Earlier this year I started writing a series I called “Danse Macabre” — literally, the “Dance of Death” — which was conceived to show the dangerous course that the Bush Administration was setting for our nation. The vagaries of fortune interceded to interrupt the series before it was completed.
I have not abandoned it.
Fate being what it is, I now believe that it was fortuitous that the subsequent installments were put off until now, particularly in light of the recent changes in DC. I am now resuming this series, with gusto. Make the jump if you are interested in a brief scope and overview of what’s in store.
The first two installments covered the situation at the point we found ourselves — the first was Danse Macabre — And the Band Played On and the second was Danse Macabre — A Tale of Two Cities. Here’s the scope of the next thirteen.
“The Return of Ja(a)far” begins to get into the meat of the malfeasance. Relating the current Administration and players to a bad sequel that should have gone straight to tape, it reviews how some of the same characters who were bit players in a previous mess (Nixon) kept coming back to attempt to recreate a grand scheme on the level of players much more evil and out of their league — playing at the level of the Kissingers and Nixons and “Poppy” Bushes — and, true to GWB form, failed spectacularly upwards.
The fourth installment, “Bang the Drum Slowly” reflects upon the slow and steady buildup to yet another war of aggression, while making reference and allusion to the book and movie of the same name in an appeal to the true heart and soul of our nation. The significance of the baseball analogy, esp in light of the failed team ownership of GWB, is not lost in translation.
“The Two Towers” serves, as the fifth installment, as an analysis of how “9/11 changed everything” became the mantra for excusing poor decisions, draconian laws, unconstitutional and even treasonous behavior. It asks the question of whether the events of 9/11 changed ~anything~, or if we as a people and a nation allowed the changes foisted upon us by the very people who failed to protect us — did 9/11 change anything, or did the Republicans?
Sixth in the series is “The Return of the King,” an allusion and a contrast to the Lord of the Rings installment wherein our allowance of the “unitary executive” excuse for destroying checks and balances, as well as constitutional oversight of both the executive and congress by congress, the judiciary, and the people, has led to a multiply factured and divided nation in stark contrast to the unification of Middle Earth that was brought about by the return of the King with the ascension of Aragorn to the throne.
The seventh installment is entitled “Where Eagles Dare” and draws upon an Aesop fable as well as an Eastwood movie to plumb the depths of deception in games of chance and compromise — and outright propaganda, or “lying” — that the US has undertaken in order to achieve political and strategic goals both now and in the past. It explores the cyclic growth of the empire mentality, and the loss of the tempering influence of wisdom and tolerance, as our runaway military-industrial-energy-pharma complex attempts to usurp the very laws that keep it ever tenuously in check and turn them into their best defense against a nation.
Drawing parallels to Joseph Conrad’s work and quoting from Frank Herbert’s “DUNE” saga, the eighth installment of the Danse Macabre series is entitled “Into the Heart of Darkness.” It explores the convergence of several primal dark elements into a cohesive controlling influence in the seat of power in the United States — the White House. Surrounded by a Republican Congressional majority and protected still further by heavily influenced impact upon the Supreme Court, Department of Justice and even our national intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the American “Heart of Darkness” is literally personified within Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States and co-President.
“The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory” is the ninth chapter, describing the influence of the Radical Religious Right — the extremist fundamentalist forces, aptly termed “The American Taliban” — as they seek to destroy the precarious balance within our nation that the separation of Church and State provided. Their influence, as they seek to establish a Kingdom on earth in the image of their own faux ideology while claiming to seek salvation in the Kingdom of their “Christian” god, has reached nearly as deeply and insidiously into America’s heart and soul as the military industrial complex. Where the two converge and overlap, we find our “President” and the Republican party, actively seeking war and lying to the nation as they accomplish a purpose they claim to be inspired by God.
Just as Thomas Paine found himself penning an appeal to future citizens in the midst of chaos as the colonists tried to break the grip of their king, “The American Crisis” — the tenth of the series — details the parallels in history between the grievances of the colonists and the current undermining of the Constitution by our “unitary Executive” and his minions.
“The Patriot Papers” details the rise of rebuttal, debate, confrontation and the re-awakening of the American spirit in the series’ eleventh piece. It touches on modern day heroes and public figures (Cindy Sheehan, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Moyers, Jack Cafferty, the guy who questioned Bush at a town meeting, the man who told Cheney to go fuck himself, Molly Ivins, etc.). United States citizens were born to be free, to dissent, and disabuse public figures of any notion that they are in any way “special” or “royale” beyond their own special penchant for drawing ridicule and criticism. “People should not be afraid of their government; the government should be afraid of the people” is a quote from the movie “V” that is quite apt here.
Number twelve is entitled “Schoolhouse Rock” and delves into the importance of a solid education, referencing “Stand and Deliver” and commenting upon the lessons of history in an effort to illustrate the importance of a good education, while pointing out that the forces currently hamstringing our nation and our rights has also sought to render our educational system impotent. Individual thought and expression, once cornerstones of our nation, have been suppressed and compromised in order to form a malleable nation. It’s time to whip our minds into shape, and along with them our hearts and souls. It’s time to stand and deliver.
The thirteenth chapter of the series is called “The Final Countdown” — the title references both a song and a movie. And a warning. Fifty years from now, history will look back upon these times as we approach the tipping point on several major areas of human endeavor: the escalation to another potential world crisis with the steady march of war with Iran and Syria; the disassembly of our Bill of Rights as our freedoms and Constitution are lobotomized; the poisoning of the minds of future generations as our educational institutions are suborned by religious intolerance of secular reality; the inescapable conclusions that now, if not too late already, is the time to put major development into both conservational and recycling efforts while working toward the reduction of human-influenced Global Warming factors. We are in the final stages of our most important opportunities to make this world a better place, and we are letting the clock run out.
Fourteenth in the list is a simple essay, based on a famous Shakespearian quote “To be, or not to be” — modernized, it reads “To be, or not.” And, quite literally, it is meant that way. Either we are a nation of laws, a nation of free men and women, a nation founded on the principles that all are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights, or we are not. Either we will stop the madness, or we will not. Either we will survive by changing course before the clock runs out, or … not.
Finally, the last piece — “Requiem (A Prayer for the Dying)” — draws quotes from two books by the same title (and possibly the Elton John song “Funeral for a Friend (Love lies bleeding)”). Hopefully, this will not become the epitaph for this nation of hopes and dreams, current battered, bruised and bleeding out from an IED made of fear, greed and betrayal and planted by our most arrogant, impetuous and self-serving factions.
It is my hope that you will all join me for this series, find it worthy of sharing, share it widely and use it to help breach the levees of the Administration and the GOP’s propaganda to raise the awareness of the public to the danger that threatens to forever change our nation into the very thing it was created to stand against: monstrous injustice that denies freedom and humanity to all but a privileged few.
This series is written for publication on DailyKos, ePluribus Media, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, My Left Wing, NION and perhaps a few other places. Ideally, some of it will also appear on OpEd News. Theoretically, it will be abundantly available, and hence all future installments will reflect an attempt to be accurate and fully documented, as well as ensure that all images are linked with appropriate permission for usage.