Cold and snowy this morning, traffic “moved” like molasses…pondering what to write.  With only forty five minutes to work with there will be no philosophical foray into the nature of knowledge, or to say it plainly “why it is that we are such fools.” 

A song played on the car radio, I’ve heard many times before.  My instinct told me the song is enough to write about.  So here it is.

I heard John Cougar-Mellencamp in concert many years ago.  He’s much older now than in the youtube video.  His truth, the truth of this song continues to ring out, more so today than in an earlier post-Vietnam war era.  Vietnam seems so long ago, until you suddenly realize that since Vietnam we’ve left two more countries abjectly wrecked, at a cost of trillions of dollars, Iraq and Afghanistan, blood and treasure spil’t to no end.  Our troops are still on their soil.

              they told me when I was younger
Said boy, you’re gonna be president
But just like everything else
Those old crazy dreams
Just kinda came and went

Nothing has changed, as we keep telling ourselves the same lies.  Though now,  — we have a President who has undisguised intention of rigging the next election to remain in office, perhaps indefinitely.  Maybe we too will have a “beloved leader,” despot-for-life?

A few days ago a new friend told me that he didn’t pay attention to main stream media.  I was momentarily heartened and then he said, — “I just pay attention to Fox News.”

And so it goes.  Many of us, happily mind-fucked by propaganda sources, justifying and mystifying ourselves at the same time.

Enjoy the video.  I think that positive change must emerge from joussiance, an up-welling of life, the conviction that things need not be as they are, that a new world is possible.

Lyrics follow the video…

Pink Houses

There’s a black man with a black cat
Livin’ in a black neighborhood
He’s got an interstate
Runnin’ through his front yard
You know he thinks that he’s got it so good
And there’s a woman in the kitchen
Cleanin’ up the evenin’ slop
And he looks at her and says, hey darlin’
I can remember when you could stop a clock

Oh, but ain’t that America
For you and me
Ain’t that America
Something to see, baby
Ain’t that America
Home of the free, yeah
Little pink houses
For you and me
Oooh, yeah
For you and me

Well, there’s a young man in a t-shirt
Listenin’ to a rockin’ rollin’ station
He’s got greasy hair, greasy smile
He says, Lord this must be my destination
‘Cause they told me when I was younger
Said boy, you’re gonna be president
But just like everything else
Those old crazy dreams
Just kinda came and went

Oh, but ain’t that America
For you and me
Ain’t that America
Something to see, baby
Ain’t that America
Home of the free, yeah
Little pink houses
For you and me
Oooh, little baby
For you and me

[Instrumental Interlude]

Well, there’s people and more people
What do they know, know, know
Go to work in some high rise
And vacation down at the Gulf of Mexico
Ooh, yeah
And there’s winners and there’s losers
But they ain’t no big deal
‘Cause the simple man, baby
Pays for thrills
The bills the pills that kill

Oh, but ain’t that America
For you and me
Ain’t that America
Something to see, baby
Ain’t that America
Home of the free, yeah
Little pink houses
For you and me
Oooh
Ooooh, yeah…