Thursday, July 15, 2004
AMERICAN CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
Should I hide my face in disgrace?
I was born in Ohio... I'm guilty of crimes against the people.
I'm from the land of McDonald's and Disney, Starbucks, and moon landings,
country music and soul,
jazz and hip-hop,
Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan.
I was raised on corn fed cattle and sci-fi flicks in stereo sound.
I ate food from around the world because people came to my country from around the world and opened restaurants.
The conspirators of state in the nation of my birth decided to defeat Hitler, Stalin's legacy, and recently, an Iraqi Mafioso who put humans into shredders and left dismembered bodies on widow's doorsteps.
The system of my birthplace let Edison alone so he could invent the phonograph, electric light, and movie projector. Bill Gates is rich because selfish and evil capitalists conspired to transform the way information is processed and exchanged.
Several million fat, thin, tall, short, black, yellow, brown, and white people fall in love, raise kids, and pay mortgages on homes because The Heart of Darkness thought that would be OK.
Deserts, marshes, mountains, valleys and plains are the habitat of the worlds's latest scapegoat, and tyrants are given blank checks because, in the eyes of some, wanton entertainment is a crime far worse than authoritarian rule.
The place I was born has too many people who are religious, ...or “nonbelievers,” or selfish donors to 1000 charities (but never the right ones at the right times).
The citizens in the nation I'm from don't like to obey the will of bureaucrats, those who know better how to rule one's life and understand the “compassionate” need to create more rules.
I haven't learned to submit to the wise will of unemployed cafe' poets in France or Holland, and if left to my own choices may choose a path they don't like. I may even wear the wrong hat, oppress indigenous peoples, or fail to use the salad fork when it would be the right thing to do.
My country's President is “like Hitler” because he cut taxes and opposes Al Qaeda. My Congress is full of fools because they agreed with the President, (though some later changed their minds).
We failed to see the wisdom that wiser Germans possessed when they followed their Feuhrer. We were course and unsophisticated when we failed to follow artists and philosophers down the road that Stalin promised would lead to Utopia. We failed to listen to a wise nation of patisseries when they said “surrender”-- on more than a few occasions.
We drink, beat our kids, and shoot each other (all of us, all the time), unlike everyone else who ever lived. On quieter days we just go to work , listen to music, and get haircuts (while plannning who we will next beat and shoot).
We've created a party of a million variations in human potential. We laugh, cry, play, work, fuck-off, and sleep as if we were so selfish as to merely seek pleasure and avoid pain (unlike everyone else in the world).
We're guilty of success. Our sins are our happiness. Our flaw is our optimism.
I was born Ohio and implicated by birth in wrongdoing.
We laugh and are told to stop. We live and are told to die. We smile and it's a crime against humanity.
If we could only follow the pure examples established elsewhere, where blood, violence, and authority has reigned through time.
If we could only learn to obey our betters and become like them, then we wouldn't be so different, so dynamic, so independent, so innovative, so free, and ... bad. But, we keep on smiling,...and it's a crime against humanity.
I was born in Ohio... I'm guilty of crimes against the people.
I'm from the land of McDonald's and Disney, Starbucks, and moon landings,
country music and soul,
jazz and hip-hop,
Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan.
I was raised on corn fed cattle and sci-fi flicks in stereo sound.
I ate food from around the world because people came to my country from around the world and opened restaurants.
The conspirators of state in the nation of my birth decided to defeat Hitler, Stalin's legacy, and recently, an Iraqi Mafioso who put humans into shredders and left dismembered bodies on widow's doorsteps.
The system of my birthplace let Edison alone so he could invent the phonograph, electric light, and movie projector. Bill Gates is rich because selfish and evil capitalists conspired to transform the way information is processed and exchanged.
Several million fat, thin, tall, short, black, yellow, brown, and white people fall in love, raise kids, and pay mortgages on homes because The Heart of Darkness thought that would be OK.
Deserts, marshes, mountains, valleys and plains are the habitat of the worlds's latest scapegoat, and tyrants are given blank checks because, in the eyes of some, wanton entertainment is a crime far worse than authoritarian rule.
The place I was born has too many people who are religious, ...or “nonbelievers,” or selfish donors to 1000 charities (but never the right ones at the right times).
The citizens in the nation I'm from don't like to obey the will of bureaucrats, those who know better how to rule one's life and understand the “compassionate” need to create more rules.
I haven't learned to submit to the wise will of unemployed cafe' poets in France or Holland, and if left to my own choices may choose a path they don't like. I may even wear the wrong hat, oppress indigenous peoples, or fail to use the salad fork when it would be the right thing to do.
My country's President is “like Hitler” because he cut taxes and opposes Al Qaeda. My Congress is full of fools because they agreed with the President, (though some later changed their minds).
We failed to see the wisdom that wiser Germans possessed when they followed their Feuhrer. We were course and unsophisticated when we failed to follow artists and philosophers down the road that Stalin promised would lead to Utopia. We failed to listen to a wise nation of patisseries when they said “surrender”-- on more than a few occasions.
We drink, beat our kids, and shoot each other (all of us, all the time), unlike everyone else who ever lived. On quieter days we just go to work , listen to music, and get haircuts (while plannning who we will next beat and shoot).
We've created a party of a million variations in human potential. We laugh, cry, play, work, fuck-off, and sleep as if we were so selfish as to merely seek pleasure and avoid pain (unlike everyone else in the world).
We're guilty of success. Our sins are our happiness. Our flaw is our optimism.
I was born Ohio and implicated by birth in wrongdoing.
We laugh and are told to stop. We live and are told to die. We smile and it's a crime against humanity.
If we could only follow the pure examples established elsewhere, where blood, violence, and authority has reigned through time.
If we could only learn to obey our betters and become like them, then we wouldn't be so different, so dynamic, so independent, so innovative, so free, and ... bad. But, we keep on smiling,...and it's a crime against humanity.
