Dignity

Dignity is very hard to come by for Americans in this seventh year since the corporate merger of Rubber Stamp Congress, Inc. with Bush & Cheney Planet Exterminators, Inc.  There’s plenty of debt, disgust, despair, depression, death, destruction, and denial, but there’s not much dignity.  America’s dignity vanished in Florida in 2000 and hasn’t been seen since.

Lookin’ for some dignity . . .

Wise man lookin’ in a blade of grass, young man lookin’ in the shadows that pass, poor man lookin’ through painted glass . . . for dignity.

Try looking elsewhere, seeker of dignity, you aren’t going to see much of it in the churches of Amerika.  They’re filled from the pulpit to the back pews with hypocrites, so dignity can’t even get in the door.  There’s not much dignity in the updated 10 Commandments either:

I.      War is the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before it.

II.     Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images of the Bill of Rights.

III.    (Classified)

IV.    Remember the War on Terror, to keep it holy.

V      Honor thy torturers and thy mercenaries, that thy days may be long

        in power.

VI     Thou shalt kill Muslims for their oil.

VII    Thou shalt commit adultery with other evangelicals.

VIII   Thou shalt steal from the poor and give to the rich.

IX     Thou shalt bear false witness every chance thou gets.

X      Thou shalt covet thy neighbor’s house because thy house has been

        foreclosed on by thy subprime lender.  

Searchin’ high, searchin’ low, Searchin’ everywhere I know, askin’ the cops wherever I go . . . have you seen dignity?

Not when they’ve looked in the mirror.  Not even once.  All they see is a thug staring back at them.  But they’ve seen dignity in the eyes of peace advocates, and it all too often results in a fascist dose of pepper spray.  Blinding people holding “Choose Peace” signs isn’t quite as masculine or glorious as joining the Army to fight those evil Islamofascists in Iraq, but it’s much safer.

Blind man breakin’ out of a trance, puts both his hands in the pockets of chance, hopin’ to find one circumstance . . . of dignity.

Don’t bother looking here:

There isn’t much dignity in applauding a war criminal during his State of the War Crimes Addresses.  Handing him $200 billion every time he pitches a hissy fit about the threat five Al Qaeda fighters in Iraq pose to American national security isn’t very dignified either.    

I went down where the vultures feed, I would’ve gone deeper, but there wasn’t any need, heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of men, wasn’t any difference to me. Chilly wind sharp as a razor blade, house on fire, debts unpaid, gonna stand at the window, gonna ask the maid . . . have you seen dignity?

She crossed the Rio Grande looking for dignity.  She worked hard for it, cleaning the house of a rich American stockbroker and his wife, doing their laundry, cooking their meals, and taking care of their children for $3.00 an hour so she’d have a chance to become an American citizen someday.  If those children ever learn about dignity, it will be from her.

Drinkin’ man listens to the voice he hears, in a crowded room full of covered up mirrors, lookin’ into the lost forgotten years . . . for dignity.

He lost his dignity forever in Vietnam, along with both of his legs, the love of his wife, his chance for a future, and his faith in his country.  His government drafted him and sent him there in 1967 to “fight communists”.  He’s been fighting remorse and shame ever since for what he was forced to do and who he was forced to kill, so Westmoreland and MacNamara and LBJ could keep talking about that light at the end of the tunnel that was never there and never would be.  

Footprints runnin’ cross the silver sand, steps goin’ down into tattoo land, I met the sons of darkness and the sons of light, in the bordertowns of despair.  Got no place to fade, got no coat, I’m on the rollin’ river in a jerkin’ boat, tryin’ to read a note somebody wrote . . . about dignity.

Sick man lookin’ for the doctor’s cure, lookin’ at his hands for the lines that were, and into every masterpiece of literature . . . for dignity.

GLBT Americans don’t have to wear a scarlet letter yet, but if this fascist odyssey to Hell we’re on continues, they will.  These Bible thumping adulterers, thieves, killers, and planet poisoners in our “government” know immorality when they see it.  Sort of.  Well, actually they don’t, but you dangerous homosekshuals running around loose out there, preying on innocent people to satisfy your carnal lusts better look out anyway.  Consult the Yellow Pages of your phone book, select a Homosekshual Assistance Clinic, give them a call, and get yourselves cured.  These clinics often offer group discounts on the Sabbath Day, so charter a bus and bring all of your GLBT friends.  With any luck at all, one session will do it and you’ll all walk out of there as normal as famous heterosexuals like O.J. Simpson, John Bolton, and Tonya Harding.    

So many roads, so much at stake, so many dead ends, I’m at the edge of the lake, sometimes I wonder what it’s gonna take . . . to find dignity.

It’s gonna take enforcing this: