Fighting Back Change With Musical Chairs

The Three Trite Memes of Presidential Politics

Like everyone I have certain things that I find distressing. I prefer to think they are relatively few but they are all related to intelligence. Or the lack thereof.

For instance, I become very irritated when someone repeats themselves to me. For whatever reason I find it insulting and feel like that individual thinks me a dullard. The only thing that irritates me more, is having to repeat myself to others which indicates they are dullards or I think them so. Of course, being a reasonable man, I hold no prejudices to the verifiably and scientifically hard of hearing. I have no idea why I am this way, but have been so as long as I can remember. And I can remember being two years-old. A curse, or gift, that has always frightened the hell out of the few who know me.

As a wordsmith, I pay close attention to language (humanity’s most powerful tool) and I have observed that presidential politics in the United States consist of three main words. The first word is “fight.” The second word is “back” (i.e., “take our country back or “build back better”). The third word is “change.”

An Anecdote and a Brief Digression

Drummer extraordinaire Lorenzo Sanford once said to me when I was a senior (he a junior) in high school: “you are a walking musical archive.” Lorenzo was the drummer in one of the first bands I ever played with; his talent borders on freakishness. As teenagers, I also played with Ronnie Turner (child of Ike and Tina, may he rest in peace), Grammy Award winner Richard Elliot and the gargantuan bassist as well as one of the first first Black Disney music executives, Edwin Oliver III. Though my musicianship does not come remotely close to approaching that of these cats, I am a formidable musicologist and audiophile. Ergo, I will augment this piece with relevant musical references to assist the reader in keeping their “eyes on the ball.”

Silly Fighting

I am both astounded and confused at the mantra by politicians of “we will fight” and “I am going to fight” for a nation that labelizes, sloganizes, advertises, proselytizes, and evangelizes itself around the planet Earth as the “United” States. A “nation” that started by fighting its own government and, most recently, did so on January 6, 2021. A “nation” that fought itself in something called The War of The States (aka Civil War…coming to a theater near you). A “nation” that supposedly fought against its apartheid system; which it either lost, or won, depending on perspective and, to no surprise to you, my perspective is that it lost. A “nation” that is in constant combat with itself as well as its global neighbors, yet has the simultaneous temerity, arrogance, hubris, insanity and psychopathy to call itself “united.”

A “nation” that, since I have been alive on this planet and in this “shithole,” has been fighting about abortion. A Groundhog Day “nation” unable to see its own shadow that continues to fight, and relitigate, what one would think are matters settled practically, legislatively, judicially and otherwise. A “nation” that remains fighting for so-called “civil rights” (why did it need them in the first place if it were “united”)?

A “nation” fighting, to this very moment, about “voting rights” and is incapacitated of having its own elections without controversy whilst it pompously demands “free elections” across the globe. Fighting about healthcare for each of its citizens akin to every other civilized nation. Fighting about subsidized education of its citizens akin to every other civilized nation.

All of it over and over again, depending on duopolistic political ilk. It simply engages in a perpetual Mephisto Waltz of musical chairs. Never does it fight about right and wrong or human respect and decency. It is brutally incapable of doing so because it is the proverbial house divided, by design. It has been from its inception and will continue as such until its demise.

George Duke is a legend. Here are a few words from the lyrics of his composition “Silly Fighting.”

So we go to war and you know what for,
Someone else pulled the strings and we keep on playing the game someone made;
With our lives we will pay, and I only can pray that we please stop this silly fightin'

Let’s Go BACK…to God?

When Donald “Agent Orange” Trump speaks of “making America great again” he is, quite blatantly, hearkening back to the days of yore (not mine). Joe Biden’s “build back better” rhetoric was hardly different, especially with my being a Black Person in the United States. WTF about our history as it pertains to the United States is something of which we might wistfully look upon besotted and drunken with nostalgia?

I have no interest, as long as I am here on “The Island” to go “back” (other than to Alkebulan). In fact, my goal, before my looming exit from this world, is to leave The Island because to die on The Island is tantamount to dying in prison subsequent to a four-hundred year sentence, as far as this soul is concerned. Nonetheless, if the fates so deem, backwards is not where I wish to dwell. I want to hear about going forward in this linear non-spatial continuum of which events occur in an apparently irreversible succession.

Unlike some, I pine my hopes on the future being an unknown (although my Transylvanian friend Rodica would sharply disagree). Negative, I am going to roll the dice and trust that there can’t be much worse than this, particularly from where I sit. There is no logical reason for me to “love” the United States, but there have always been, and always will be, slaves that love Massa and the plantation; which is the singular characteristic that makes them slaves.

Tom Hanks is one of my favorite milquetoast actors; I even named my dog “Wilson” after one of his movies (Castaway)…long story. In any event, about 20 years ago Hanks was in a movie entitled The Ladykillers. If you have not had the pleasure of being entertained by it it is unfortunate.

Having been born in the 60’s (and having lived in the Rollin 60’s; a joke you Snowflakes not from Los Angeles may not get) legendary gospel and, later, “race records” singer Sam Cooke was way before my time. Ironically, I was very familiar with him from a historical standpoint as a Black activist more so than as a singer/songwriter. However, in The Ladykillers there is a song that refrains throughout the movie and it was the first time I had ever heard it. It is called: Let’s Go Back To God. Now, I am a non-religious man and part of the reason is I cannot conceive of a God that allows, and often exhibits, such awesome and random cruelty yet “she loves me.” Nonetheless, the song is salient and significant for the purposes of this writing.

Sam Cooke is a legend. Here are a few words from the lyrics, performed by him and The Soul Stirrers, of Let’s Go Back to God. The haunting relevance will not be lost upon you irrespective of religious beliefs or non-beliefs.

The earth is in a blaze,
the world is in a maze,
the way of life today
is strange and odd.
What happened across the sea
may come to you and me
oh, come let us go back to God

There is trouble in the air
destruction is everywhere
and men are being tramped
beneath the sole
and nations Great and Small
have now begun to fall
come let us go back to God,
go back to god.

Yes! We Can Hope For Change

When Barack Obama ran for the U.S. presidency the central theme and ideology of the Obama Campaign was the emotional distillation of “hope and change.” Simple enough for any idiot to grasp. It was an emotional appeal that had nothing to do either practicality or reality. People unhappy with their situation or with how the government operates seek a change of circumstance. Those afraid about the future feel a need for hope. Or dope.

Or Donald Trump (perhaps a distinction without much difference).

Barack Obama was a political placebo for European-Americans. I have often stated that Barack Obama may have politically been the worst thing that ever happened to Black People in the United States. God knows I have been pilloried and reviled for it which, frankly, substantiates my position in many ways.

Obama served as a political conduit to absolve a white supremacist nation of its Anti-Black racism and systemic apartheid because his presence allowed it to say: “Well, we can’t be a racist nation. Lookie-look! We got us a nigger president!” If I heard it once, I heard it a million times. And they are setting up the same bullshit with Kamala Harris and if you don’t want to hear the truth don’t bring your ass here.

Under Obama damn near every societal metric either remained stagnant or worsened for Black People in the United States from Negative Health Outcomes to home ownership and illiteracy. His only purpose was to appease European-American propaganda (and the vast majority of them did not vote for him according to statistics). I lost “hope” in his sorry ass real quick and was, ironically, very involved in his inaugural campaign. I will go to my grave bemoaning having drank the political equivalent of the Reverend Jim Jones’ Flavor-Aid. Nonetheless, I have to take full responsibility for my own folly because anytime European-Americans bless a Black Man in the United States as Joe Biden would say “you ain’t Black.”

In the “game” of Musical Chairs the participants walk in a circle, or revolve, as the music plays. When the music stops, all participants must find a place to sit. The participant or player who cannot find a seat will be removed from the circle. For each subsequent round, the music will resume after one chair has been removed.

How do you keep the music playing?