My Ancestors

–  immigrated from Britain to escape religious persecution, intending to found a city set-on-a-hill, or paradise, which is another way of putting it.  In the haste to flee persecution, we overlooked our streak of self-righteousness which we inadvertently transported to the “new” world.  Early in our settlement in Massachusetts we had a “falling out” with the Indians.  (They already lived here for generations.) One thing leads to another.  We burned their village, and killed many of them, women and children not excepted.   This is all detailed in William Bradford’s famous History of the Plymouth Plantation.  The massacre is recounted with thanksgiving that God had given “a victory over so proud and insulting an enime.”  Bradford estimated that they had killed 400 in the Pequot war.

This stain of imperiousness, the penchant for imposing our imaginations of “purity” upon everyone within reach, is still with (within) us.  You’d think that by now we’d understand that this is no more than a reflection of ourselves in the mind’s mirror.  Naturally we do not like to speak of it. Or think about it.

This purblind condition until quite recently was expressed in discrimination against citizens who are LGBT.  The Stonewall uprising in 1969, was not that long ago. Presently we are wrestling with a rash of murders committed by white citizens and by the police against Black citizens.  Thus the rationale for the Black Lives Matter organization. 

Women have always been the focus of this discontent.  We do not put women on trial for witchcraft now.  We recognize that for the insane behavior that it is. However we are not done with unhinged behavior. We are about to install, yes a woman, on the Supreme Court expressly for taking away from all female citizens the right of decision over their own body in the matter of pregnancy.  Even if god whispers such thought into your ear — the thought is “bat-shit crazy.” What irrational fanaticism is loose among us?  We are intent upon oppression of one half of our population.

We Caucasian descendants of the Pilgrims simply “feel” that any collection of ideas, or cultural manifestations, or racial/ethnic expression, etc. outside the circle of our zone of comfort, exterior to our control, — ought to be suppressed, demonized, discredited, in other words eliminated. 

Presently we are a nation “armed to the teeth,” with a fetish for guns, reading the second amendment of the Constitution literally, as if it were written by the hand of God on a tablet of stone.  Why? So that upon opportunity we can eliminate literally any “who are different.”

And my suggestion of an alternative is …?  We could attempt to learn from those who have a manifestly different approach than our own. 

Fanatical repression or an open hand — the open mind for learning.

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What song do I suggest to mitigate the “funk” that attends contemplation of these matters?  This one I think, will serve express our ability to transcend this grim fate, the cycle of violence …

The wild abandon of Rock is a helpful counterpoint to the dark casuistry linked to our ancestors.  We are indeed far from home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhuPEo7ovYc

Paradise City

By Guns N’ Roses

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won’t you please take me home

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won’t you please take me home

Just an urchin livin’ under the street
I’m a hard case that’s tough to beat
I’m your charity case
So buy me somethin’ to eat
I’ll pay you at another time
Take it to the end of the line

Rags to riches or so they say
Ya gotta-keep pushin’ for the fortune and fame
You know it’s, it’s all a gamble
When it’s just a game
You treat it like a capital crime
Everybody’s doin’ their time

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won’t you please take me home
Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Take me home

Strapped in the chair of the city’s gas chamber
Why I’m here I can’t quite remember
The surgeon general says it’s hazardous to breathe
I’d have another cigarette, but I can’t see
Tell me who you’re gonna believe

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Take me home
Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won’t you please take me home

So far away
So far away
So far away
So far away

Captain America’s been torn apart
Now he’s a court jester with a broken heart
He said
Turn me around and take me back to the start
I must be losin’ my mind—”Are you blind?”
I’ve seen it all a million times

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Take me home
Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won’t you please take me home

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Take me home
Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won’t you please take me home

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