Betrayal
America the Betrayed
Richard C. CookIf you want to get an idea of what America once was like, read the poems of Walt Whitman. Whitman was born in Long Island in 1819 and grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. His family was poor, but even though he left school at the age of 11 he gave himself an education by reading and working in the printing shop of a newspaper until he gradually became a published writer. He worked as a teacher and news reporter and owned his own newspaper by the age of 20.
In 1848 Whitman was a delegate to the founding convention of the Free Soil Party. During the Civil War he worked as a nurse in Union military hospitals and held several government jobs, including interviewing Confederate prisoners for pardons. Some of his greatest poems came from his war experiences, including his famous elegy upon the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, “Oh Captain! My Captain!” His great collection of poems, Leaves of Grass, was self-published. He died a national hero in 1892 in Camden, New Jersey, where thousands of people came to pay their respects. Contrary to the opinion of some, he was not a homosexual.
Whitman has always been viewed as a poet of the people, in contrast to the pretentious dandies from academia who have controlled official American culture for much of our history. He wrote of workmen, farmers, sailors, soldiers, lovers, criminals, and prostitutes. He was a hero to the Beatniks of the 1950s who tried to rediscover an authentic American voice in the streets and on the roads and highways of this great land. The spirit of Whitman was surely present through the rebellion of the 1960s, when America’s young men and women rose up and fought the Establishment to stop the Vietnam War and bring civil rights to racial minorities.
The Establishment fought back with a vengeance and, through the most egregious betrayal in history, reduced the world’s greatest industrial democracy to the pathetic shadow of its former self we are today.
It is time for each and every individual who values his or her own life along with the creative potential of the human spirit to begin to work with others to create a new nation and world. The government isn’t going to do it for us. Please believe me. This is not a system that can be reformed. It is a system that must be replaced. And it must be replaced by the ordinary working men and women who have been crushed, used, and abused during the past ugly half-century.
20 Comments:
It is happening, it is going to happen. I feel optimistic about the years ahead, other times I despair. People like us keep appearing on stage. Revolution by stealth? I think so, I truly think so.
Z
You're rather stealthy...and revolting.
...and I feel much the same.
Either a cause for concern, or possibly, a cause to rejoice. When I watch John and Edward I rejoice (narcissistically) that Simon Cowell has no idea what is going on. Husserl suggested 'going to the things themselves.' Wonderful! My mantra? Yes!'To the kids themselves.' At ages 14 to 20, that's the fault line right now. Why do they laugh about revolution? Because your question is nonesensical, revolution is left over crap from a bygone age. I have personally produced 3 kids (with their exquisite mother)who are streaming their brains toward eradicating adult bullshit, before their parents' sicknesses sweep their sandcastles away.
Z.
What question is that, mon frère?
I realise that you happened to request some time ago that I should frame (or something) some of my occasionally characteristic quickfire questions you seem to tolerate Indi here inside your excellent blog. I am unsure as to which of my seemingly vague queries you refer. I can't argue the case chez moi of the particular virtues of those footloose twins. You seem to understand the momentum of John and Edward and it helps me to recurringly link up with playmates in many way, shapes and forms. At some point I should be able just to enjoy the ride for a while. Currently, my watercourse way is in full spate, which I largely regret.
Z.
Mind your sandcastles.
Sorry - here is the question, the question which adults are certain will bring home the errant flock. Not YOU stupid! You know the secret of John and Edward. The question all your teachers want answers to, is, is this actually the end of dialectic, of questions and answers? "The answer is in the question." So - stop asking fucking questions in a grown up way. Don't be fooled by the adult way - adults only bring suffering. To the kids themselves! ? The question question indicates the pretence of the comfort that creating certainty from deft insinuations is just a smokescreen for ignorance, uncertainty and inadequacy.
Utter wank Zoro m'lad.
Uber wank, I'd say.
To question...not to answer, I'd add.
To answer is pretentious and limiting and self agrandizing.
To question is to bridge the self to all that is and all that matters...and offers an utterly comprehensive context.
Stop it or you'll go blind.
Voila!
(give your dick a rest.)
Z.
Never...
God forbid.
God might indeed, forgive. It is too late for my member, thank fuck. God might arguably be an asshole, some prize gloryholes highly. All I can say is, publish and be damned. Some Q & A is right on the money but more broadly, knowledge is given far too much credibility and that is pretty fucking hard to sell to millons bred on academia and the fiction/non-fiction dichotomy (stupid fucking word.)
Z.
Gnosis trumps academic knowledge, salesmen (and buyers) of such be damned.
Geronimo's Cadillac was only valued 'til it ran out of gas.
You must mean the Pink Cadillac? Yes yes (wearily) I too rate gnosis highly. All that I could possibly be stems from two key postulates: gnothi seuton which I know refers to your worthy strapline right up the top of the punters' page.
Cordially,
Z.
Wearily, yet cordially?
One day I might try out mysticism again once I have had my fill of atheism. It is very challenging to deny myself metaphysical comforts and be the straight act. That's the wearisome bit. Cordially, and very much so, because I have assessed and compared what I believe to be your proxmity to stuff I think about. And I like to comment on stuff that gets included in your webpage.
Z.
Alrighty then, that helps, and I understand. One foot on the platform...the other on the train. Popular stance, I reckon.
Bon ami has more meaning than some sort of quasi-Ajax.
Rain check.
Ciao.
Gonna go think about atheism vs mysticism for awhile now -- as stages like terrible twos or adolescence or midlife crises or whatever. Thanks, guys, sweet dreams.
One pill makes you larger, the other makes you small.
Keep one's tail moist and supple...and NEVER...never ever let cherished truths become dry and brittle from neglect.
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