(no subject)

If I prove honey-mouth'd, let my tongue blister
And never to my red-look'd anger be
The trumpet any more. --
Paulina, preparing to confront the king about his abuse of the queen.
The Winter's Tale, Act II, scene ii

I've been wanting to write an angry song about what's happening to my country for a while now. I want to write something that would shock upstanding, Christian patriots, the way Alan Ginsberg's Howl shocked people 50 years ago.

I want to take our national anthem, and turn it on its head.

I want to shame people for their reverent fear of Satan.

Maybe those are two different songs, but maybe not.

You see, I believe the opposite of love is not hate, but fear. You can have a love-hate relationship with someone, but never a love-fear relationship. Love opens us up to the world, and gives us the courage to take risks. Liberty and democracy depend on love. Fear shuts us down. Tyrannies depend on fear.

And the Bush Administration, even with only 31% approval in the polls, is, somehow, getting political traction with his terrorism chant; I kept hearing on the news this morning how Democrats who complain about warrentless wiretapping are "shooting themselves in the foot, because most people don't care about losing civil liberties, as long as we're kept safe."*

"Oh say: Does that star-spangled banner yet wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave?"

And Satan is the personified embodiment of fear. Just as, for Christians, Jesus is the personified embodiment of Love. That's why it bothers me so much when self-identified Christians seem to put greater stock in the existance of Satan than they do in Jesus.

And I want it to be a song, instead of an essay or pamphlet, because the singing voice has more energy behind it than the speaking voice.

But I don't think, if I ever write such a song, it would be very good. Because I'd be starting with an intellectual idea, rather than a spontaneous feeling.

But in any case, I want to write an un-sweet song.

I'm just not sure how.

*The argument that the NSA wiretapping is working (because we haven't been attacked again) reminds me of an old Bert and Ernie bit on Sesame Street: Ernie is standing calmly in his living room, with a banana in his ear. Bert asks him why. "To keep the wild elephants away," he answers. When Bert protests that that's ridiculous, Ernie says: "Well, you don't see any elephants around, do you?"