Manifesto for a Real America, Part One (in no particular order)

...and hence forth we will judge entire groups by the actions of the most extreme members of that group, and it will be good -as long as nobody does that to us- Yea, we will shout loudly about protecting the Constitution even as we demonstrate for all with functioning eyes to see that we don't really care for anything it says that doesn'tagree with our immediate political and economic aspirations.

We will celebrate only those ideals that are never truly challenged and when challenged we will abandon them, claiming they were never ours at all, and the lord will grin and bless us, because we will ask him to, a lot, I mean, every chance we get where someone is watching.

We will seek to create-at least- two America's, one for us and one for them. We will call those "us" who do tow the line of our disingenuous ideological reactionary nationalism and we will call "them" those who are everyone else, especially those who know we are full of shit. We will seek to limit "them" their freedoms, especially that of religious freedom which was intended by the forefathers to be only for us.

We will feign outrage whenever expedient to our ends, and stomp our little feet because we want ensure that we are remembered as a nation defined by one heinous moment in our history, to make fear as common as breath, rather than to work to recapture the mantle of an idealistic nation who sought to live by guiding principles. We will conquer those principles with ourfearful outrage and grind them beneath our heals so we can have that vacation home and a jet to get us there without waiting in any bothersome lines, like they do.

We will use parts of sentences and quotes from our "enemies" and take them out of context, repeating them as often as possible, to prove that the "them" are "them" and the "us" are "us", -in lieu of badges- and our unquestioning followers will never protest for they will be too busy shouting and screaming how wonderful it is to be us and how evil and awful it is to be them. It will not matter that we have said the same things in the past that we now protest with great zeal, often exactly the same, because we know that none of "us" will remember and if "they" remember it won't matter because none of us "believe" anything, no matter how evident, that doesn't agree with what we already believe to be true...and it will be good.

We will create corporate entities to cloak our political actions in patriotic speech hearkening back to great events by great people. We will usurp the names of these great people and events in order to dupe as many of "us" as possible into thinking our movement was born of the least of "us" with noble purposes, and with them build a force of manipulated citizens against the foes we create, to rally and to cry out to serve our purposes. And when we have achieved our ends, we will move the line dividing us from them so that those of us who really aren't "us" will now be them, as it should be...and we shall bathe ourselves in bleach so as to remove any bits of them that might still soil us from the time we allowed some of them to pretend to be us while we needed their numbers...and the lord will grin at our artful manipulations

....and we will take our pile of cash and possessions with us to the grave after our bitter, short and mean time on this horrible rock, finally ourbodies following our brains into death to properly convert this saying to its rightful order: entomb your mind, and your body will follow...andit will be good.

And we shall awaken in our heaven, adorned in gold-spun cloth, and grapes will be lowered into our mouths by angels and the lord will praise us and he shall read our deeds on Earth aloud to us so that we may again bathe in our own majesty. Because the lord serves us and our purposes, and he will covet our Mercedes and our Italian tile pools and he will sing to us through his angels and congratulate us that we were able to crush them because after all, he the God of all creation was with us all along.....and it will be good.

For Dio...

Mememto Mori: Remember My Death
By John Hill Rogers


I will recall the times I left myself undone.
Make my final moment a spark discharging
as the product of my days.

Memento Mori.
I cursed the rain, I wished for drought, cursed
the heat, wished for cold.
Will I remember the weather
when I am dying?

Memento Mori.
Harmonize the curses and
the wishes. Something in D minor to
evoke endings, a voicing of the death chord
that harkens my electrons to gather.

With the same voice
I call myself home.
My last breath I offer to the ravenous
future and its hungry mouth