Antidisassemblementarianism

[omega minimo]

Somewhere between Deep Throat and Disassemblement Day we read the writing on the wall.

For those old enough to remember Watergate, while you watched or listened to the Rose Garden disassembly, did your heart break (again) and did you ask yourself, "How did we get here?"

Any old hippie/yippies want to tell us what happened to The Movement?

Any old punk rockers wanna say "WE TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!"?

Any 80's activists wanna say "We tried, we really really tried"?

If enough people recognized what was happening while it was happening, why was there nothing we could do to avert the eventual disaster that we witnessed today, the complete disassemblement of everything we believed the U.S.A. stood for? We all have different views of the timeline, but the general consensus seems to be this trainwreck has been approaching for 2.5 to 3.5 or so decades. Have we just been stuck on the tracks staring into the approaching headlamp?

Today Randi Rhodes played some testimony from last week's Congressional hearings on media bias. A man (didn't get his name) was advocating the importance of diverse media for the empowerment of young people. Isn't it obvious-- wasn't it obvious at the time that media consolidation began (around 1980)-- that one of the main INTENDED effects was the disassembly of the YOUTH MOVEMENT?

Was anyone else alarmed at the time? (Well yeah, the punk rockers.....)

It was so strange listening to this advocate testify before a Congressional committee, entreating them to correct a phenomenon (disenfranchisement of youth culture) that was done quite purposefully and successfully, with the cooperation and complicity of many of those in Congress.

Media consolidation? Miseducation and bamboozlement of the American public? Civil rights obliterated? Corporate stranglehold on every aspect of human life? Trickle up economics to siphon and concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a very few?

Why are we trying to undo the damage that was foreseeable and obvious as the framework was built up gradually over the decades between Watergate and Disassemblement Day?

Did you read the writing on the wall? Is there more we could have done or need to do now?

:evilgrin:


Antidisestablishmentarianism

by Norman Ball
“Properly, opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England, but popularly cited as an example of a long word.” – Oxford English Dictionary

To define this word on record-breaking strength
is to curse the more succinct for lacking length.
For this outsized word seems rooted in a mission:
to uproot (through size) its proper definition.
 
My suspicion is some cunning, cleric-scribe,
bent on dictionary fame through diatribe,
seized a perfectly benign church-state dispute
and affixed it with syllabic ill-repute.
 
Let's establish, sitting down, a standing rule:
not to stand prosthetic words on gimpy stools,
as their borrowed girths make light of levity.
In a word, the grace we seek is: brevity .

 
Author's Note: This poem would not have been possible without the renowned 19th century dispute involving the Church of England and the British government. Of course, this church/state tension continues into the present day, and probably will always be with us.
 
Norman Ball is a Scottish-born writer, musician and poet residing in Herndon, Virginia (close to Washington, D.C.). He may be reached by email at [email protected] .