Reply #37: Of Ragged Dicks and Bushes...

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

They are the silent.
Reticent cogs, silent mules,
tacit army-

Docile drawing force that dreams
of sex and pick-up trucks.
Of paying next month's rent.
Of six packs in the dust.

strong backs, long backs
arms and legs and hands,
they facilitate facility
denying lust that calls...

"Hallelujah, hallelujah,"
calling through
the hallowed halls,

We're only half past
destitute.
They have us by the balls!

The workers of America
struggle to survive
as they manufacture widgets
never working nine to five

like the bankers and the lawyers
insurance folk and brokers
who turn a tidy profit
juggling money, choking smokers.

The reality of life for these,
the masses building life
for those, consumptuous bleeding
breeding grogs who love the mighty widget’s

lure is fucking in the moonlight
hidden by the Chevy's dash
while dreaming soporific dreams
of bringing home the cash.

End

(copyright 1989, R.D. Stottle, used by permission)


In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Horatio Alger wrote of Ragged Dick and others promoting the American dream that is embraced by so many Libertarians and Neocons today: That with hard work and drive, any boy could rise from selling apples on the corner to become the next Vanderbilt or other master of industry.

He didn't extrapolate any spiritual ideals as they were only gained with wealth. That's beside the point.

The attitude of that day was much more realistic and supported by so many more than do today. Anti monopoly laws were put into effect, Unions gained power, authors such as Steinbeck wrote books like The Grapes of Wrath that were received by an American public that believed that Ragged Dick could realize his dreams as long as the field was fair.

That was then, this is now.

The social programs that grew after the Great Depression into 60's have been nibbled at by the greedy. The laws against monopolies laid asunder by "deregulation," monopoly, like the game will eventually see a winner. Then the game is over.

Bush and so many like him (his family) has been building on a paradigm of acquiring wealth without social conscious or spiritual thought since the 20's. The idea of acquiring wealth has now been pitched and sold as being not only an honorable and respected endeavor, but an endeavor approved by God.

This has to stop.

The rationalizations for the acquisition of power and wealth have now crossed the line of "preemptive" strikes and control of a sovereign nation's natural resources for national security (and incidentally major profits for associated Corporations and Friends).

I doubt that Ragged Dick would have left his Friends and co patriots out in the cold. Ragged Dick still had a conscious.