Years ago, when my powers of creation were most high there was a song about
"This Old House" that had a jinky rhythm and simple lyrics which tickled the
imagination. It also gave me the inspiration to make a marionette out of
cardboard pieces and string that I could replicate an old house coming apart
and finally, at the song's end, fall flat on the floor.
You have to be a little 'nuts' to spend as much time as I did to create
windows and doors as well as the roof being pulled apart as the music
progressed. The porch and railings were good, too, for they flew off along
with the chimney keeping time with the song after it announced the theme and
worked its way coming apart to that final end.
You might say that America is tht old house and is falling apart. But like the marionette I created years ago (which ended up, I know not where), you pulled up the strings and the house rose once again whole and all its parts reconnected.
The lesson here is that parts of America, like the economic parts, hve come apart and have fallen and we"can't get up". Banking institutions which represent the core of Capitalist America, have failed to make loans, make a profit and serve their function. Some of their parts, like the fees collected by top managers, are faulty and the strings attached to them have become entangled with values that have also failed. I don't know which angers us most; the lose of morality or the crimes.
What is most foggy about this old American house are its prisons located on
far off shores where most egregious crimes are committed in the names of
"National Security". That security has never been stronger because of the
attention given to it but the insides of the house have flown outward as
"terrorist" puppeteers stole in and out with only a few left to embarrass
the country in which this old house stands.
There is nothing irreparably wrong with this old house. I made it whole
after each playing of the song where it disintegrated to the enjoyment of my
audiences. We, like the puppeteers found all over make anew the same old
props used to create the façade that we are whole, strong and a model for
the rest of the nations with their old houses in the same obvious disrepair
as ours.
Our new old house will house G
uantanamo prisoners on our own soil. That may
bring solutions to mind since "enhanced" interrogations with interesting
qualifiers will be conducted right under our noses and close up so we can
see each crack and rot in the structure.