Dilemma...

 

Your Tango

© January 15, 2021, the Griot Poet

Mr. Vice President, and Mr. Speaker, and Members of the Senate and House of Representatives:

 

YESTERDAY, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

 

Speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt, New York (Transcript)

 

Good evening.

 

Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes or in their offices: secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers, moms and dads, friends and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.

 

George W. Bush, 9/11 Address to the Nation

 

Go home; we love you.

 

Dumbo Gambino, 1/6/2021

 

The inauguration will be held in a Green Zone,

Not in Afghanistan or Iraq,

But at the nation’s Capitol,

 

Capitol Hill Police assaulted with fire extinguishers and American flags,

I guess “Blue Lives Only Matter,” in contrast to Black,

 

Baghdad on the Potomac,

Concrete barriers and checkpoints,

Reinforced not against Al Qaeda,

But white domestic terrorists,

QANON extremists,

A man arrested with fake press credentials,

Five-hundred rounds of ammunition,

Saying, of course, it was: “an honest mistake!”

 

20,000 troops sleeping in the Capitol Rotunda,

Democrats not trusting republicans,

Who they think might kill them,

A toxic work environment on steroids,

National Guards in fifty states mobilized by governors,

The Michigan storming was a dry run,

It started with a tweet to “liberate Michigan,”

This action should have gotten the account suspended,

As was Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s threatened kidnapping, trial, and killing,

As was running the Biden/Harris Campaign Bus off I-35 in Austin, Texas,

Each coup attempt answered with impotent silence,

It seems like we’re the fever dreams of a pulp fiction novelist,

 

Or, a Master Spy, and KGB agent,

Insisting his phone calls have no official government readout of what’s said,

Exploiting the pettiness of his “useful idiot,”

Holding something stronger over him than pee-pee tapes,

Maybe it’s a promise being an actual billionaire, first-rate,

Not a caricature of the one he played,

Who is now in complete psychotic,

Nuclear meltdown over his future legal fates,

And has the codes to go with it,

 

We are here because the aforementioned KGB agent,

Petitioned his useful orange gremlin,

To steal Orly Tate’s birtherism,

Use it to create a political catechism,

Of nonsensical questions and ludicrous answers,

That astroturfed the Tea Party,

Devolved into QANON,

Dehumanizing fellow Americans into pedophilic cannibals,

Which sounds more like a reality show

Put on by the inmates

At Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane,

 

We are counting down on Facebook,

Holding onto hopes and future dreams,

We need to rethink the wisdom

Of putting the power of God and Armageddon,

 

In the hands of a single woman, or man,

That can launch a first strike in five minutes,

The exchange would come soon after this,

The sobering reality of Mutually Assured Destruction,

Kept our chief executives from contemplating this,

 

Except: we have a subhuman jellyfish,

A spineless, spoiled brat,

A criminal monster and sociopath,

Skipping town is typical for his kind,

Knowing he has little room to maneuver,

Or, options left to what can arguably be called his “mind,”

 

I write this with five days left,

As the human species hangs on a precipice,

Militias and white supremacists,

Chatter about attacking fifty state capitols,

 

December 7, 1941, was the first day of infamy,

The United States emerging supreme in the 1950s,

Germany and Japan in ashes,

Europe by conventional ordinance,

“Little Boy” and “Fat Man” at Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

 

September 11, 2001, first year of the new century,

We were introduced to the concept of planes as weapons,

We went from walking loved ones to their flights,

To saying goodbye before metal detectors, body scans, and searches,

 

January 6, 2021,

Captain Crazy Pants told his minions: “come to the Capitol: it will be WILD,” and “we love you; go home,”

After gleefully watching them ransack,

The seat of his own government,

 

After allowing coronavirus to ravage,

His nation’s citizens,

He’s killing at a rate

Of one-point-five 9/11s daily,

Making Osama Bin Laden terrorist second-rate,

 

We’re a nation fearful of our neighbors,

Whether next door or at the Capitol,

We hold onto hopes by our fingernails,

Virtually viewing The Inauguration,

 

The sad part is, we’ve already changed,

We will defeat this pandemic,

But what we knew as “normal” discourse,

I’m afraid without rebuilding the arts, critical thinking, addressing income inequality and police disparity; science, trust, and truth,

 

There’s no going back to it: for real progress, we can’t.