America

the condemned.

From NBC’s The Apprentice, “branded” as the Devil in 2016 | “Hewitt St.,” Los Angeles, on a shoot where we saw a street artist finishing this mural | “Juxtaposition” | Canon

REPOST NOTE: June 12th, 2023, August 24th, 2023

As our country leans deeper and deeper into a Banana Republic, where political power, propped up by bias media, goes after the opposition… Rich Men North of Richmond. Their boots on our necks. The slow smell of death rotting away on the streets, unattainable “simple dreams,” broken families, broken promises and systems everywhere. I close my eyes, kneel down and remember that there is a God. We should fear Him. Mostly we should know what is happening CAN happen to anyone… political foe or dissident citizen, captured by a political circus, where no justice is justice unless it’s served up by hypocrites.

Pray for America. This has been going on a long time. We will never forget coming to America in 1963, a month shy of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. I have a lot of questions now as I watch RFK try to make a run of it, boots on his neck.

In the last paragraph Langston Hughes wrote below.… this says it all:

“The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies

we, the people, must redeem.”

And as my dear friend Jacqui, Patrick’s mom, said:

“May every thing that exalts itself above God be crashed to the ground.”

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April 3rd, 2023:

As we let go our grip the slippery slope, ratifying a historical precedent… it is not about hating one man or what one man has been condemned for, (and anyone who supported him). Take the plank from the henchmen’s eyes. It is the roar of the chains and the cracking of timbers, the sight of crowned-glory, holding a torch of hope, freedom to speak, worship, become…

it’s the cobblestones.

..where Love leads, Liberty follows, Equality prevails, Justice delivers and Mercy abounds.

“God keep us all. God speak clearly over each and every one of our leaders. Amen.”

This is worth a reminder:

Let America Be America Again | Langston Hughes - 1901-1967

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!