Make America Again

e.e. cummings said it best for, and on behalf of, people like me::

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country 'tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water


And "Let America be America Again" by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!                          

The accidental patriot

GBS in the old days meant only one thing: George Bernard Shaw.  From the little bit of his works that I have read, of course I liked them.  I even owe the title of this blog to GBS.

But then even that little bit that I read was back when I was a commie sympathizer.  A socialist.  Those days I was even a fan of Fidel Castro!  So, naturally, I came to know about Shaw's involvement with the Fabian Society, to which Jawaharlal Nehru too belonged.  I now shudder when I think about Castro and India's planning commissions!

Shaw did articulate ideas clearly enough, like in the following, which is another favorite of mine:

Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it

That's what patriotism is almost always about, and in Shaw's time that was all it was.  In the contemporary world, even my own case is an example of a nationality that is different from the country in which I was born.  For the most part, people do not exit the countries where they were born and, therefore, patriotism arises from that freakish accident of birth in one country versus anywhere else.

Life as we live it is nothing but a series of accidents.  To be born in a certain geography and in a certain family, to attend the schools that we did, to work at a place, the people we meet, the ones we marry ... it is all a series of accidents.

The Hindu faith conveniently packages all these into a fate that was all pre-destined by the creator.  But that is a grossly misleading narrative.  That narrative is the one that then easily convinces people that they are born into a low caste, for instance, because it is all fate and that they have to put up with the atrocities in life.

Instead, we need to understand that it is all one remarkable set of accidents that have brought us to where we are and, for that matter, even our cyber-gathering at this blog is through those fortuitous occurrences.

If we understood life as the coming together of lucky (or unlucky) events, then we will also be that much more humble about our achievements.  As Warren Buffett noted, he won the ovarian lottery and was born here in the US.  His life story would have been different otherwise.  By the same token, we will then be a lot more empathetic towards those whose lives did not turn out well.  A kid who was born into a black family in South Central Los Angeles in the 1980s would not have experienced a good life enjoyed by a kid whose white parents lived in the comfortable suburbs of Seattle.

Life is so chancy.

We forget all those.  We choose to forget all those.  Or, worse, we even develop narratives on why the lucky few get those lucky breaks--the rewards of good deeds in the past lives, or because one skin color is superior to another, or whatever.

Imagine if any of the presidential contenders were to engage with the citizens about such issues.  Instead, each one will brag about how much more patriotic they are and will even rush to allege that the other is not patriotic and is even a traitor.

Such is life!

next to of course god america i
by e.e. cummings

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country 'tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

Iraq War. Patriotism. Scoundrels. War Crimes.

I remember all too well how anybody who was not all rah-rah for the invasion of Iraq was pilloried by the Bushies as unpatriotic.

e.e. cummings said it best for all of us: 

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country 'tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

click here to listen to cummings reading this poem.

An election day poem on patriotic politicians

The email from a student, "Z" was this:

I was reminded of your blog posts about military spending by this op-ed - maybe you have already read it?

I wonder when we will get any president with enough cojones to lay it out to the American public the ugly truth about our military spending and the militarization of culture.

I can safely assume it will never happen; after all, they have all managed to convince many of us that not only do we need a stronger military than the one we have, we ought to also monitor and preempt any home-grown terrorism for which we will soon employ drones flying over our heads in order to keep track of our activities.

Ultimately, it is not patriotic to question the insanity that is our obsession with the military and homeland_security. USA! USA! USA!

Years ago, e.e.cummings wrote about this awful nexus between politicians and patriotism

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country 'tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

click here to listen to cummings reading this poem

But then, what does a peace-loving Libertarian-Democrat know, right?  This evaluation from isidewith.com is an example, though not accurate, of the mix of political preferences:

Saving the People's Bank of China

I referred to Krugman's and Mankiw's comments on the Fannie/Freddie takeover. Well, Daniel Gross provides an entirely different perspective on this: that the takeover was urgent because

the potential victims were central banks and foreign institutions that have
bought their debt by the boatload. It's no accident that the takeover was
announced in the middle of the day on Sunday. (Barry Ritholtz chronicles a slew of
other recent Sunday credit-related announcements.) It was timed to get out
before the Asian markets opened for trading on Monday.

He then ends with:

The bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be sold and marketed as an effort
to shore up the U.S. housing market. Maybe so. But it is mostly meant to shore
up our damaged international financial standing, preserving leadership and
making sure the U.S. Treasury Secretary doesn't get tarred and feathered at the
next G-8 meeting.

Really? And not to protect the interests of the American consumers and taxpayers? it is e e cummings all over again :-(

next to of course god america i

e.e. cummings died on this day in 1962. in his honor, here is one of his poems:

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country 'tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

click here to listen to cummings reading this poem