Anthem

No nation has a single history, no people a single song.

― Jill Lepore

Activists are calling for "Imagine" to replace "The Star Spangled Banner" as the national anthem, a move I can get behind, although my first choice is the ripsnorting "Born to Run."

But if we want a timeless national anthem―a tune that's perennially PC―one without lyrics makes the most sense.

In which case, my vote goes to the majestic "Fanfare for the Common Man."

With that decision, the US would be join the coterie of five other countries whose national anthem has no lyrics: Spain, Kosovo, San Marino and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

For years, Bob Dylan skipped a warm-up act and, before taking the stage, instead played a recording of "Fanfare for the Common Man" (along with other Aaron Copland favorites like "Hoe Down," "Simple Gifts," "Quiet City" and "Lincoln Portrait").

Historian Sean Wilentz was the first Dylanologist to point out that Daylan and Copland, both American Jews of Lithuanian descent, are culturally linked by way of their roots in the Popular Front.

The Popular Front was an anti-racist, anti-fascist movement in the arts promoted by the Communist party during the 1930's and '40's. 

The movement held sway over hundreds of "fellow travelers," including Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Paul Robeson, Lena Horne, Ernest Hemingway, Theodore Dreiser, John Steinbeck, Richard Wright, W.E.B. DuBois, Dashiell Hammett, Arthur Miller, John Dos Passos, Orson Welles, Frank Capra, Dalton Trumbo, Rita Hayworth, Edward G. Robinson, Dorothea Lange, Jacob Lawrence, Ben Shahn and Mark Rothko.

Copland composed "Fanfare for the Common Man" on commission during World War II after hearing then-Vice President Henry Wallace give a speech in which he said, “The century that will come out of this war, can be and must be the century of the common man.”

It's high time to replace Francis Scott Key's ditty with something more rousing.

If it can't be "Born to Run," nothing would please me better than a song composed by an anti-racist, anti-fascist fellow traveler.

What's your pick for a replacement?

Painting "Homeland" by Bo Bartlett

Hanging On

We must all hang together, or we shall all hang separately.

― Benjamin Franklin

Last evening, I spent an hour on a Google Hangout with the organizers and volunteers for a political campaign.

I never involve myself in politics, but I want to help a progressive who's challenging an incumbent US senator in my state's Democratic primary.

The crowd was mostly young, eager and soft-spoken―everyone duly chastened, I think, by the uphill battle they're waging.

This morning's news is filled with mentions of Antifa, Boogaloo and QAnon, groups whose names sound like brands of stool-softeners.

I'm glad to know there are at least a few folks committed to orderly progress.

To everyone still with a scintilla of civility―left, right or center―I say this: 

We must all hang on, or surely we'll all hang each other.

Happy July 4th! Wear a mask in public.

Buffoon

Great men have not been boasters and buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves to face it.

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

English borrowed the oft-used word buffoon from the 16th century French word bouffon, meaning a professional clown, joker, or comic fool.

The French borrowed their word from the Italian buffare, meaning "to puff out the cheeks," a routine gesture performed by jesters. 

Jesters would swell their cheeks and slap them to expel the air, producing a noise resembling a fart.

After so many stolid US presidents, it's refreshing to have one so ready to look vulgar and ridiculous, though I'm not sure the 130,000 Americans who have died from Covid-19 would wholeheartedly agree.

Coffee Black

Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?

― Albert Camus

Hardship's on the horizon for millions of Americans, who will learn in July that the landlord's leniency is fairly short-lived.

Debt is about to displace one-third of the nation's homeowners, as it did during the Great Depression, when lenders foreclosed on 1,000 homes every day.

And millions more are about to lose their over-leveraged luxuries–boats, RVs, second cars, and second homes.

It's time to "stop and smell the coffee."

Thoreau understood. 

On his 28th birthday, he built a pine cabin near Walden Pond and began to spend his days gardening, walking, writing and pondering the "mean and sneaking lives many of you live."

Awash in debt, "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," he noted.

Americans are drunk on debt. 

Many are about to hit bottom. 

Thank goodness there's coffee.

Painting "Coffee Black" by Lyn Boyer

Facts Suck

Sometimes to do the right thing,
we must keep a promise we never made.

– Robert Breault

A friend objected to my latest post, "I Deserve Reparations, Too," where I argued that slaves' descendants should receive cash reparations only if wage-slaves' descendants do as well.

"Black slaves in America were promised reparations," she wrote. "Whether it's fair or not that just one group of people whose ancestors were slaves (or wage-slaves) receives reparations is subjective."

Facts suck. They're as stubborn as a mule.

My friend was right to remind me of the fact that our government promised slaves what became known to historians as "40 Acres and a Mule." It made no such pledge to wage-slaves.

At the end of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln confiscated 400,000 acres South Carolina, Georgia and Florida farmland owned by Confederate planters, promising to distribute it to the emancipated slaves. But Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor and a Southerner, rescinded the deal six months after Lincoln's death and returned the land to the planters.

The promise of reparations was made–and broken–a century and a half and six generations ago.

Does it still have full force and effect?

It does.

US laws hold no arbitrary right exists to rescind a contract. A contract can only be rescinded on the grounds of fraud, duress, material mistake, insanity or habitual drunkenness.

Unless you can credibly argue Lincoln's confiscation of planters' land was illegal, by returning it to the planters, Andrew Johnson acted arbitrarily.

The deal still stands–and I can't insist it must now include wage-slaves as a party.

Crap. I was so looking forward to my first reparations check!

To my friend: Trisha, thanks, you pointed out a fact I overlooked. My argument for wage-slave reparations wasn't merely subjective, it was illogical.

Keep smiling!