Epitaph
Note: This entry is not meant to be profound, nor even witty. It's just some unpolished crap that's rolling around in my brain and needs to come out. Then maybe I can write something fun.
EPITAPH
The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams
Upon the instruments of death
The sunlight brightly gleams
Where every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
When silence drowns the screams?
Confusion will be my epitaph
As I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it, we can all sit back and laugh
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.
Between the iron gates of Fate
The seeds of Time were sown
And watered by the tears of those
Who know and who are known
Knowledge is a deadly friend
If no one sets the rules
The fate of all mankind, I fear
Is in the hands of fools.
~Peter Sinfield, 1967
That was published the year I was born. Call it an even half century. Your standard anti-war/anti-nuke song, like countless others of that period. The second verse is ridiculously florid, typical of Pete Sinfield's early work, big on imagery and a little short on lyricality. Greg Lake was young and his voice was gorgeous, so it sounds like a song rather than a recitation.
But this damned thing has been stuck in my head since the election. I'd say it was all The Man's fault due to his avatar, and maybe he put it up for similar reasons. But I think those last lines would have bounced around in my noggin regardless.
I haven't read any blogs on reactions to the election. But I suppose this is where I put the disclaimer most are probably using, some sort of denial that I have anything to say that hasn't been said already.
We've had a blithering idiot in the White House before, in my lifetime (as well as a VP -- Quayle was every bit the moron he's remembered as; don't let anybody try to tell you different). And no POTUS has really lived up to his (and for now, it's still always his) hype. But for all his shortcomings, all the wrongs he promised to change and ended up expanding, all the gawdawful concessions he seemed to make so easily, Barack Hussein Obama has been the most thoughtful, most compassionate, most respectable President to come along in my lifetime. No one else measures up to my entirely subjective definition of what it means to be "Presidential."
And now we have Trump.
I had rather low expectations for Hillary Clinton. But she has the intelligence, if not the humility, to listen to others and truly consider their point of view, and care (at least once in a while). She's often listened to the wrong people, cf. her following the Kissinger playbook (for fuck's sake can somebody please shred that once and for all).
We're not getting a President who is even capable of listening. He's a narcissist who thinks he already knows everything. Dunning-Kruger plus complete egocentrism. And he'll get along quite well with a House and Senate dominated by childish brats who are a lot more like him than is at all healthy.
I try to avoid every word that comes out of that monster's mouth, but I did recently fail to avoid hearing his plan that for every new regulation proposed, 2 must be eliminated. Lovely. Banking crisis? What was that? A tiny blip on the screen compared to what's coming.
But hey, it's not just fear. After decades of building up cynicism and attempting a realistic view of the atrocities my country has committed and still commits, I managed to find a tiny glimmer of national pride. I couldn't feel such shame in this election otherwise.
Fear, shame, and ... anger. Three! Three emotions! -- I'll come in and start again.
EPITAPH
The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams
Upon the instruments of death
The sunlight brightly gleams
Where every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
When silence drowns the screams?
Confusion will be my epitaph
As I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it, we can all sit back and laugh
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.
Between the iron gates of Fate
The seeds of Time were sown
And watered by the tears of those
Who know and who are known
Knowledge is a deadly friend
If no one sets the rules
The fate of all mankind, I fear
Is in the hands of fools.
~Peter Sinfield, 1967
That was published the year I was born. Call it an even half century. Your standard anti-war/anti-nuke song, like countless others of that period. The second verse is ridiculously florid, typical of Pete Sinfield's early work, big on imagery and a little short on lyricality. Greg Lake was young and his voice was gorgeous, so it sounds like a song rather than a recitation.
But this damned thing has been stuck in my head since the election. I'd say it was all The Man's fault due to his avatar, and maybe he put it up for similar reasons. But I think those last lines would have bounced around in my noggin regardless.
I haven't read any blogs on reactions to the election. But I suppose this is where I put the disclaimer most are probably using, some sort of denial that I have anything to say that hasn't been said already.
We've had a blithering idiot in the White House before, in my lifetime (as well as a VP -- Quayle was every bit the moron he's remembered as; don't let anybody try to tell you different). And no POTUS has really lived up to his (and for now, it's still always his) hype. But for all his shortcomings, all the wrongs he promised to change and ended up expanding, all the gawdawful concessions he seemed to make so easily, Barack Hussein Obama has been the most thoughtful, most compassionate, most respectable President to come along in my lifetime. No one else measures up to my entirely subjective definition of what it means to be "Presidential."
And now we have Trump.
I had rather low expectations for Hillary Clinton. But she has the intelligence, if not the humility, to listen to others and truly consider their point of view, and care (at least once in a while). She's often listened to the wrong people, cf. her following the Kissinger playbook (for fuck's sake can somebody please shred that once and for all).
We're not getting a President who is even capable of listening. He's a narcissist who thinks he already knows everything. Dunning-Kruger plus complete egocentrism. And he'll get along quite well with a House and Senate dominated by childish brats who are a lot more like him than is at all healthy.
I try to avoid every word that comes out of that monster's mouth, but I did recently fail to avoid hearing his plan that for every new regulation proposed, 2 must be eliminated. Lovely. Banking crisis? What was that? A tiny blip on the screen compared to what's coming.
But hey, it's not just fear. After decades of building up cynicism and attempting a realistic view of the atrocities my country has committed and still commits, I managed to find a tiny glimmer of national pride. I couldn't feel such shame in this election otherwise.
Fear, shame, and ... anger. Three! Three emotions! -- I'll come in and start again.
Total Comments 0
