Saturday, October 31, 2020

3 Chords & the Truth: Save America


I’m guessing you might have expected a Halloween show on 3 Chords & the Truth this week, being this is Halloween day as we record the program. Sorry about that . . . frankly, I find life is scary enough without adding ghouls, ghosts, goblins and zombies to the mix.

I mean, c’mon, Tuesday is Election Day here in these Disunited States of America, and if the outside chance of four more years of Donald Trump doesn’t scare the hell out of you, you’re probably still shivering after the president’s freezing-cold superspreader event here a few days ago and are being told by medical authorities to quarantine yourself for 14 days.

Halloween, hell. Don’t know about you, but I’m scared you-know-whatless as we wait to see whether Uncle Joe wins and we earn an outside shot at putting America back together . . . or everything goes horribly-er wrong, and the country as we knew it ceases to exist, and democracy here dies the most deranged death the world has ever seen.



Come Tuesday, life will go on — maybe — in a fashion close to what used to be normal, or life as we knew it will end, and the untenable will be the new normal. And we who love the idea of the United States — who love the idea that is the United States — will have some awful choices to make.



The untenable — the unacceptable — is just that.

STILL, even if everything goes as right as rain this coming week — and would you really count on that, this being 2020 and all — those of us who love the messy, idealistic, not-yet-lived-up-to idea of the United States still have to internalize the reality that 40 percent or so of our fellow Americans have no idea about the American idea — our national creed. That all men — all people — were created equal, “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”



We still must grapple with the reality that 40 percent of Americans are OK with fascism. With ripping refugee children from the arms of refugee parents.

With putting refugees in cages. With putting children in cages.

 

We must wrap our minds around 40 percent of Americans being OK with the president’s blatant racism and bigotry. With his cuddling up to despots and sanctioning their interference in American public life.

With a shambolic and corrupt administration of our national affairs. With a thoroughly corrupt administration which subverts and corrupts everything that comes too close to it.

 

We have gone to war with countries over less. Now we are what we had professed to abhor. After all, we elected what we once professed to abhor . . . and we conceivably might do it again. 



And — conceivably — our present cold civil war well might turn hot in the coming days, weeks or months. As if our criminal mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t killed enough Americans — roughly 230,000 as I speak. And we’re not half done with the dying at this rate, with the pandemic going into a wintertime frenzy.

 

Some 40 percent of our fellow citizens are fine with that. Fine enough with it to vote for it. Don’t ask me why; I have no good answer.

 

MAYBE we who try to live — imperfectly, as it turns out — our American creed . . . and remember, America is a creed, not blood and soil . . . maybe someday we will be able to forgive our brothers and sisters. But we won’t — we can’t — forget.



Assuming we have the chance. 



If you can vote but haven’t voted yet . . . do it. Vote. The world as we know it depends on it.

Now that I’ve had my say, I’ll let the music have its say as we seek to save America.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

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