News
In Dependence Day/The Reassurer
7/5/2004
I saw Farenheit 9/11 today. Didn't feel much like watching fireworks afterwards. Gee criminy. I thought I knew the deal but I hadn't any clue really as to the depths this current administration has plummeted. It's abhorrent and vile what's going on and I sobbed so much my popcorn got all soggy. As if I could have eaten it anyway. Well, I will not be negatively manipulated or held down by the fear that our democracy is an illusion. WE WILL VOTE FOR CHANGE and we will prevail, rest quietly assured that the American people will not allow this to continue. Will we?
Here are some words that seem befitting this shroud which has been so irreverently pulled over the eyes of the public. They are penned by another one of my Greatest Influences, Poet, author, professor, farmer, Wendell Berry.
The Reassurer
A people in the throes of national prosperity, who breathe poisoned air, drink poisoned water, eat poisoned food,
who take poisoned medicines to heal them of the poisons they breathe, drink, and eat,
such a people crave the further poison of offical reassurance. It is not logical,
but it is understandable, perhaps, that they adore their President who tells them all is well, all is better than ever.
the President reassures the farmer and his wife who have exhausted their farm to pay for it, and have exhausted themselves to pay for it,
and have not paid for it, and have gone bankrupt for the sake of the free market, foreign trade, and the prosperit of corporations;
he consoles the Navajos, who have been exhiled from their place of exile, because the poor land contained something required for the national prosperity, after all;
he consoles the young woman dying of cancer caused by a substance to make apples redder;
he consoles the couple in the Kentucky coalfields, who sit watching in their mobile home on the mud of the floor of a mined-out stripmine;
from his smile they understand that the fortunate have a right to their fortunes, that the unfortunate have a right to their misfortunes, and that these are equal rights.
The President smiles with the disarming smile of a man who has seem God, and found him a true American, not overbearingly smart.
The president reassures the Chairman of the Board of the Humane Health for the Profit Corporation of America, who knows in his replaceable heart that health, if it came, would bring financial ruin;
he reassures the Chairman of the Board of the Victory and Honor for Profit Corporation of America, who has beed wakened in the night by a dream of the calamity of peace.
Here are some words that seem befitting this shroud which has been so irreverently pulled over the eyes of the public. They are penned by another one of my Greatest Influences, Poet, author, professor, farmer, Wendell Berry.
The Reassurer
A people in the throes of national prosperity, who breathe poisoned air, drink poisoned water, eat poisoned food,
who take poisoned medicines to heal them of the poisons they breathe, drink, and eat,
such a people crave the further poison of offical reassurance. It is not logical,
but it is understandable, perhaps, that they adore their President who tells them all is well, all is better than ever.
the President reassures the farmer and his wife who have exhausted their farm to pay for it, and have exhausted themselves to pay for it,
and have not paid for it, and have gone bankrupt for the sake of the free market, foreign trade, and the prosperit of corporations;
he consoles the Navajos, who have been exhiled from their place of exile, because the poor land contained something required for the national prosperity, after all;
he consoles the young woman dying of cancer caused by a substance to make apples redder;
he consoles the couple in the Kentucky coalfields, who sit watching in their mobile home on the mud of the floor of a mined-out stripmine;
from his smile they understand that the fortunate have a right to their fortunes, that the unfortunate have a right to their misfortunes, and that these are equal rights.
The President smiles with the disarming smile of a man who has seem God, and found him a true American, not overbearingly smart.
The president reassures the Chairman of the Board of the Humane Health for the Profit Corporation of America, who knows in his replaceable heart that health, if it came, would bring financial ruin;
he reassures the Chairman of the Board of the Victory and Honor for Profit Corporation of America, who has beed wakened in the night by a dream of the calamity of peace.
