Article: A Song of America

It's night and you're out in the country driving someplace. You're tired, but the moon is out and the wind is a kiss. The kids are asleep in the back seat and you feel wrapped in the arms of a decent, rational country.

Not everyone is so lucky. Talk about an extended family! This is the good ol' U.S. of A. Home. God, how we love this place.

Or maybe it's a seashore in the early morning, with that sharp, salty wind -- hair blowing, horizon glowing, anticipating fishing with friends, lots of beer, and just plain happiness.

God, how we love this place.

Patriotism for us isn't something we talk about or brag about or paint on political sweatshirts. It's more like those rock solid aunts and uncles who always had one foot in the world and a lap saved just for us. It's a trust thing: no games, no greed, no lies; nothing fancy, just reliability and decency.

But all Gardens of Eden have serpents and our nest of serpents is called the Bush Royal Family and they've been hissing at us for quite some time now, telling us they know what's best for us. But where's our retirements? What happened to our health care? And where are our children who they keeps dressing up in macho costumes to fight their oil wars . . . until they find themselves on the ground in a foreign country, crying for their Moms and Dads because they're dying or maimed for life? Listen! Do you hear them? These cries of boy/men and girl/women without futures. But don't listen too closely. It will break your heart.

Our big cities are rich in magic. Never a dull moment if you have a little time and money. Layers and layers of American Pie. Yeah, it gets a little scary sometimes, but hey, it's our world, not Tokyo or London or Moscow. These are our cities, our adventures, our restaurants, and our parks.

God, how we love this place.

It makes you cry to see what these corporate piranhas are doing to our sweet country. It really makes you cry. The Republicans have turned Mother Nature into a whore for Texas energy companies. God in Heaven, why would they do that? Aren't the Bush's rich enough already? Aren't these Texas oil and gas companies rich enough already? Why do we now have to take food off our tables to pay for the gasoline we need just to drive back and forth between our several jobs? Remember how it used to feel to have just one job; before the neocons, before tax breaks for multi millionaires and billionaires -- and back breaks for all the rest of us.

And remember how it felt when we knew our government would always be there for us and that our noble Constitution was sunk deep into the soil of America, beyond the reach of pamphlet-drugged religious fanatics. God, that felt good, didn't it? In those days, the rule of law couldn't be turned off and on like a faucet by Cheney/Halliburton's and Rove's; and most of all by the Bush Royal Family (alias the Saudi Royal Family).

Probably the thing that hurts most of all is the loss of ordinariness; that sense that all's well with the world (at least more or less) and that our government truly belongs to us -- not the Bush/Saudi Royal Family.

God Bless American is still a great song, isn't it? All that purple mountain majesty stuff these Constitution killing fascists are trying to wipe off the face of the Earth may outlast them yet. Patriotism again, real patriotism, that stuff in the marrow of our bones. It kills you, doesn't it, to see Republican neo Nazis desecrate patriotism to make astronomically rich people, astronomically richer. George Bush should wash his mouth out (and soul) before he utters the word "patriotism".

And not to forget the infinitely self righteous and hate gorged Fundamentalists. How dare these people rationalize their pathetic fear of life with a sitcom version of Jesus Christ? Jesus was love incarnate, but what do you feel when you look at a Pat Robertson or Tom DeLay (ugh!). They wouldn't have fooled Jesus and they don't fool our hearts -- same thing, right?

All the songs keep coming back and the wind and the oceans and eagles. America, our beloved America. Yes, apple pies (why not?) and fishing and neighborliness and our glorious national parks and holding hands in those carnivals that come and go through middle western towns like summer storms.

The Beast, the Bush/Republican Beast is at our gates! It's in our halls of justice and its stink fouls the Earth. Americans, Americans, don't let these traitors kill our county!

It helps to hum a few bars of the Star Spangled Banner and remember what coffee tastes like when it's brewed on the bank of a river at night.

God, how we love this place.
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W. Christopher Epler (Bill)