Born In The U.S.A.

By Bruce Springsteen

Born down in a dead man’s town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up

Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.

Got in a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man

Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.

Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says “Son if it was up to me”
Went down to see my V.A. man
He said “Son, don’t you understand”

I had a brother at Khe Sanh fighting off the Viet Cong
They’re still there, he’s all gone

He had a woman he loved in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms now

Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I’m ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run ain’t got nowhere to go

Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I’m a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I’m a cool rocking Daddy in the U.S.A.

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July 3rd, the day before Independence Day.  I just listened to a NYT Daily podcast about the disclosure of bounty payments to the Afghan Taliban by the Russians, for the killing of American soldiers in Afghanistan.  The President seemed inconvenienced by the disclosure, and no measures in response have been announced.  On it’s face this is a matter of blood.

I finished reading the essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones published in the New York Times Magazine about the recent nationwide uprising led by Black Lives Matter to resist systemic racism.  The essay detailed generation to generation oppression of Black citizens since the culmination of the Civil War which ended their legal enslavement.  I felt numb after reading the essay.  As a writer I recognize cant and hyperbole.  There is none in this essay.  Hannah-Jones concludes that the gap between the well-being of Black citizens and their white contemporaries is so great — that reparations are called for to make things right.  The wrong that continues to be committed against Black citizens is nothing less than a matter of blood.

When a wrong has been committed, making things right is the only way forward.  Many of my white contemporaries would agree with that statement in principle.  However, I know without question, they would resist reparations made by our government to the descendants of Black slaves.  No surprise in that.  Humans are paradoxical mammals.

There will be no Fourth of July parade celebration in Wheaton tomorrow morning.  The covid-19 pandemic is surging with an increase in reported infections and hospitalizations.  People will die in increasing numbers from this contagious virus.  Many of us did not take this seriously, and the President did not want to deal with the pandemic at all.  This too is a matter of blood.

Thus I offer this anthem of resistance by Bruce Springsteen.  Superficially it is a Vietnam era anti-war song.  More to the point, it is a protest against the endless patronizing, the failure of responsibility of leadership, the failure of those in authority to care for the average citizen, — the man/woman in need of a job (Black and white), the veteran whose life has been upended by an unnecessary war.

Either we do the right thing and make things right … or we do not.  Things cannot go on/will not go on the way they are.

There is nowhere to run now.