Spitballing...

© January 22, 2022, the Griot Poet

Also, the related blog post, also titled “Spitballing.”

 

This piece,

[Was] inspired by a comment from Congressman Adam Schiff,

That, maybe,

Jeff Bezos’s wealth can be better spent,

Lifting young people out of poverty,

[Than], on vanity-joyride penis starships,

 

Just spitballing:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [rich, cisgender, propertied white] men are created equal,”

“Is probably how the ‘founding fathers’ understood, wrote, and read the text,”

As do their so-called libertarian descendants,

 

It clears the “scales from the eyes,”

On what conservatives meant by “original intent.”

 

Russell Kirk wrote a book in 1951 called “The Conservative Mind,”

Their political Bible in perspective,

That is consistent seven decades since,

 

His premise:

Without clearly-defined classes,

And a social hierarchy to manage the masses,

If college students,

Women,

People of color,

Ever got close to political power and wealth,

Of rich, cisgender, propertied white men,

Sodom and Gomorrah,

Ragnarok,

And Armageddon would commence!

Ignorance must be designed into the curriculum:

Civics morphed to “Social Studies,”

Evolutionary Biology to “Creation Pseudoscience,”

Teach “American exceptionalism” and “Manifest Destiny,” not our country’s actual history,

Geez! Are you crazy?

 

Russell Kirk’s direct students were,

William F. Buckley,

Who debated, and lost to James Baldwin,

At the University of Cambridge,

And Barry Goldwater,

Who was thought too crazy to have the nuclear codes,

The 2016 election said:

“Never fear!”

“Hold my beer!”

In 140 misspelled characters, or less,

 

Just spitballing:

Safety is the foundation,

Of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,

Forty years ago,

Reagan began the task

Of shipping middle-class jobs overseas,

Destroying employee unions,

Giving tax cuts with stolen money from Social Security,

NAFTA was started by his Vice,

Then-president George Herbert Walker Bush,

Continued after the 94 midterms by Bill Clinton,

The Dems lost the House and got shook,

To show Democrats were as fiscally conservative as any Republican,

The aftermath was the safety net

Was ripped from beneath the feet of the middle class,

That covers all cultures and so-called colors,

 

When you’re fearful,

You’re open to manipulation,

By malevolent machinations,

A new and shocking feeling,

After 400 years of guarantees,

Your group will always have:

The front of the church pew, or the bus,

Good neighborhoods,

White picket fences,

White unions,

Restrictive covenants,

GI Bills that gave home loans and paid college bills for WWII white soldiers and sailors,

But not my dad, and his fellow veterans of color,

Coming “out of the closet” was a death warrant,

Every society,

With such a hierarchy,

Needs a pariah:

Blacks, Latinos, Gypsies, and Jews,

Immigrants,

LGBT,

Women,

To justify why things are

“So bad, compared to the way they used to be,”

In pie-in-the-sky fascist fantasies,

And “I alone can fix it!” Mentalities.

 

Just spitballing:

African Americans, women, LGBT, Hispanic/Latino, Millenials, Gen-Z, represents the “hell breaking loose,”

 

American oligarchs have been trying to “fix” since Russell Kirk,

 

Joe Manchin just lied about changing the filibuster to a talking filibuster,

 

“In total, 161 exceptions to the filibuster’s supermajority requirement have been created between 1969 and 2014, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution’s Molly Reynolds.” The Filibuster, Explained, Tim Lau, The Brennan Center for Justice

 

Just spitballing:

But if I, a non-lawyer, can find this info,

What contempt do Manchin, Sinema,

And every Republican senator has for American citizens?

They frankly think the electorate is dumber than a box of rocks, and their actual constituents are their donors?

 

Just spitballing:

Maybe ignorance and fascism

Was always the “break glass” scheme in case of expanded democracy overwhelmingly demanded by marginalized groups?

 

Perspective:

Am I the only one who feels our historical poetry of this nation’s origins amounts to four centuries of self-gaslighting that we call “American exceptionalism?”

 

Did climate change,

Income inequality pointed out since Occupy Wall Street,

Science denialism,

Anti vaxxing,

Tribalism,

The pandemic,

And January 6, 2021, rip the scales off our eyes and REVEAL we’re NOT

E Pluribus Unum?

 

A suggestion:

After 400 years of bullshitting,

The myriad threats to the human species’ existence,

If you want E Pluribus Unum,

TRY teaching Civics instead of Social Studies,

If you want rational citizens,

TRY teaching Science instead of fantasies,

Give the tools of the citizenry to the citizens,

Maybe START trying democracy - rule of the people - for ONCE

Isn’t that better than waiting for Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk to save us?

 

I’m just spitballing!