As if I really didn’t understand
That I was just another part of their plan
I went off looking for the promise
Believing in the MotherlandAnd from the comfort of a dreamer’s bed
And the safety of my own head
I went out speaking of the future
While other people fought and bledThe kid I was when I first left home
Was looking for his freedom and a life of his own
But the freedom that I found wasn’t quite as sweet
When the truth was known
We’re taught to believe in a myth called America. We take refuge in the comfort of what we’ve been taught.
Our AHA! moment is when we learn everything we’ve been taught is a lie.
I have prayed for America
I was made for America
It’s in my blood and in my bonesBy the dawn’s early light
By all I know is right
We’re going to reap what we have sown
Jackson Browne published this song 22 years ago. Is it any wonder people hunger for change?
What have we sown in the last few generations of American Empire? Do we need a litany of the inhumane folly done in “our” name?
As if freedom was a question of might
As if loyalty was black and white
You hear people say all the time–
“My country wrong or right”I want to know what that’s got to do
With what it takes to find out what’s true
With everyone from the President on down
Trying to keep it from you.
Everyone from the President on down. They were all surprised when jetliners hit skyscrapers; when artificial economic bubbles burst in unregulated markets powered by speculation; when American might caused all the destruction money could buy, but not one penny of freedom and democracy could we export.
The politicians and PR agents lie and the corporate media reports the lies as truth. Conventional wisdom manufactures consent and when dust has settled and the smoke has cleared; when it’s too late, we learn the ‘wisdom’ was a mask for greed and deceit.
The thing I wonder about the Dads and Moms
Who send their sons to the Vietnams
Will they really think their way of life
Has been protected as the next war comes?
All of America’s “wars of choice” Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Grenada, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, et al are all based on the lies of Pax Americana, hegemonic, grand chessboard strategery.
They always say we fight for freedom and it is always a lie.
I have prayed for America
I was made for America
Her shining dream plays in my mindBy the rockets’ red glare
A generation’s blank stare
We better wake her up this time
We had better wake up this time. The generation’s blank stare is not our kids’, but us – the post WWII baby boomers. How did we let lying sleaze bags take control of our country and ruin it? How did we allow the waste and sickness of militarism, the greed of grifting financiers and the corruption of snake-oil politicians hi-jack the majority’s dreams of peace and prosperity for all and replace it with the wasteland of misery we now enjoy?
I have prayed for America
I was made for America
I can’t let go till she comes aroundUntil the land of the free
Is awake and can see
Until her conscience has been found
Perhaps Barack Obama is the stirring of America’s re-found conscience. After generations of broken promises, bankrupts fiscal policies and creeping fascism, perhaps America has come through the looking glass. It seems more and more people believe lies less and less. Perhaps we are near a critical mass of moral conscience that is not afraid to look our nation’s mistakes and, yes, crimes, in the face and make apologies and rectitude for the dark tragedies done in our name around the world and to our own people who have been taught to believe in the myths, even when they run counterintuitive to the evidence of our own eyes and ears.
Perhaps. Maybe. We’ll see.
I have hope, but I am not hopeful. Recently I wrote a piece which called for the reckoning of Bush, Cheney and others in our present criminal administration; to bring Bush/Cheney et al to account for, both their crimes against humanity, and the Constitutional high crimes and misdemeanors perpetrated against the American People.
They willfully lied to pursue a dark political agenda which the American People would not have supported without believing the lies. They subverted the constitution and the rule of law. The same thing was done in the Reagan/Bush years.
At the end of his term George Hebert Walker Bush pardoned a bunch of Iran-Contra (the tip of the iceberg of Reagan/Bush crimes) co-conspirators to thwart on-going investigations and the Clinton Administration chose not to pursue any accountability for the crimes of its predecessors.
If the American People knew what George HW Bush meant when he told Sarah McClendon upon asking what the people would do if they ever found out the truth about the scandals of the Reagan/Bush era – “Sarah, if the American people ever find out what we have done, they will chase us down the streets and lynch us.” – there’d never have been a current Bush administration.
But the response I got from many readers to the idea of a legal reckoning for Bush/Cheney was: “Uh, no. We’ve got to move on. If Obama and the Democrats go after Bush then we won’t have the bi-partisanship we need to get things done.”
It’s déjà vu all over again.
And this what Jackson Browne means. Unless we wake up and get a conscience we will reap what we have sown. Sweeping dark, ugly things under the rug is not a recipe for sunshine and roses, but sets the stage for more and more dirt.
People say they want change, but when it comes time to face the reality of what that means – what they’re really ready to settle for, counterintuitively, is more of the same.
Many of the cast of criminals in the Bush/Cheney cabal are from the Reagan/Bush regime. They are immoral and lawless. And unless they and their protégés are exposed and rooted out then they will lie in wait until they are back in power.
It is for America justice must be done though the heavens fall. It is for America we need truth commissions, investigations, prosecutions and just punishments for the guilty who betrayed America. It is for America we refuse this time to sweep our ignoble behavior under the carpet. It is for America we understand the difference between out mythology and our history.
You are either for America or you are against her.