America the Beautiful

 

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

 

 

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

 

Katharine Lee Bates, ca. 1880–1890

 

 

 

 

 

America, your beautiful dream
you promised oh so much
and to oh so many

 

And they came in droves
the suppressed and downtrodden
the persecuted for their faith and the reckless
the adventurous and curious and fortune-seekers
and hustlers of any kind in hunt for riches

 

And even with your beautiful Constitution,
so enlightened and far-sighted,
you simply forgot to mention
that you are a nation built on genocide
brought on to the original dwellers of the land
you never acknowledged this killing of the greatest magnitude

 

You forgot to acknowledge that your wealth was built in part
on the slavery of the black people on an industrial scale
And the denegration of everyone who is not white

 

America you Beautiful
you brought us many great things
New York the City and San Francisco too
and Hollywood cowboy movies and the Man on the Moon
and endless highways

You brought me things that I love
my MacBook Pro, my iPods & LLMs
and counterculture too

 

Whole Earth Catalogue and The Doors
And lets not forget Janis Joplin from Texas
Of all places 🤣

 

I love the idea of the United Nations, the UNICEF too
and I thank you for that, no matter how imperfect and weak
The Peace Corps, all birthed from American idealism

 

And I thank you for Anselm Adams and Mary Oliver,
for Phillip Gass and Bob Dylan
And even for the grumpy old man
Robert de la Niro 🐸

 

I thank you for any and all the Free Spirits
that were born on American lands
All the failed attempts to escape the system
The American Dream

 

And I thank you for your beautiful lands
Arizona deserts and your great National Parks
the rugged beaches of Oregon
and the sacred peak of Mount Shasta
(special thanks for that one!)

 

 

But hey!
You did not really make all that, right?

 

But hey!
you made a lot of other goodies!

 

 

Like the first ever nuclear bomb
you even tested them on millions of innocent Japs
and then you brought us more of the same
even better bombs

 

And you brought us a military might
that the Earth has not seen before
and the arrogance that came with it
the belief that “might is right”

 

You brought us the masses of shiny cars
the whole Petrochemical Industrial Complex that goes with it
and consumerism and a glorified materialism
and a fundamentalist religiousness
that stinks of bigotry

 

You brought us “white trash” tourists too
people so rich and so loud and so obnoxious and ignorant
that I have to turn away when they come in
and buy up everything they see

 

You brought us imperialism disguised as help
and the gunboat diplomacy of the one with the most powerful weapons
you meddled in world affairs without scruples and respect
when it was in your interest

 

 

I know that my rant here is falling flat and too low on details
and I could also sing a lot more praise as well

 

because you are like all of us
a nation of humans

 

 

 

And I would be able to forgive all the misdeeds
the bigotry, the cruelty, the ignorance
the arrogance, the crudeness
the arm-twisting too
maybe

 

 

But you have committed one more sin, a cardinal sin!

 

And – sorry all you good and decent Americans – I can’t get over that!

 

 

Instead of voting a capable and basically decent woman of foreign descent into the highest office of the land, you have again voted a ugly white monster of a white man to be your president

 

A person that you already knew for his indecency and cluelessness and greed
Because you had all of that on display for all to see, for four long years

 

This prototype of “The Ugly American” is your chosen president again
It makes me (almost) speechless in the face of so much stupidity!

 

 

For a year now this spray-painted Caricature of America has taken an ax on what was the good side of the United States of America, the generous, enterprising, innovating, inspiring Soul of the Nation.

 

He has already ignored and dismantled enough well established national and international ground rules, agreements and laws and finds constantly new twisted ways to undermine trust and honest cooperation for the good of everyone involved.

 

He is the archetype of the clueless narcissistic attention grabbing bully with the biggest gun, a dude driven by dark instinct and whim, a guy so devoid of ethics and moral that is hard to watch him or keep up with his daily misdeeds.

 

He is the New Emperor of America and he has no clothes on.

 

His appetite for power and material wealth and money is seemingly insatiable.

 

He is who he is, and anyone who knew a little bit about his upbringing and his past as a real estate developer and show host already knows what he wants:

 

 

MORE

 

 

He will not let go of power in 3 years, my American friends mark my words!
Once an Emperor – even a fake and self-declared one – is at the levers of power, he’ll never let go.

 

Hey rather takes “His Empire” down with him.
History is full of this sad story.

 

 

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I am just really sad and sorry for the good American people who I call friends, who are still living under his shadow for this or that understandable reason.
I would have emigrated to Costa Rica already a year ago 🙈

 

 

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PS: I am aware that by publishing this article on the public internet I have basically earned my right to be deported to a Salvadorian prison the moment I land on American soil.

I would see it as a privilege 👍🏻

You may come with me if you keep this on your computer …
Or you immediately delete the post!

 

——— BURN AFTER READING — 😉 —

 

PPS: About “America The Beautiful”

At various times in the more than one hundred years since the song was written, there have been efforts to give “America the Beautiful” legal status as a national anthem in place of, “The Star-Spangled Banner”, but so far this has not succeeded.

Some Americans object to the war-oriented imagery of “The Star-Spangled Banner”, as well as its implicit support of slavery and racism in the third verse. Some who prefer “The Star-Spangled Banner”, however, prefer it specifically for its war themes.

As for me, i would happily embrace the wide-screen romanticism of “America the Beautiful” if i would be a citicen of the USA.

About the “Star Sprangled Banner” …

I always liked Jimi Hendrix’s interpretation the best 🙉

 

 

 

 

👁️