America is the greatest country
in the world…
Or at least that’s what they
tell me.
The greatest country?
Now, exactly what yardstick were
you using just now?
Such a bold statement with such
paltry evidence!
Sounds like the words of someone
who hasn’t been anywhere,
Yet those who have lived, traveled
and studied
Beyond these shores know better
than that.
America. This is the home of the potholes,
Of the crumbling roads and falling
bridges,
Of the levees made of duct tape,
Lego bricks and popsicle sticks.
Children go to bed hungry in
the land of plenty,
Because their parents weren’t
smart enough to have been born rich,
And there are few jobs to be
had, but plenty of prison beds to fill.
You see, I live in the land that values property
rights over human rights,
Where people can’t afford to live and can’t afford to get ill,
And you’re out of luck if the
plant closed,
And the sheriff is knocking on
the door of your soon-to-be foreclosed life.
But we got your check if you’re a billionaire in
need of a Wall Street bailout,
To maintain the lifestyle to
which you are accustomed,
Complete with corporate jets
and golden parachutes,
And foxhunting retreats in the
English countryside.
And here’s some more money if you already have more
money than you need,
Or to make more stuff that nobody
wants to buy,
Or to start a war to jack some
oil,
Or if you want to shoot some
Native American, I mean Vietnamese,
I mean Iraqi children,
Or bomb some families in Gaza,
Oh my bad, I forgot all those
people are “terrorists.”
America is the greatest country in the world…
Or at least that’s what they
tell me.
Free market economics,
A dinosaur if ever there was
one,
About to go the way of the Soviet
Union,
And the Berlin Wall and Apartheid,
And the Edsel and the Pinto,
And the folks who brought you
the Edsel and the Pinto.
A big failure, to be sure,
Bankrupt as the nation that swore by it,
Yet the system worked just as
the manufacturer intended,
For the benefit of the few.
“The market, unfettered, can
do no wrong,” they proclaimed,
And now in this big Ponzi scheme
called American capitalism,
They have all of us yelling “We
was robbed!”
Call it the free market, laissez-faire
or supply-side economics,
Call it the Invisible Hand, or
trickle down, or trickle on,
Or the ownership society,
Or just call it a hustle.
America is the greatest country in the world…
Or at least that’s what they
tell me.
Now, we can’t go any further without mentioning Number
Forty-Three,
A.k.a. The Decider,
A.k.a. George W. Palin,
The man who could dodge a flying
shoe but will try to dodge history,
And rewrite history,
And will do so in vain.
The man who would make Nero proud,
As he fiddled a tune of indifference
while NOLA drowned,
And read a children’s book during
Armageddon,
On the day that New York burned.
But that’s all fine, don’t you worry,
Number Forty-Three is God’s President,
we all know it’s true,
Taking his orders from the Good
Lord Jesus Christ himself.
And America is God’s country,
so we’re all set.
So step up Mr. Preacher Man,
come feed at the trough,
Let’s get you some of this faith-based
hush money.
America is the greatest country in the world…
Or at least that’s what they
tell me.
Never was I one to be proud of this or any other
country,
As patriotism is the last refuge
of a scoundrel.
But I see a game changer here,
You’ve given me something to
work with,
And this is as good a time as
any to break old habits.
They always asked the Black man
to clean up the mess,
But never was that mess the entire
country,
Or the whole world for that matter.
Now, these are the things of
which progress is made…
As for our adversaries,
Even a deck full of race cards
wouldn’t work this time,
No longer enough Southerners
for a good ol’ Southern strategy,
Or at least that type of Southerner,
The type that would protect the
women and children from the boogeyman.
Yes, people are wising up, and America is browning
up.
Race is but a social construct,
Skin-tone solidarity will get
you but so far,
It didn’t get some people very
far, so far,
And it even set them back a bit,
When they realized that being
White and angry -
Angry at the gays, and at the
immigrants,
At the Latinos, the Muslims, the Arabs -
Just isn’t enough to pay the
bills.
And since we’re all in this together,
Might as well love the one you’re
with.
America is the greatest country in the world…
Or at least that’s what they
tell me.
In forty years we’ve gone from four little Black
girls
Dead in a Birmingham church,
To two little Black girls living
in the White House,
Getting dibs on Lincoln’s desk.
A little sister’s gotta study
somewhere.
Now that’s some history right
there,
And daddy’s gonna borrow Abe’s
Bible for the big day.
Just a few generations separated they are
From bondage in South Carolina,
From the rice plantations of
the Gullah low country.
Who would have thought!
But let us not forget what brought us to this place,
And the size of the mess before
us.
We’ve had some bad times around
here, to be sure,
And now we got some hope and
the promise of change,
But it will get worse before
it gets better,
You’d better believe it, my fellow
prisoners.
So let us spill our cups for those who didn’t make
it,
The 2,000 souls in New Orleans
who drowned over a heckuva job,
And the 4,000 soldiers who died
over foolishness and lies,
Not to mention the hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis,
Unwilling subjects of some neocon’s
mad experiment,
And don’t forget the ones who
were kidnapped, tortured and brutalized.
America, are you the greatest country in the world?
Well, now is the time to prove
it to me.
Now is the time to put people
ahead of balance sheets, bottom lines and profit statements.
Let’s make it real, in words
and in deeds,
The way Dr. King said it should
be.
BlackCommentator.com
Editorial Board member David A. Love, JD is a lawyer and journalist
based in Philadelphia, and a contributor to the Progressive
Media Project, McClatchy-Tribune News Service, In These
Times and Philadelphia
Independent Media Center. He contributed to the book,
States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons
(St. Martin's Press, 2000). Love is a former Amnesty International
UK spokesperson, organized the first national police brutality conference
as a staff member with the Center for Constitutional Rights, and
served as a law clerk to two Black federal judges. His blog is davidalove.com.
Click
here to contact Mr. Love. |
