Oh sweet, sweet, world-historic irony!

Let us prelude our song with a traipse through leaves
that flutter up in the breeze, that turn under what we’d
hid within when the night was cool and young,
when from rotting rafters down and forward bats
would tumble howling in fangs-fore mad-dash runs
upon dark creation’s net: by God or fiend wide cast —
that the void might pop and fizz with chance with crash with life —
that peace-drenched eternity might learn of man hope fear and strife

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights – including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

…

[The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, adopted by all 56 members of the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776]

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

[The Preamble of the US Constitution, written 1787, ratified 1788, officially in effect since 1789]

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863 at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12: 28-31

and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Matthew 22:35-40

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

Luke 10:25-28

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Luke 10:29-42

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Leviticus 19:18

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

Deuteronomy 6:4-5

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

[Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 13]

– – – –

We address now a few dead white men in powdered wigs; velvet breeches, waistcoats, and frock coats; silk stockings and square leather shoes:

Dear friends long dead whose flesh I never held
as hand in hand a kinship might be sealed:
Can you believe how your logos flew and fell?
It’s landed jumbled in our potters field —
Your final hope a woman black and tan,
grown child of Hindoo bride and negro man.

I trust you.
Your thesis I will defend with all I find
within this conscious space, my feeling mind.
For I count your poetry true!
Wherein lies a poem’s beauty truth immortality?
In moving past its author, past what he thought he knew!!
Please God make my song wider wiser than I feel touch and see.
That as I write I might into souléd Light unfurl —
past my narrow needs and where they would me hurl

I believe in the Declaration of Independence
And the Constitution of the United States of America.

I believe that we are all created equal with inalienable rights
and that governments should flow from that spiritual insight.
I believe in the project of 1776.
I believe in regular and fair elections.
I believe in limited powers, in equality under the law.
I believe in what you taught me in public education.
I believe that a people-led land can learn, can mend its flaws.
I believe not in being a white or a man or a certain brand of Jew Jain or Christian
I believe in a shared Light where each one can as from holy ground stand: This, then
is what I seek to protect
from those who would resurrect
“truth” as state-enforced lies
“justice” as top-down crime

Now Michael Johnson please consider:

It’s not as if Jesus was coy about the most important part of religious life.
People asked him, he told them; people asked for clarification, he gave it.

I believe what he said when he clear and careful said,
The point of all this
Is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and your neighbor as yourself,
and that your neighbor is everyone — no matter the prejudices of you and your “neighbors”.

That rings True to me.

And I am grateful to live in a nation
where I may follow Truth as best I can learn It
where I can speak a truth without facing
the violent wrath of state religion: the worship
of might-makes-right and of fear-makes-true.
How hollow the government you would shove through!
A presidency with more power, less wisdom, and an open disdain
for fair elections, checks and balances, constitutional restraint,
and everything you used to claim
to believe in.
You were lying all along.
The only part of the founder’s project you bought into
was that some of them were maybe Christians whose prejudices kind of sometimes remind you of your own
the rest was just bothersome packaging.
You have missed everything.
You have missed it all.
You have missed both Jesus and this country.
You thought you understood them both
And so got lost while bragging.
What would you have me do?
This is not my fault.
I didn’t do this to you.
You did this to you and to me.

What can we say here and now?
A vote for Kamala Harris — daughter of an Indian immigrant and a black Jamaican immigrant — is the only available vote for a nation that would choose democratic elections, open honest conversation and government, fair play, and the universal rule of law over identity politics, narrow tribalisms, and the great evils of might-makes-right and fear-makes-true. Donald Trump and his post-democracy GOP could well succeed in relieving We the People of the great burden of a government by for and of the People. Our founder’s thesis that humans have the inborn right, duty, and ability to keep their own governments from tyrannizing them and their fellows is being tested and might very well come up wanting, and the one standing between us and the same old abyss of government of for and by the tyrant is a woman is a negro is a Hindoo is the child of foreigners. Is this a hard pill to swallow old dead white men? Or are you in heaven rooting with every bit of soul-breath for her to prove you right, to prove your living poetry more powerful than those prejudices that surely died with your bodies — for all but Love, as we all well know: when we die, all that we are that is not in life overwhelmed by the Love that chooses everyone: when we die all that has not in life become Love is burned away in the fire — having no place in the realm of the Spirit.

That’s the irony:
The project of 1776’s best chance for surviving past 2025 is a politician who perhaps none of our founders could’ve envisioned.
Kamala Harris is not the best hope for the Spirit of ’76 because of some special, heroic, world-historic quality.
Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are nothing more nor less than human beings:
They’re both just people, but Kamala Harris and her administration will work to maintain and strengthen our shared representative government, and Donald Trump and his administration will work to dismantle it.
That’s the critical difference here.
Soak up the irony, USA!
Salvation from the same old boring tribalisms, from the evil of identity-first and fairness-last politics that the Founders worked to hard to organize us out of: In 2025 that salvation from the tyranny of me-first kings and their vapid fawning courts comes by electing a woman a black an Indian — a (as it turns out) regular person and regular American.
It’s not a bad irony.
It can be a beautiful irony if we let ourselves side with this still-young and still-beautiful experiment.
Imagine it:
A system of government with equality for all (even the rulers!) under the law, limits on individual powers, with checks to keep individuals and groups from concentrating excessive power — and the whole thing grounded in free speech and freedom from punishment for one’s opinions, paired with regular, fair, universally respected elections — allowing the citizens to fearlessly evolve their shared conversation while they also act as a final check on madness, evil, and corruption in government, and even together gently nudge their shared nation towards the better and away from the worse. Imagine a government where the people worked within a stable structure to keep tyranny at bay, and with it corruption at bay — so that their shared nation selects for aware, honest, clear, competent, compassionate, loving-kind, and joyful-sharing words and deeds, rather than punishing those universal values and rewarding cynicism, dishonesty, confusions, incompetency (in governing anyway: when maintaining power is your primary concern, you don’t even try to govern in a way that is best for your land), cruelty, meanness, and bitter infighting over ever-shrinking wealth and resources.
Imagine it! Such a beautiful idea! Too good to believe, and yet: Don’t fall for either cynicism or romanticism: Here and now this beautiful idea is still ours for the taking — for the keeping, nurturing, growing, enjoying.

I would be your poet USA
I would sing you healthy wealthy and wise
But I can’t escape the snapping strain.
The monkey, noise, workaday, Trump Co’s lies,
and this plywood pain and something stain
together mesh a gearwork grinding me to dust
I want to help but I don’t — I just
slowly crash land slowly lose my pieces
over a miles-long path lined by beasties
that sniff the air in confused fear
innocent creatures! Bad luck to be near
as Icarus, dipped in wine and porn,
skids disassembling through the red and yellow morn
Bad luck!

The Holy Spirit agitates for human freedom
It is Prometheus to the Father’s Zeus
And the poor Son must somehow be a man
must somehow muddle through as one of us
Poor kid’s gotta straddle finite and infinite worlds —
must thread the needle ‘tween what can be thought and where the Spirit soars.

Human history is no eternal Truth
Russia’s mangy bear’s no less chosen than Baby Ruth.
But if we here and now have a choice,
please let’s together find our voice.

The Holy Ghost is color-, gender-, doctrine-blind.
And so as vapors rise from the bayous,
Spirit laughs dances spins keeps the time.
This Light walks mile after mile in all our shoes

How can we watch our little lives
sub specie aeternitatis?
What hill o’erlooks Soul as it wriggles and writhes
through life and form — yet fully in the bliss
of the formlessness that creates sustains
and shines through all? We seek the heart and main
that seeps pulses and surges through our details.
Where’s the spiritual history within our greedy tales and crazy rails?

Mike Johnson what you are doing is a crime against God and man.
I feel it in bones. I feel it where the sick old man shoves his johnson
in the child’s confused face. I feel it where the tyrant snaps the bones
of those who dare to disagree. I feel it in my pit where I am weak and lost.
I feel it in my shoulders where I brace year after year to get through another day.
I feel it all through the pith and pitch of me.

To support to enable to aid to abet this criminal-impulse as it grasps desperately for the gears and levers of our shared government!
How could you?
And to wrap it up in holy talk!
You have hurt me so much.
What would God bid us do against this evil?

Who has seen the dove as a mist adrift through every age?
God please send us past ourselves, aid us revise our rage.
We travel the road from Jerusalem to Jericho,
We’re robbers who beat and leave us for dead, who show
us no mercy; we’re our sworn-enemy taking pity on us,
covering and healing us. Light is Real beyond the fight and fuss.

What can we say? We who see it all so clearly laid out sunning
or rather rotting like bits of slaughtered pigs slopped
out the jostled meat truck?
MAGA and Russia and China share a propaganda: The US is a hopeless mess, their democracy a shambles!
Who will save the US from their hopeless mess, from the evil disaster of their failed democracy?
In Israel Bibi chooses himself over his country and also Trump over Biden
What is to stop him from driving mad war further on in the hopes of being valuable to our future king?
(Xi I cannot scrute.)
Great men don’t share their countries, but at the top of the world they meet in a type of cattish comradery — to brag intrigue and swap funny anecdotes, thumping one fellow hero-of-their-nation on the back with manicured fingernails (the bloody dirty sweaty ones you find several layers down in the organization) while rolling watery old eyes towards another fellow hero-of-their-nation.

Please revise below

The GOP is now Trump’s party — they watched him try to steal one election; and now they ready themselves to supply him with the staff and rulebook he needs to break our democracy.
They have their different reasons — different stories they use to make “I have to win!” and “I need safety!” and “I need to be liked and respected!” and “I need my family to be safe and to love me!” and “I need to be right and for everyone to admit I am right!” look somehow noble holy and wise.
Whatever each individual’s mental and emotional escapades, they all will end as cog for forcing the new perfection onto a rabble who can’t understand perfection, who only understand force, fear, loss of money and prestige, imprisonment and violence (for the toughest cases).

I guess we’ll be led about the nose with preposterous tales backed with “the wise thing to do is to act like all this is true: resisting only endangers you and your family; and agreeing lets you in the only club worth being in!”
We don’t know how far this will go. But we clearly see the cruel impulse, the soul rot, and the willful march towards crime on the large, nation-stealing scale. And so we would cry out, we would sound the alarm. But are we crying wolf? The difficulty with political evil as it simmers yet in the realm of campaigning on lies, promising to abuse the power of government to silence dissent and punish political foes, spewing hateful rhetoric, and arguing that you had a right to denigrate and overturn the last fair election and a right to do it all over again — I mean: It is obviously political evil, but we can’t be certain that it will lead to political prisons. And by the time we’re there, the state is already in charge of the media, and everybody already knows that only fools speak out against what is going to be no matter what you say or do.
What can we say?
You stood there with tears swelling and your hearts swelling and your heads swelling
in the military parade
You saluted America, the land of the free and the home of the brave
Yes those brave young men who gave their lives over there in bloody sweaty pissy war
that you and I might share this great nation, this democratic republic, where the people speak and the government listens!
And now
oh gosh
how could anyone ask you?
to pay a little attention
not to die face down in the mud with bullets in your front and back
but to pay a little fucking attention
and tell the truth
while you still have every right and every freedom to do so
that’s all
to pull your head out of your own ass — full as it is of rich creamy conspiracy theories — long enough to admit what we all so plainly perceive: He tried before; he’s bragging about how he will again; it’s not rocket science, it’s not a call for a suicide mission to take yonder hill; it’s tell the truth to yourself and others while there’s still time to turn away from this crime.

“This can’t be so!
It daren’t be political evil!
If it were, then good men like Mike Johnson wouldn’t be standing with Donald Trump!”

Yes, indeed. What is at work here?
For, setting aside what kind of a man Mike Johnson is or isn’t, we can at least say that many fine decent upstanding Americans are standing with Donald Trump, are with pure hearts working to bring about political evil: the replacement of a large-scale beauty (a functioning democratic republic that 300 million call home and that is the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world, and that is a great place to work and live and study and speak and write and think and grow) into a large-scale ugliness (go live in Putin’s Russia if you think democracy’s a joke and that you can trust dictators to stay on your side).

I was at the co-op
I saw the asparagus it looked good
I thought I should have asparagus while it’s yet in season
I threw it in the cart
I thought final tally was kind of high
I went through the receipt
“$7.40 for a bunch of asparagus!?!?”
I would’ve never guessed anyone would charge or pay that much for asparagus
And it is precisely because of that lack of imagination that I paid $7.40 for a bunch of asparagus

To be continued

Author: BW
Editor: AW
Copyright: AM Watson