Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Mourning in America
Ronald Reagan rides the great woolly mammoth off into the sunset and America mourns. Yes fair subjects of the monarchy, it's mourning in America again.
Mourning for the man who made the heroic leadership personality cult, once more, a salable suckers sinkhole of maudlin sentimentalist claptrap, gaudy romanticized westward-ho the wagons bromide, and the simple minded pretext that what you don't know won't hurt ya.
Catchalls of a more innocent bygone era where a right thinking lad could get by on a half gallon of A&P ketchup and a smooch from a pretty girl on the run from the red actor menace.
Ronnie W. Reagan, White Knight of the Golden Poppy State. Our national prom king. A good natured merry-andrew who could deliver a cheesy stand-up yuck at the drop of a social services program. -- I'm so old Thomas Jefferson kept a photo of me on his mantel piece! - Big deficit, I think the deficit is big enough to look out for itself! -- (Bwahahaha...applause applause... oh god stop, yer killin' me!), to enraptured throngs of fluttering Beltway press corp porchlight moths, bewitched voodoo economics worshiping Wackford Squeerians, Jesus shoutin' Elmer Gantry's, military industrial complex pickpockets, Wall Street junk bond thieves, banana republic bagmen, flat-taxer legerdemains, card carrying culture war canardians, Hollywood cowboy boot-polishers, boing-eyed Birchers sniffing a commie crouched behind each and every schoolhouse door, and any other number of besotted blue nosers, Babbitts, and backwash bigots formerly lost to the four winds of progressive civil rights change like so many autumn leaves set adrift in a November squall.
Yup Ronnie, you was a reg'lar shelter in the storm ya was. A cheery good natured quipster with a quick step for the camera, a hardy handshake, and a way out there in the blue glint in the eye. A drug store truck divin' man. A real backlot he-row. Mayor of the Shining Zenith City on the hill.
So goodbye Mr. former President. And if ya don't mind I'd like to sing you out with a couple of stanzas from an old Jean Ritchie song. So here goes. Ahem:
OK, thats it. You da man Ronnie. The man who stood a talkin' with his hat in his hand - and a twinkle in his eye. Off ya go now. Bye! Thanks for the memories. Don't forget to say howdy to Ferdinand Marcos and the Daughters of the American Revolution for me.
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Mourning for the man who made the heroic leadership personality cult, once more, a salable suckers sinkhole of maudlin sentimentalist claptrap, gaudy romanticized westward-ho the wagons bromide, and the simple minded pretext that what you don't know won't hurt ya.
Catchalls of a more innocent bygone era where a right thinking lad could get by on a half gallon of A&P ketchup and a smooch from a pretty girl on the run from the red actor menace.
Ronnie W. Reagan, White Knight of the Golden Poppy State. Our national prom king. A good natured merry-andrew who could deliver a cheesy stand-up yuck at the drop of a social services program. -- I'm so old Thomas Jefferson kept a photo of me on his mantel piece! - Big deficit, I think the deficit is big enough to look out for itself! -- (Bwahahaha...applause applause... oh god stop, yer killin' me!), to enraptured throngs of fluttering Beltway press corp porchlight moths, bewitched voodoo economics worshiping Wackford Squeerians, Jesus shoutin' Elmer Gantry's, military industrial complex pickpockets, Wall Street junk bond thieves, banana republic bagmen, flat-taxer legerdemains, card carrying culture war canardians, Hollywood cowboy boot-polishers, boing-eyed Birchers sniffing a commie crouched behind each and every schoolhouse door, and any other number of besotted blue nosers, Babbitts, and backwash bigots formerly lost to the four winds of progressive civil rights change like so many autumn leaves set adrift in a November squall.
Yup Ronnie, you was a reg'lar shelter in the storm ya was. A cheery good natured quipster with a quick step for the camera, a hardy handshake, and a way out there in the blue glint in the eye. A drug store truck divin' man. A real backlot he-row. Mayor of the Shining Zenith City on the hill.
So goodbye Mr. former President. And if ya don't mind I'd like to sing you out with a couple of stanzas from an old Jean Ritchie song. So here goes. Ahem:
In the coming of springtime we planted our corn. In the ending of springtime we buried our son. In the summer come a nice man saying everything's fine, my employer just requires a way to his mine. Then they tore down my mountain and covered my corn. Now the grave on the hillside 's a mile deeper down and the man stands a talking with his hat in his hand, while the poison black waters rise over my land.
Well I ain't got no money, not much of a home. I own my own land, but my land's not my own. But, if I had ten million, somewheres thereabout, well, I'd buy Perry county and throw them all out - and just sit down on the banks with my bait and my can, and watch the clear waters run down through my land.
Well, wouldn't that be just like the old promised land? Black waters, black waters - no more in my land.
OK, thats it. You da man Ronnie. The man who stood a talkin' with his hat in his hand - and a twinkle in his eye. Off ya go now. Bye! Thanks for the memories. Don't forget to say howdy to Ferdinand Marcos and the Daughters of the American Revolution for me.
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