His heyday as a poet was in the 1960s and 70s during the Vietnam War, which he was radically opposed to as he was to so much about the developing state of American polity and mores. Some of his work was prophetic.
A part of one poem in particular from decades ago stands out, and is even more relevant today than it was when it was penned. It’s worth quoting because while Ferlinghetti applied the words to the US, it could be well applied to most any nation that, to use an Arabic term that appears in the Holy Qu’ran, has veered off the 'Siraat al-Mustaqim'.
“Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
Except to praise conquerors
And acclaim the bully as hero
And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture…
Pity the nation oh pity the people
Who allow their rights to erode
And their freedoms to be washed away…”
These words encompass the mindset and actions of the Trump Administration, which has been in the process of attempting (unwittingly or not) to undermine not just the US, but the stability of the entire world and in particular, of late anyway, countries like Venezuela and Iran.
And it can be argued that Trump (and Pompeo, Bolton, Pence and Abrams) is as responsible as anyone for the recent slaughter of 50 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Indeed, the anti-Islam policies of Trump and his largely Zionist-oriented minions arguably helped at the margin to set off the attacks in New Zealand by an Australian 'white power' advocate. The language used by the killer in New Zealand actually mirrored some of the language Trump himself has used in the past, calling, for example, 'white power' advocates such as were witnessed in a protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, not long ago 'fine people'.
They and the killer in New Zealand are anything but “fine people”. They are bigots but it should be noted that even while such people constitute a significant part of Trump’s electoral “base” along with the faux “Christian” evangelical crowd, they are NOT by any measure representative of the American people as a whole.
And it should be further noted that Trump himself has no particular intellect or ideology and is not even a 'Christian' by any fair definition of the tenets of the faith: he knows no belief whatsoever but a desire to amass power and stay in office, and will grab what power he has from ANY willing group of people capable of giving him what he wants to maintain. Simply look as his decree that the Syrian Golan is Israel’s. No other country in the world recognizes that.
Trumps strategic agenda is NOT a winning strategy in the very longer term, and opposition to the Trump gangsters is mounting in the US at the same time that his “regime change” efforts with regard to Venezuela and Iran (and other nations) seems not to be gaining traction. However, the Democrats and mainstream media in the US for three years have been peddling a lie about Russian involvement and influence in US politics.
The Mueller report turned up nothing, and no indictments. Thus, Trump has been given a huge boost by the moronic Democrats, one that may make a second term for Trump relatively easy to win…unless the economy craters in the next year.
Trump has also been isolating the US while Eurasian countries, including Iran, bind themselves tighter together economically under China’s and Russia’s leadership. In addition, Iran seems to be carefully improving its relations with Iraq and Pakistan, as it has already accomplished with Syria and Turkey, creating a huge arc of mutually sympathetic countries across west Asia and beyond. And some European US 'allies' are beginning slowly to drift away from obeisance to US diktat and even NATO.
For example, Italy has expressed its interest in being a link in the Chinese 'Belt and Road' economic initiative, much to the horror of the Trumpists, while the Nordstream 2 pipeline binding Germany ever closer to Russia and its ample and relatively cheap supplies of energy is essentially a done deal and no amount of further “official” US anger is going to scuttle the project, already over 70 percent completed.
What is remarkable in the US is that two Muslim females, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, elected to the US House of Representatives last November, are quietly leading the push for real, potential change in the US simply by telling the truth about the dangers and faults of US policies, particularly in the Middle East, as advocated by various powerful lobbies such as AIPAC. This despite continued attacks on both the women, led by the corrupting Zionist lobbies.
The leadership in Congress of both parties are apoplectic about the mere conversations these Muslim women have opened up about malign influences and perceptions, and the prime question has to be WHEN pressure on these so-called 'leaders' by average, voting Americans will impact their chances for reelection in 2020. That day is coming eventually.
There remains, however, many, far too many relatively well off and prosperous upper middle-class Americans, whether they consider themselves 'liberals' or 'conservatives', who still refuse to believe or act upon the belief that the US is and has been for decades on the wrong track with its foreign policies especially and with its handling of the economy.
Perhaps they are threatened too much by the mere idea of disruptive change. Perhaps they fear losing the advantages and comforts they have enjoyed and amassed. But the next time the financial markets implode and the US economy dives into a deep recession… well, that could be the tipping point when the entrenched oligarchy at the top of the food chain and their entrenched followers finally are discredited and real 'democracy' at last returns to the US.
MNA/TT
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