9.1.2025 – people with song mouths

people with song mouths
connecting song hearts; people
who must sing or die

For Labor Day, 2025.

Adapted from Work Gangs by Carl Sandburg as published in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, by Carl Sandburg, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1950.

Work Gangs

Box cars run by a mile long.
And I wonder what they say to each other
When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack.
Maybe their chatter goes:
I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line.
I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they
splintered my boards.
I came from Detroit heavy with a load of flivvers.
I carried apples from the Hood river last year and this year
bunches of bananas from Florida; they look for me with
watermelons from Mississippi next year.

Hammers and shovels of work gangs sleep in shop corners
when the dark stars come on the sky and the night watchmen
walk and look.

Then the hammer heads talk to the handles,
then the scoops of the shovels talk,
how the day’s work nicked and trimmed them,
how they swung and lifted all day,
how the hands of the work gangs smelled of hope.
In the night of the dark stars
when the curve of the sky is a work gang handle,
in the night on the mile long sidetracks,
in the night where the hammers and shovels sleep in corners,
the night watchmen stuff their pipes with dreams—
and sometimes they doze and don’t care for nothin’,
and sometimes they search their heads for meanings, stories,
stars.
The stuff of it runs like this:
A long way we come; a long way to go; long rests and long deep
sniffs for our lungs on the way.
Sleep is a belonging of all; even if all songs are old songs and
the singing heart is snuffed out like a switchman’s lantern
with the oil gone, even if we forget our names and houses in
the finish, the secret of sleep is left us, sleep belongs to all,
sleep is the first and last and best of all.

People singing; people with song mouths connecting with song
hearts; people who must sing or die; people whose song
hearts break if there is no song mouth; these are my people.

I went looking for a quote about Labor in the back of my mind that memory said was in Harry Truman’s address in Philadelphia accepting the nomination of the Democratic National Convention.
I found ” … labor never had but one friend in politics, and that is the Democratic Party and Franklin D. Roosevelt.”

But what I also came across was this:

The United States has to accept its full responsibility for leadership in international affairs.

We have been the backers and the people who organized and started the United Nations, first started under that great Democratic President, Woodrow Wilson, as the League of Nations. The League was sabotaged by the Republicans in 1920.

And we must see that the United Nations continues a strong and growing body, so we can have everlasting peace in the world.

We removed trade barriers in the world, which is the best asset we can have for peace.

Those trade barriers must not be put back into operation again.

Harry had some wild ideas back then.

Raise minimum wage.

Universal Health Care.

This was the famous Give’em Hell Harry speech.

Mr. Truman later said all he did was tell the truth … which made the Republican’s feel like they were in hell.

I can see how that strategy would work today.

8.30.2025 – this is not China

this is not China
this is the United States in …
2025

Adapted from the article Has the US turned its back on free-market capitalism? by Callum Jones deputy business editor for Guardian US, where Mr. Jones writes:

While Chairman Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China, had been fundamentally opposed to free markets and capitalism, Reagan argued that societies which enjoyed “the most spectacular progress” were the ones where people had been “permitted to think for themselves, make economic decisions, and benefit from their own risks”.

What would Reagan make of a country that, in a matter of weeks, became the largest shareholder in a microchip manufacturer; demanded a cut of firms’ overseas sales in exchange for export licenses; and fired a statistics official after government data embarrassed its ruling party?

In just the past week, senior government officials in the country have pushed to exert control over its central bank; ordered a tech giant to strike a deal with a supportive media conglomerate; and successfully urged a restaurant chain to reverse a rebrand.

This is not China. It is the United States, under a Republican president, in 2025.

Don’t forget that this government also released local militia onto city streets to ‘Preserve Order’.

This is not China.

It is the United States.

Under a Republican president.

In 2025.

8.29.2025 – suddenly precious

suddenly precious
in the age of violence –
tough gent on our side

Adapted from the passage in the book, Six Men by Alistair Cooke (New York, Penguin, 1985), where Mr. Cooke writes about Humphrey Bogart:

There was nothing now to offend the most respectable suburban patriot in a hero who used the gangster’s means to achieve our ends.

And this character was suddenly very precious in the age of violence, for it satisfied a quiet, desperate need of the engulfed ordinary citizen.

When Hitler was acting out scripts more brutal and obscene than anything dreamed of by Chicago’s North Side or the Warner Brothers, Bogart was the only possible antagonist likely to outwit him and survive.

What was needed was no knight of the boudoir, no Ronald Colman or Leslie Howard (whose movie careers compensatingly slumped) but a conniver as subtle as Goebbels. Bogart was the very tough gent required, a murderously bland neutral who we knew, if the Germans didn’t, would in the end be on our side.

I am waiting.

Waiting for that person.

Waiting for that person, that kid, that someone, anyone, to say “But he has no clothes!”

Someone on our side.

What was needed was no knight of the boudoir, no Ronald Colman or Leslie Howard (whose movie careers compensatingly slumped) but a conniver as subtle as Goebbels.

The very tough gent required, a murderously bland neutral who we knew, if the Germans didn’t, would in the end be on our side.

This character is suddenly very precious in our age of violence.

Very precious and very rare.

Where is that person today?

Let me ask you a question.

In the movie, Casablanca, which side do you line up with?

In the movie, Casablanca, who do you identify with?

Now ask yourself this.

If the current president was in that movie, who would he be?

I can’t see the current president playing chess, stopping the arrogant German from entering his casino, helping out the couple from Bulgaria or allowing the band to play the La Marseillaise.

But I sure can see him marching across the room, leading his entourage of cabinet secretaries to the piano and singing German marching songs.

I feel he would love and embrace the role of Major Strasser.

So again I ask, who can watch Casablanca and want to choose that side.

The OTHER side.

Who?

Who wants to stand and be counted with that side?

I don’t know.

Not me.

Me?

I am waiting.

Waiting for the very tough gent,, a murderously bland neutral who we know, in the end, will be on our side.

And this time, I know, our side will win.

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
Our nation turns it lonely eyes to you.

8.21.2025 – cut his words off short

cut his words off short
and he threw a frightened glance
over his shoulder

The port was filled with riverboats, more than he had ever seen at one time before in his life. Half the self-propelled barges of Germany — more than half, perhaps — were there, packed in, rank beside rank, and nearly all of them riding high in the water to prove that they were empty. There were friends and acquaintances everywhere, shouting greetings as soon as they recognized him and his barge.

“The Fritz Reuter’s here, boys. Now the war can start.”

The barge captain who shouted the last remark cut his words off short, with a note of apprehension in the final syllables, and he threw a frightened glance over his shoulder — the sort of glance which Germans had for years been casting behind them after a rash speech.

From the short story, If Hitler had Invaded England in the book, Gold from Crete ; ten stories by C. S. Forester (Little, Brown. Boston, 1970).

My son recently got a passport.

I asked him where he was going?

“Nowhere“, he said, “… just need to prove I am a citizen of the United States.”

All my life I have watched Movies and TV shows were men in black trench coats and black hats and tight lipped smiles say to someone, “Your Papers …?“

When I was kid, I had to ask my Dad what that meant.

I didn’t know.

I was an American.

From America.

A place where no asked for your papers.

A place where no one carried papers.

It used to be one of the things that Made America Great.

I watch as those things, those things that Made America Great are ripped away by people who claim to want to Make America Great Again?

And I wonder …

What was it like in Germany in when Hitler and HIS entourage took over.

Joseph Goebbels said, We are going into parliament to arm ourselves with weapons from democracy’s arsenal. We are becoming members of parliament in order to hamstring the Weimar way of thinking…

If democracy is stupid enough to give us free tickets and allowances for this disservice, that is its own business. We don’t worry about it. We will use any legal means to revolutionize the current state of affairs. (“What do we want with the Reichstag?” [“Was wollen wir im Reichstag?”] in his newspaper Der Angriff [The Attack], April 30, 1928.)

But what was it like for people like us in Germany to watch as the Nazi’s used any legal means to revolutionize the current state of affairs.

Can’t look at the voting records since as soon as the Nazi’s got slim majority control of the German Reichstag they outlawed any other political party so their percentage of all votes cast was almost always near 99%.

The average citizen of Germany during Word War 2 doesn’t show up in literature too often but this short story of Mr. Forester’s came to mind.

To invade England, in this story, the German Navy gathers together a collection of river barges skippered by everyday Germans.

Men not in the military and probably not a part of the political process.

They get together.

They see old friends.

And they joke.

They joke about the Government.

They joke about the Government and cut their words off short.

They joke about the Government and cut their words off short, with a note of apprehension in the final syllables.

They joke about the Government and cut their words off short, with a note of apprehension in the final syllables, and through a frightened glance over their shoulder.

They joke about the Government and cut their words off short, with a note of apprehension in the final syllables, and through a frightened glance over their shoulder — the sort of glance which Germans had for years been casting behind them after a rash speech.

The Trump years.

The Make America Great Again years.

The solutions … in search of problems.

In search of problems most of didn’t know we had.

The solutions to problems most of didn’t know we had that come at cost we don’t appreciate until it’s too late.

I told my son, I never needed a passport just to live in the United States.

And I cut my words off short, with a note of apprehension in the final syllables, and through a frightened glance over my shoulder — the sort of glance which we have for years been casting behind us after a rash speech.

US Flag with the stars of 1861 flying over Fort Sumter, SC

PS: I have to point out that in the years leading up to the Civil War, the Southern States used their ‘slim majority’ in the House of Representatives to pass a rule FORBIDDING even the mention of the word ‘SLAVERY’ let alone any legislation to come to floor in the subject.

8.18.2025 – be watched hawkishly

be watched hawkishly
and confronted truthfully
whatever the price

But Animal Farm is more than just a satire of the Russian Revolution. This “fairy story” (as my father called it) is an eternal warning against political leaders who hijack potentially noble movements for their own selfish purposes. My father thought all politicians should be watched hawkishly, confronted truthfully (whatever the price) and kicked out when they put their interests before those of their country.

So writes Richard Blair, son of George Orwell, in his opinion piece, Animal Farm was my parents’ teamwork’: Orwell’s son on 80 years of the satirical classic.

Mr. Blair closed with: Animal Farm has had a remarkable life story, playing its part in democratic protests behind the iron curtain and more recently in Myanmar, Zimbabwe and Ukraine. It remains an unforgettable inspiration to all those fighting for freedom. In a world where authoritarianism, nationalism, xenophobia and political lying are all on the rise, we need Animal Farm by our side more than ever now.

May I repeat.

In a world where …

authoritarianism …

nationalism …

xenophobia …

and political lying …

are all on the rise,

we need Animal Farm by our side more than ever now.