths of politicians in positions of legislative power (for instance, from more polite proto-fascists like Michele Bachmann). Look for bans on Muslim garb (but not cargo shorts or mumus) in certain public places, under the guise of their ability to conceal weapons/explosives. Look for legislation to prevent Muslims from joining the military or working in public safety positions including police and transportation. Look for legislation seeking to prevent Muslims from owning firearms (a bit farther out there, because the NRA would likely withdraw their financial support from any right-winger floating any sort of gun law).

As far as the news cycle goes, I'm expecting a few things:

• A few more days of focus on Hasan's religion and politics.
• A few days of examination of the stress of being psychiatrist to returning soldiers traumatized by war (aka transference). This aspect will be accompanied by a reassessment of motive.
• A proliferation of right-wing (and perhaps even left-wing) conspiracy theories: from the right, the usual "Obama is a Muslim" tripe alongside a more inventive "Obama generated this massacre to distract everyone from the Republican electoral victories on Tuesday"; from the left, "Obama generated this massacre to justify more troops in Afghanistan."

It's really a depressing scenario, but I remain firm in my belief that the racists and fascists, despite temporary surges, remain on the losing side of history.

RIP Ted Kennedy

With the death of Senator Kennedy, the U.S. Senate has lost one of the last true liberals, and certainly the last with any sort of charisma. Unlike Paul Wellstone's unexpected death in 2002, Kennedy's illness made each legislative session he made seem an astounding act of endurance.

He will be missed.

An old theme.

March has caught me
sleeping, and I give a backward
sheepish glance
to a forgotten friend.

The buds peek green through brown shrouds,
morning frost still catching the less cautious.
These are days of renewal, yes,
but also moving on.

To all buggered bastards out there...

We get it. You're depressed. Just don't be such a selfish bastard and let the wife and kids make their own decisions.

Who knows how many more stories like these we will hear in the times to come, and how many we didn't hear about before media saturation and the internet echo chamber.

Meanwhile, in our own "post-racist" society...

I've been watching the aftermath of the BART police officer's murder of a 22 year old man in front of several witnesses (it was a crowded subway platform after all). If you haven't seen the video one witness took, you should check it out (and try to make it through the long segments of off-angle frames of the roof and people's coats).

It took several days for the story to penetrate the national media. That in itself is inexcusable. Have we so lost our moral compass after eight years of the Bush Administration advocating and executing torture, authorizing lawless mercenaries to suppress civilian populations (until they, like Saddam, go too far, or at least get caught going too far), and implementing ever more strict regimes of domestic surveillance that we can't react to this execution-style killing with more indignation?

To date, the largest protest against this chilling cold-blooded murder has itself shown more unfocused discontent and seething rage rather than anything else. The protest started peacefully enough, then turned to vandalism as store fronts and cars were attacked. Many mob participants gleefully destroyed Black-owned businesses, telling the upset business owners they were lucky they only lost their businesses and not their lives:

"I feel like the night is going great," said Nia Sykes, 24, of San Francisco, one of the demonstrators. "I feel like Oakland should make some noise. This is how we need to fight back. It's for the murder of a black male."

Sykes, who is black, had little sympathy for the owner of Creative African Braids.

"She should be glad she just lost her business and not her life," Sykes said.

Yeah. Going great. I sympathize very much with the rage, but you aren't doing yourself any favors when you direct it against innocent people. Unfortunately, that's often the only response available to the disenfranchised (not an excuse -- an understanding...there's a difference): the cops will never allow them to set fire to the mayor's house or to the downtown or even to march to the neighborhoods where the power lies, and that anger needs an outlet. Eventually any target will do.

I'm reminded of the Dead Kennedy's song "Riot."

Round and Round and Round it Goes.

The first step to genocide is dehumanizing your opponent. They are not individuals: they are Huns, Beasts, Gooks, Commies...undifferentiated and guilty biologically or culturally. They are terrorists. Even the three year olds. This violence is discursive.

"These people only understand one thing." They are animals, to be rewarded or punished, a pet or a kick. The resistance of a few results in arbitrary communal punishment. All are guilty. My Lai. Soweto. Belfast. Darfur. Guernica. Gaza.

In 1980, the US was a steadfast supporter of Apartheid South Africa. By 1990, nearly all support for that regime had disappeared, at least officially (with notable exception Dick Cheney) -- with the Cold War all but won, South Africa was more a millstone than a keystone to its Western patrons.

Strange things happen.

When you go to fight monsters, take care that you don't become one. Nietzsche said that.

In the new year, it seems little is new.

I am beginning to wonder if one of the greatest tragedies post-WWII and the Holocaust wasn't the creation of the state of Israel. Perhaps we should look on Israel as yet another of colonialism's failures, as European rulers divvied up their once-conquered lands along artificial and arbitrary lines, leaving in their wake a history of civil wars, coups, international conflict, and genocide.

Would Israel have existed without the Holocaust? I'm not talking about the historic/Biblical version...that's as useful as talking about the Roman Empire...I'm talking about the modern version created by the United Nations in 1947 (and yes of course for those completionists, promised by the British in the "Balfour Declaration," which justified the expansion of the British Empire in the great colonial land-shift known as the Great War). From the beginning it was a mess, with the Arab groups rejecting the partition and the UN unable -- like the British before them -- to develop a plan that would make war less likely.

Well, we're sixty years beyond the Israeli declaration of independence, so it's a bit late to put that horse back in the barn, isn't it?

Meanwhile, Gaza's being flattened in an apparent bid to burn down the house and everyone in it to catch a few rats.

RIP Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter has died age 78.

Pinter's drama, like Beckett's, was always remarkable as much for its silences as for its utterances, but unlike Beckett, Pinter's characters tended to lay into each other and strip their relationships to each grievance and power position.

We have lost a great writer and thinker.

RIP Studs Terkel

Studs Terkel died on Friday at age 96. I'm not sure the world will ever see his like again.

In 1970, Terkel published Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression. Over the course of 462 pages, he offers up the words of everyday people, financial leaders, politicians and others who lived through the Depression, as well as people who didn't -- part of Terkel's point is that the succeeding generation for the most part couldn't comprehend the Depression. I offer two excerpts. The first is from Ed Paulsen, who during the Depression was a transient worker before he managed to get a job with the New Deal's National Youth Administration:

If I had to pick one constant enemy during this time, it was the American Legion. They were made up of home guard types. They were the most vicious enemies of this drifting, reckless, hungry crowd of people. Everyplace I went, Hoovervilles -- they were raided. This bunch of Legionnaires with those damn caps on. Guys with baseball bats, driving them out of the jungles around the railroad grounds. Even in the little towns I lived in. I had a war with those guys by the time I was in high school. They were always the bane of my existence.

They were the Main Streeters. They were doing all right. Merchants, storekeepers, landowners. They had a fix that was just awful to live with. They were hard on the little candidate for Governor [Upton Sinclair]. They'd come to his meetings with baseball bats and clubs and break it up. Once, when we sang in the Valley, they attacked us and beat the hell out of us. We barely got out of there. [Hard Times 32]

And this second excerpt from a young journalist, Diane, who's 27 years old at the time of the interview:

I never could understand why the Depression occurred. Perhaps that's why I've not been as sympathetic as I'm expected to be. You're supposed to admire them because they've been in the "Flaring Twenties" -- is that what it was called? -- where they danced a lot and drank gin in automobiles, hail F. Scott Fitzgerald! The connection is not made economically, but socially.

It runs from the morally errant generation of the Twenties, with the too-short skirts and the bathtub gin, the rise of the stock market and bad poetry. It's all confused in my mind. Prohibition comes in somewhere. I'm not quite certain whether it preceded or came after the Depression. And then there's Al Capone and people on film in wonderfully wide-shouldered suits, with machine guns, gunning down other people. It's an incredible, historical jungle. It's cinematically very mixed up, terribly fluid. [Hard Times 24]

Yes. Mixed up indeed.

I die a little death each time a bookstore closes.

Olsson's has finally succumbed to the Big Box and teh Internets.

I remember their Georgetown store, long gone now, but what a wonderful quirky joint it was, with shelves stacked high and bare floorboards creaking.

How long do any of these places have? How long to do books have?

After libraries, small bookstores were great repositories of knowledge and new ideas. Book warehouses like Borders and Barnes and Noble may have the selection, but much of the staff would be useless without computers.

Sad.

I ride my bike every day in the District, and much of the time I've got one kid on a child's seat behind me and one kid pedaling in front of me. That's why when I read about bicyclists struck by automobiles, I get a creepy feeling.

This morning, Alice Swanson was hit and killed by a garbage truck at 20th and R Streets NW. That's only a few blocks from my daughter's daycare, a few more blocks from my son's school. Most days I ride through the 19th and R intersection, just one block away.

I've been hit on my bike a few times, although never seriously (except for a bike-to-bike head on collision when I was in 8th grade that required surgery...) and with one exception, never in the District. You always have to be aware of traffic, because you know most drivers don't pay enough attention to bicyclists, motorcyclists, or pedestrians; however, you're always trusting that they're paying enough attention to avoid flattening you. Sometimes, being aware of traffic isn't enough.

And while it's always in the back of your head, it's moments of extreme violence that force you to understand again how fragile the frame and wheels are, how exposed you are sitting on top of them.

The death of any cyclist brings our own vulnerabilities into focus. Although I didn't know her at all, I am deeply saddened by Alice Swanson's death.

RIP George Carlin

George Carlin has died of heart failure, age 71.

It's a monumental loss for American comedy, because there were few, if any, more brilliant observers of everyday life who raised their observations to the level of cultural critique. And of course, it's a monumental loss for three and four year old Thomas the Tank Engine fans everywhere, who will now mix their enjoyment of the stories with the bittersweet knowledge that the man talking to them -- if he isn't Alec Baldwin or Ringo Starr -- is no longer with us. "Peep, Peep!" Thomas said. "Indeed death is all around us."

Mr. Carlin, who in addition to being a children's narrator was also famous for the "Seven Words" bit, got me thinking about Michael Gerson's absolutely moronic column about Al Franken. Gerson apparently is unaware of satire and context, which leads me to believe that he either was an extremely poor English student or had extremely poor English teachers. I've wondered before how someone as culturally tone-deaf as Gerson could possibly have a syndicated column in a major newspaper, and in each column I chance to read he reinforces my notion that he is small-minded, utterly out of touch with reality, and remarkably obtuse.

Really, the idiot takes Franken to task for a comedy bit in which Franken lauds the internet's ability to help his 12 year old get visual aids for a school report on bestiality. Gerson apparently thinks Franken is being serious. He misses the absolute absurdity of a school report on bestiality (who knows, Gerson is so hopelessly out to lunch he probably thinks public school sex education is nothing more than a year-long primer on alternate positions, partners, and practices), even when Franken gives it away with a glowing endorsement of the "visual aids" and his son's classmates' great interest in the visuals.

Gerson needs a little George Carlin sitting on his shoulder pointing this shit out. Preferably using the seven words.

Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now.

Not a whole lot more to say. If you've ever read his speech, "I've Been to the Mountaintop," you know Dr. King fully expected to be taken from this earth through hatred and fear, yet he put himself out there even after the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed -- moving into issues of economic equality, still tied heavily to racial injustice in America, but King constantly reminded critics that the "Poor People's Campaign" was multiracial in its scope.

The possibility of a popular anti-poverty campaign was cut short with Dr. King's assassination in Memphis 40 years ago today.

We're still waiting.

Three things I've learned the hard way.

Thanks to Lonnie Bruner for tagging me on this one. Of course, he did that back in February, and here we are nearly to the Ides of March and I'm finally catching up. Learning things the hard way is often the only way to learn some lessons, because they simply don't sink in properly until the time for recovery is past.

1. Sit your ass in the chair and just write. Seriously. You will not finish your dissertation/novel/autobiography as long as you continue to do "research." You simply can't know it all, and besides, you will never end up going where you think you were going in the beginning. Only the writing will tell. It took me seven years to figure that out.

2. You are only young once. Apparently as you age, your bones aren't as resilient and things like tendons, muscles, and joints fail with disappointing ease. While I've learned this lesson quite often over the past few years, it's a teaching I have mostly ignored as far as basketball is concerned. So maybe you could say I haven't learned it the hard way yet, with the hard way meaning a broken leg or jaw. Maybe. I have broken my ankle, though. And then sprained it severely a few months later. The sprain was worse.

3. Don't do crack; it's a ghetto drug. Um, OK, that was a lesson from Bob Roberts. Never mind.

3. You should never, ever try to apply rational arguments to middle-school disputes. In middle-school, you only look like a fool trying to explain or analyze situations. As Homer Simpson argues, the "law of the playground" rules the day, and fists speak louder than words. However, you can still talk your way out of a fight if you claim that "My mother told me never to throw the first punch. Just the last one."

Another one bites the dust.

Another of my regular reads has taken the internet superhighway over the cliff. Fictional Rockstar has joined the ranks of Rock Creek Rambler, Heart Tribute Band Super Fan Page, Washington Cube, and others. And one of the very first blogs I ever read in my entire life, which has ceased to exist to such an extent that the actual blog site is no longer, Kentucky Fried Adventures.

It's all very disturbing.

Look, even if you no longer have anything to say, or maybe feel like you have nothing else to say, just keep saying it. Look at me, I'm a living example of someone who's run out of ideas.

Milestones.

A friend of mine, his father just died. It seems to be a year of that, with three of my close friends now losing their fathers this year. The first came after a long six month decline, and to tell you the truth I didn't know how to react. I'd known the man, played poker with him. He'd been a fixture at our summer league basketball games. But to be quite honest, I froze up. Outside of a phone call, I did nothing.

The second friend's father had been much older and in a state of precarious health. I saw her soon afterwards and had more time to talk with her about the death, but still I feel I didn't do all I could or perhaps what I should.

The third friend, who happens to be married to the second friend, both of whom I've known since freshmen in college, just lost his father a week and a half ago. So their family has had a rough year. In this case, at least, I'll be able to attend the memorial service in northern New Jersey.

Let's hope I get things right.

How we save ourselves though I haven't gotten to the part about how we save the world.

Activism is a stressful activity. It's far more comfortable to go about your daily life going to work, taking lunches, sipping cappucinos in the late afternoon, and preparing for the evening's television lineup. It's also far more easy to invest your time in the also-very-pressing needs of your children or career.

I'm not much of an activist, because activism takes a hell of a lot of time and sad to say while I'm willing to go to marches and write letters, I'm not willing to join organizations and do the hard work of organizing a movement, recruiting members, and god forbid become some sort of leader -- if only of a local group -- who would be called upon to give speeches and go on tours and otherwise take on another full time job.

I sort of did that -- minus the touring -- when we worked to organize a graduate student and adjunct union at the university. I was involved in that effort for four or so years, and when it fell apart, I was exhausted (the movement regrouped and eventually won, but I was not involved in the final organizing drive: I'd burnt out and decided I would concentrate on finishing my dissertation). It's hard work.

So I respect Cindy Sheehan for pulling out of the anti-war movement. It has been depressing for me, at my rather shallow level of involvement, to watch the betrayal of this country by its leaders, to every day be faced with more and more evidence that BushCo ignored and undermined any warnings about this hubristic war in Iraq and then sought to punish those government workers who as part of their jobs raised warnings about the administration's predetermined course of action. This attitude of blind loyalty has spilled over to all facets of this corrupt administration's governance, from installing anti-science administrators to block scientific studies of the environment and human biology to installing religious-right ideologues in the Justice Department to "sanitize" even the career positions (illegally of course).

Yet you turn to the supposed opposition party, the Democrats, and while you see some hemming and hawing, it's mainly because they're the ones getting screwed out of positions and lucrative lobbyist monies and not because there's been a tremendous miscarriage of justice. The true ideological opposition to the Republican onslaught on the Constitution and our system of governance comes from the outsiders who are mainly ignored and outcast from their own party. Let us not forget that of the Democratic senators, 29 voted in 2002 to allow BushCo sweeping war powers in Iraq. 21 voted against.

Of course, now it turns out that of the 100 senators in our esteemed Senate, 94 of them didn't even bother to read the Iraq intelligence report before they voted for the war. Of course, the report was wrong, the product of an intensely partisan effort by the Bush Administration to massage the intelligence to misrepresent and inflate Iraq's threat, so it's not like the senators would have learned anything useful from it, but you'd think they'd take a bit more seriously their duty toward the nation in such matters as, oh, let's say, getting us involved in war.

So as I said, I respect the decision Cindy Sheehan has made to return to a more private life, because it's hard work banging your head against brick walls and the solid rock that occupies much of our legislators' craniums, let alone the unfathomably irrational and incompetent stuff that lies between the ears of our current President.

The stories of the end of empire are never uplifting: they are filled with corruption, incompetence, and callousness. Still, I have hope, like Lawrence Ferlinghetti did so many years ago, that we can somehow overcome this morass and "await a rebirth of wonder":

I Am Waiting
By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for
someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the
discovery
Of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the
American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am
waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the second coming
And I am waiting
For a religious revival
To sweep thru the state of Arizona
And I am waiting
For the
grapes of wrath to be stored
And I am waiting
For them to prove
That God is really American
And I am seriously waiting
for Billy Graham and Elvis Presley
to exchange roles seriously
and I am waiting
To see God on television
Piped onto church altars
If they can find
The right channel
To tune in on
And I am waiting
for the last supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for th eliving end
and I am waiting
for dad to come home
his pockets full
of irradiated silver dollars
and I am waiting
for the atomic tests to end
and I am waiting happily
for things to get much worse
before they improve
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the human crowd
to wander off a cliff somewhere
clutching its atomic umbrella
and I am waiting
for Ike to act
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the great divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
For the secret of eternal life to be discovered
By an obscure practitioner
and save me forever from certain death
and I am waiting
for life to begin
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and TV rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am waiting for
Ole Man River
to just stop rolling along
past the country club
and I am waiting
for the deepest South
to just stop Reconstructing itself
in its own image
and I am waiting
for a sweet desegregated chariot
to swing low
and carry me back to Ole Virginie
and I am waiting
for Ole Virginie to discover
just why Darkies are born
and I am waiting
for God to lookout
from Lookout Mountain
and see the Ode to the Confederate Dead
as a real farce
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for Tom Swift to grow up
and I am waiting
for the American Boy
to take off Beauty's clothes
and get on top of her
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth's dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeting lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am waiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder