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(U.S.A.) and Loathing
By: Alex Anderson

Welcome to the country that hope built!

The masses rushed to the ‘new land’ and that’s what they called it.  The excitement, the adventure.  A second try at civilization as they knew it.  In no time they’d do away with those pesky primitive natives that had the crazy notion that one should live in harmony with the land.  Then they could start anew.  “Tabula rasa!,” one yelled while sticking a flag with no emblem on the rough beach. Ocean water splashed its way upon the end of the world, the undertow washed away the anxiety.

Wars and politicking soon ensued, but this country wouldn’t have it.  Not this new land – no sir-ee.  It would have none of it, for it was to be great, it was to be grand.  Without the corruption, without the slave hand.  They were to be noble.  Sure it is true, that man has his vice and that from time to time it would lock ‘round him with its relentless grip, but this man, hell!, this people!, they’d surely overcome.  Not for their liberties alone, but for others’.  Yes!, for their freedom would be tainted if it repressed another’s.

Anarchy?  No.  A new document it was.  It would serve them.  And it did.  It served them well, for it was made with their own foibles in mind and their own shortcomings at heart.  This paper with great men’s signatures and ideals, and their toils with their consciences.

It took off like great things do.  This new land it was something to see and others did want to and in time they would and in time they did and then the man that found a sixpence bought the cat who caught the mouse and they lived together in this big ol’ fuckin’ house and times were gay – that is, they were crooked.

You see, although it’s sad, that this country and this paper were not perfect, nor could they be.  Like the mortal men that built it, that writ it, they were imperfect entities that led to imperfect amenities in a societal sense.  Though it’s true, I will suppose that one that can corrupt, is one that can sanctify; but sanctify nobody did.  The greed and power grew without interruption from a disruption of a second set of men.

The dichotomy of men, bicameral indeed.  Not just in a certain house, but as whole it did succeed.  The government establishment from the people it had freed.  They went their separate ways with separate dreams and separate jobs.  And desperate times and desperate measures and they patched the broken bridges with two by fours and mine not yours, until they couldn’t remember what that goddamn link was for.

It was just about to fall and crumble in the valley, in the gut that had them yelling from sea to shining see if you can, see if you will, the partition of time and the tensions it had caused, when something would bind them forever in the stocks, those wooden headlocks.  A pillory will teach their lesson; never again would they forget, their humble roots and cowboy boots, the way they wanted it to be; a man from Texas can could set ‘em free.

Meanwhile in a second world or was it third, there were some who would never approve.  They saw the greed and people freed and they read their book just as we read ours and they saw chance to have a dance with the popular girl, so cute is she, little Erica and her statuesque twins.  Curvaceous?, hmm, no.  But against the sky, they poked and probed at a higher guy.  Until they didn’t and then they fell within it.  The black hole of their own masked wickedness by the hand of their perceived virtuousness.  And then one yelled as if asking, “tabula rasa!?,” but no, it was only ground zero.

And up from those ashes of the towering crashes came a disease that would tie at the knees the cowboy boots and the noble grass roots.  The people who first sensed it didn’t know what to think.  Safer, perhaps.  Yes, safer still noble.  They’ll sacrifice for a greater good, their right to a liberty-laden brotherhood.  All hell, they did their best and one won’t blame, but in the end it’s quite a shame.

Their philosophies and symptoms spread and others saw it quite a dread.  It stiffened their spines when they caught the glimpse of the people limping ‘way from the dead.  They had to do it too; they had to get those two, they just had to.  All from a tall man’s ‘Boo!’

From then on the disease was stricken upon all that came in contact.  Here’s the first verse: upon the streets a wise man could see it in the eyes of strangers, but it soon grew worse.  Later if you tried, you could smell it wafting and on fateful days if you weren’t coughin’ it up, you were feeling it up in the air , so thick with it, you could hardly walk, much less talk of anything else but the deafening pulse of the heart gone mad with it - paranoia and ya wish it would stop, but now it’s too late.

For the new land now has met its fate and believe me its far from the pearly gate.  If you can dream then I suggest you do, because here in the new land it might subdue the fact that our experiment has failed, and little Erica has long since wailed that,

“This is the country that fear killed!”