My Country 'Tis of Thee

 

Sitting here on a foggy July 4th morning, I'm well aware that patriotic fervor will parade through the streets of America today.  

There will be flags, uniforms, the brandishing of weapons. Then, as the sun sets from sea to shining sea, the night skies will explode with fireworks.

At this moment, though, I can't imagine singing "America the Beautiful" without breaking into tears.  

As I pause to try to describe my relationship to the United States of America, the first thought that emerges is: "it's complicated."  

When I breath in and open my heart, marriage vows come to mind.  For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, I'm wedded to this country.  I've now touched the earth and breathed the air of 49 of it's 50 states.  I love this land and it's people.  The vision of American Democracy that I grew up with still stirs my soul -- and it drives me to tears.

True Love is like that.  It breaks your heart.  

My patriotism, though, is not blind.  The veil was pierced when I was a child.  Watching the Civil Rights movement emerge on the evening news, I knew.  The American Dream was laced with nightmares all along. There was more work to be done.

I'd wager that many of those who claim "my country right or wrong," is their bottom line never read past the semi-colon in the original quote.  A German immigrant, journalist and public servant, Carl Shurz spoke these words on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1872:

"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." 

(italics added)

 

Over the years, along with countless millions of other Americans, I've tried to do what I can to set it right.  My heart has led my body into action, again and again, to protest the failure of America to live up to its own professed ideals.  I've sat in, stood up, marched forth, and rallied for these ideals. I've knocked on doors, staffed phone banks and web campaigns, written letters, essays, and songs.  I've attended meetings. I've listened to speeches. I've delivered others. 

Apparently, it hasn't been enough.  

 

Yet, at age 79, I ain't done.  For all it's flaws, America is my beloved community.  It's "til death do us part."

Back Then

 

America was a different place when I was growing up.  

 

After unbridled capitalism hurled the world over the edge in 1929, a new consensus had been formed.  The mainstream Republican Party that emerged after World War Two had accepted that the government had a crucial role in "establishing justice and promoting the general welfare." It still had a sense of common decency. 

In fact, in 1952, the newly elected Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower, labeled those who opposed the New Deal as "stupid!" He later put the power of Federal troops behind the Supreme Court decision that segregation schools were unconstitutional.  

Although his foreign policy was still largely dominated by Cold War hawks, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in World War Two knew well the horrors of war.  In his farewell address to Congress, popularly known as his Guns and Butter speech, he decried the impact of allocating resources that could be used to build schools and houses and hospitals to the military. Coining the term "military-industrial complex," he warned that its wealth and power would endanger American democracy. 

A couple of decades later the next Republican President, Richard Nixon, signed landmark environmental legislation, OHSA, and the Medicare Act into law, famously claiming, "we are all Keynesians now." 

It wasn't a perfect world back then, of course.  Large numbers of people had to hit the streets in protest during the civil rights, anti-war, and environmental movements of the 1960's and 1970's to "bend the moral arc of history toward justice."  Yet, there was a sense that the course of human history was basically progressive.  It seemed that we, as a people, were basically decent.  Although there was resistance, at times violent, from the fringes of society, it seemed we were in the process of increasingly "setting it right."

And Now...

After decades of well-financed and pervasive right-wing organizing throughout all the major institutions in society, viewpoints that were once considered aberrant, crazy, even un-american when I was growing up, are now mainstream.

Since the early 1970's, Organized Wealth (the term used by the late broadcast journalist and public servant, William Moyers in 2012)  has bankrolled a mean-spirited and arrogant cadre of television personalities, radio talk show hosts, so-called Christian broadcasters, and print pundits to reshape the way that Americans viewed the world.   Some of these figures joined others, often wealthy and/or well-financed, into public office. 

One is now President of the United States,

Over the course of my lifetime, I've seen ideologies, attitudes and behaviors that were decidedly uncool when I was growing up, seize center stage.  The "kill a commie for Christ" fringe, became the Moral Majority.  A former KKK Grand Wizard became a U.S. Senator.  A marginalized John Birch Society (they believed that Dwight Eisenhower a communist) was joined in far right propagandizing by the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council , AIPAC, and a myriad other millionaire-financed think tanks to generate a concerted attack on Progressive values. The left was demonized.  The norms of respectful civic discourse were ridiculed. 

Over time, authoritarism became cool to more and more people.

  And today, with the Trump 2.0 operating system in place, after four more years of well-financed MAGA manipulation and Project 25 planning during the Biden Administration, we have the bully in the presidential pulpit ruling through executive (dis)order and deceit. 

 Claiming he would make Americans safer by deporting criminals, ICE has swept down on honest, hardworking immigrants drawn to this country by its promise of liberty. Men, women, and children are being jailed and deported without due process.   

Posturing as a man of peace, he's doubled down on warfare.  American missles and warplanes -- without a declaration of war passed by Congress -- have bombed Yemen and Iran.

Through it all, Trump continues to demonize or mock those who oppose him.  He threatens those who challenge him -- even within his own party -- with ruin.  A razor-slim Republican congressional majority cowers and passes legislation that will harm millions of the nation's oldest and poorest citizens.

On his first watch, we saw the unimaginable emerge.  Now, it's become commonplace.

So, today, July 4, 2025, I'll allow myself to grieve.  Tomorrow, perhaps, I'll focus on gratitude for all those champions of peace and justice who have graced our history.  I'll bow to all those who continue to resist tyranny.  I'll open my heart in gratitude to the One Love that sustains all Life.  Then, I'll  roll up my sleeves and continue to do what I can do about setting it right.

How about you? 

RIP Bill Moyers (June 5, 1934 – June 26, 2025)

Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0 Photo by Gage Skidmore

I know.  It's just a pipe dream.  

 

Yet, once again, I want to launch a campaign to confer Sainthood on a secular public figure.  

 

As best I can see it, that title shouldn't just go to goody two shoes, in your face, religious types.  

 

As an old Zennie, I thinks it's a good practice to carry your prayer closet around with you in your heart.  I remember reading that Jesus thought so, too.  Its seems he was a bit tougher on show-offs and hypocrites than the other sinners.

 

So, while others may parade their piety while dressed to the nines on Sunday -- men like Moyers simply roll up there sleeves and get the job done.  Moyer's service to the world became a form of prayer.  

So, here's the Deal:   

 

I suppose it's highly unlikely that an ordained Southern Baptist minister is going to make the cut with the Catholic Crew.  (Moyers completed a Master of Divinity degree at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas in 1957 and served as a Baptist pastor before entering the world of politics as a top aide to Lyndon Johnson in the 1960 Election campaign.)  Yet, I think its worth a shot.   

 

I'm hereby nominate the late Bill Moyers for Sainthood!

 

This brilliant, spirited, principled journalist, who the Washington Monthly  characterized as a "Collasus of Public Service and Journalism in an obituary penned by contributing editor, Jonathan Alter was the Real Deal. 

 

Unlike so many broadcast journalists today, this erudite and talented man made a career serving the public.  He championed the values of traditional journalism. 

 

Back in those days, News was news. Facts mattered.  Truth, not corporate profit, was the bottom line.

 

In the era before the "fairness doctrine" disappeared from the FCC regulations, at a time that the three commercial networks still made an effort to separate facts from opinion as part of their evening news shows, Moyers. donned the hat of senior news analyst and commentator.  

 

Like Walter Cronkite and others in that era, Moyer's skillfully crafted words mattered to everyday people. That's because everyday people mattered to him.  He listened deeply to their concerns and aspirations.  He did his research.  Then, unflinchingly, with he spoke Truth to Power.  

 

Moyers left CBS, when he saw that their commitment to traditional journalistic standards had eroded.  He then briefly joined NBC, where he served as its last "senior news analyst and commentator on the NBC Nightly News in 1995. That feature of the nightly news simply went away.

 

By then, the game plan first outlined in the infamous Powell Memo in 1971 had gathered a full head of steam.   The right wing in this country took tighter control of the media.  Network owners no longer had space for Moyers well-crafted progressive opinions on the challenges and promises of the American Democracy. Though Moyers political and cultural commentary was assiduously researched, sound, -- and widely trusted -- it wasn't good for business.  

 

Moyers then moved on to focus his full attention to producing and hosting regular programming and numerous documentaries on PBS.  Public broadcasting was, after all, one of the visions he had brought into being decades before.

 

Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0 photo by Gage Skidmore

As a member of LBJ's White House back in the mid 60's, he was a central player in bringing the Great Society into legislation. 

 

A crucial element of this effort was the creation of public media as an educational and cultural answer to the"vast wasteland"of a radio and television landscape monopolized by huge profit-driven corporations.  PBS and NPR were only a gleam in the eye of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 that he helped bring it into law as an essential element of the Great Society. (Moyers was also central in the creation of the Peace Corps.)  

 

It's obvious, no? Bill Moyers was a man that knew that public service wasn't just a  career.  It was a calling.  It was a way of life. 

 

His first PBS offering had been This Week with Bill Moyers in 1971.  Nearly four decades later, with a legacy of hundreds and hundreds of productions,  he"retired" from PBS as the George W. Bush Administration took aim on the PBS leadership and its "liberal bias. " Although he had prevailed when a Bush appointee on the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasted launched an attack on him, Moyers saw the handwriting on the wall. 

 

Bill Moyers being the man he was, acted.  That wall wasn't going to silence him. 

 

He quickly surfaced with the nationally syndicated Moyers and Company. Three years later, at age 80, he finally "retired." 

 

A journalistic career which began at age 16 when he was a cub reporter for the Marshal (TX) Messenger, had spanned  6 decades.  His legacy included

30 Prime Time Emmy's, 8 Peabody's, and an assortment of other prestigious awards.

 

Though he had plenty of laurels to rest on, Moyers a difficult time staying totally silent, though.  At a time that the Trump administration's  rapacious capitalists and their cronies were taking a chainsaws to American Democracy, the series of Moyers on Democracy Podcast ensued.  The final one was dated August 18, 2022.  He was 88 at the time.  

 

Like Saint Paul, Moyers had "fought the good fight.  He had finished the race. He had kept his faith." 

 

So, This should be a no-brainer.  Bill Moyers had dedicated his brain, heart, and soul to service of his God and the Public Good with courage, integrity, and great skill.  Pope Leo XIV and his folks should immediately dub Moyers Saint Billy. (Moyers was born Billy Don Moyers, in Hugo, Choctaw County, Oklahoma.)

 

In an ideal world, one where sectarian differences don't muddy the living waters of a deep faith based on Love, Bill Moyers would then join his fellow Southern Baptist, President Jimmy Carter, in that circle of notables. (I pitched for Saint Jimmy's sainthood here: Saint Jimmy Gets My Vote.)  

 

These two forces for the Public Good emerged in public service before the Republicans had successfully turned the Old South crimson Red through fanning the flames of racism and a pseudo-class war against federal government and a demonized liberal elite. Their Democratic Party, the Party that FDR had championed to forceably bend the moral arc of history toward justice. had not yet been completely co-opted by the seemingly unlimited $$$ of Wealth and Corporate Coffers.  

 

Both of these men, of course, had their flaws.  If I were to make it past the pearly gates myself, I'd definitely find myself quibbling with them about some of the stuff they did.  Yet, their hearts were in the right place.  As Pope Francis once said, "Who am I to judge?" I only wish we had more public figures around these days that had their heart, courage, -- and, most importantly, moral vision to do what needs to be done.

Perhaps, though, seeing and hearing Bill Moyers in action makes the best case for his Sainthood.  Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! memorialized Moyers and included an interview with him she conducted with co-host Juan Gonzalez in 2012.  

 

Moyers' critique of the corruption of the media and government by wealth and corporate power was clear and compelling.  His passionate call for a resurgence of democratic public institutions stirred my soul.    (12 minutes)

 

 

 

FYI: There are hours and hours of his interviews, videos, clips, etc. archived at BillMoyers.com 

 

Reclaiming the Boston Commons

 

​Reclaiming the Boston Common for Democracy

by Brother Lefty Smith, S.O.B.*

April 6, 2025

 

"The moral arc of the Universe is long, but it bends towards justice."

-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The event organizers expected 25,000 people to gather in Boston on Saturday for the Hands Off march and rally. Their numbers, drawn from the people who officially signed up online with one of the organizing groups, may have been a bit conservative.  The tens of thousands of us¹ who showed up ​on the Boston Common yesterday certainly weren’t.  

If I was looking for a sign that the progressive spirit ​was alive and well​​ in this country, I was gifted with thousands of them.  In a multitude of colors, ​in personal expressions ​that ranged from acerbic outrage to unbridled humor and ​unabashed hope​, the message was clear: We the People will resist the Trump administration's heavy-handed attempt to deflect the moral arc of history.    

Make no doubt about it. The common everyday citizens of America are a people who are, at heart, kind, generous, and decent human beings. Embracing our diversity, we will recapture our democracy to serve the interests of the vast majority of us, not the insatiable greed of a few. 

Although T(Rump) Rex, the Muskrat, and their cadre of billionaire misanthropes may have tried to grab the levers of federal power for the past couple of months, ​the throng that marched and sang and chanted here today ​made it obvious.  It will take a lot more than a bevy of misguided, often illegal, executive orders to sink our democratic ship of state​.

 

I haven’t felt this much human energy since the days I spent in Zuccotti Park in September 2011. Back then #Occupy Wall Street​! erupted into a national movement.  In fact, some of the most exuberant chants, ​led by the many ​youthful participants who were loudly, yet ​peaceably, assembled yesterday, first emerged from the #OWS! and Black Lives Matter era​s!  Surging through the crowd with the pulsing drumbeat of congas, djembes, and bongos, the message was clear “We are the 99%!” Mr Trump, be advised: “No Justice! No Peace!” 

​All too often, mesmerized by the narrow focus of today's corporately controlled mass media, it's easy to lose sight of the larger picture.​  I tend to forget the wise words of legendary baseball sage ​Yogi Berra​ -- "It ain't over 'til it's over. “ ​

​Knowing now that there were at least a half million of us² registered nationwide to attend – and being reasonably certain that there were many, many, others that just showed up – it’s clear to me. Our democracy is far from over​!  

 

Enough is enough. It's time. We the People are able and willing to stand up and be counted -- and there are a lot more of us than them! 

 

1”Tens of thousands show for Boston ‘Hands Off’ protest against Trump, Elon Musk” by Lance Reynolds and Flint McCoglan, Boston Herald, April 6, 2025  

2 “Anti-Trump protesters gathered at hundreds of locations nationwide” by Sarah D. Wire, USA Today, April 6, 2025

A Time to Break Silence

"When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, 

are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, 

extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

-- Dr. Martin King Jr., Speech at Riverside Church, April 4, 1967

"It is my firm belief that Europe of today represents not the spirit of 

God or Christianity but the spirit of Satan.  
And Satan's successes are the greatest when 

he appears with the name of God on his lips.  
Europe today is only nominally Christian.  
In reality, it is worshiping Mammon."

-- Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, August 9, 1920.

d

 

 

The Truth, The Whole Truth, and....

For decades now, the corporate media has celebrated Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Yet, with few exceptions, the MSM has assiduously buried Dr. King's teachings on economic justice, materialism, and militarism.  

Like Mahatma Gandhi, King's message was Spiritual.  Each of these courageous sages saw that Mammon worship, the soul-sucking evil of materialism/consumerism, was alive and unwell, lurking in the belly of capitalism.

Throughout the history of capitalism, racism, economic exploitation, and warfare have walked hand in hand.  The prosperity of the capitalist English Empire and it's rebellious teenage offspring, the USA, were built squarely on the horrors of genocide and slavery.  Sadly, it still exists today systemic oppressions.  Although the current ascendancy of  Trump and his MAGA Minions will try to deny its history -- and its reality today -- genocide, both literal and cultural,  systemic poverty, jailhouse slavery, etc. continue to emerge from the assumptions and actions of a white supremacist capitalism.

Like my identical twin brother, Lance, I usually tend to be more Buddhist in my lingo.  Yet, I just gotta say it out loud (and type it clearly): 

I agree with Mahatma Gandhi.  Capitalism is the work of the freakin' DEVIL!  Its the dark side of the force.  With it's unbridled greed and exploitation, "business as usual" continues to slaughter and oppress people -- and it is taking aim on the survival of the planet.

Dr. King, like Gandhi, was not merely a political leader. He was a Saint, a Prophet, a Holy Man.  With astounding vision and passion, he sought to alleviate the needless human suffering created by a political and economic system that feeds on greed, hatred, and delusion.  Like many other prophets throughout history, both King and Gandhi threatened the ruling order of oligarchs and the preachers who supported them.  And, they were both martyred. 

Although Dr. King focused on the evil of racism in his "I Have a Dream" speech on that late summer day in Washington DC, his words were delivered to the throng that had assembled for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  This effort, which he had helped organize, challenged economic exploitation and suggested bold governmental action to alleviate poverty. 

The FBI claimed the event was inspired by Communists and lobbied to prevent it from happening.

King continued to march.  He continued to preach love and championed a non-violent resistance to a system that has always used violence.  Like Jesus of Nazareth, and a myriad other martyrs, Dr. King knew full well that he would most likely be killed for challenging the ruling order -- and he chose Love and "Good Trouble" instead.

Dr. King's assassination, five years after the "I Have a Dream" speech, occurred when he traveled to Memphis to support striking Afro-American municipal sanitation workers as the leader of the National Poor People's campaign.  That campaign demanded an Economic Bill of Rights which included five planks:

1. "A meaningful job at a living wage"
2. "A secure and adequate income" for all those unable to find or do a job
3. "Access to land" for economic uses
4. "Access to capital" for poor people and minorities to promote their own businesses
5. The ability for ordinary people to "play a truly significant role" in the government

When's the last time you saw the Economic Bill of Rights highlighted in the corporate media coverage of Dr.  King's life? 

A Time to Break Silence

When Trump's legion of misanthropes, materialists, and militarists first attempted to loot our country and the world, it was easy for Progressives to protest.  Then, with the election of Joe Biden, we saw that the same collection of neo-con's, foreign policy "experts,"media pundits, and the moguls and minions of the military industrial complex dominate US foreign policy! A Democratic administration continued to stoke the flames of warfare in Ukraine and Gaza.  And the rich got richer, the poor got poorer.

WTF!?

Now,  Trump has returned.  His slim electoral success (a 1.5% margin) does not constitute a mandate.  Yet, he has had four more years to enlist the energies of a powerful cabal of moguls and right wing theorists.  They are dead set on scuttling our ship of state. And its clear that the cards are still out on whether our constitutional checks and balances will be able to thwart his efforts.

In part, Trump's margin of victory was fueled by his pretension and/or personal delusion that he is a man of peace.  Yet, the genocide in Palestine/Israel continues.  He's threatened to invade and annex both Greenland and Panama. His efforts to curb the bloodshed in Ukraine haven't yielded a successful diplomatic resolution -- or even a ceasefire.

It's clear.  It's time for those who believe in the creation of a world of peace and shared prosperity -- as opposed to the accumulation of wealth by the world's oligarchs -- to speak out.  Dr. King did so, dramatically, on April 4, 1967, at the Riverside Church in New York City.   

On that day, Dr. King proclaimed, "these too are our brothers," and came out against the US involvement in the Vietnam War with a passion and an eloquence that many believe caused his assassination exactly one year, to the day, later.

The corporate media today ignores this speech and remains silent.  I hope you don't.  Please listen and pass this along.  Then join some folks, speak out, act -- with love in your heart!

It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it!

Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence