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ACCORDING TO LIZ - What young leaders like JFK, RFK, and MLK in the United States, and PET* in Canada inspired in the 20th century. Men who cared about investing in our collective future.
A future that a generation of old men – from Reagan and Bush to Biden and Trump – have laid waste to. In many ways comparable to the armchair generals who sent cohorts of young men off to the killing fields of Chickamauga and Gettysburg, of Europe and the Pacific and Korea, of Vietnam and Iraq.
Those young men marched bravely into battle, and it is their shining hope of protecting a work ethos and vision that we celebrate this Memorial Day.
On this holiday, please take a moment to reflect back on all that was good about America and how it can be again. If we choose to make it so.
And now, with apologies to Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, and Marvin Hamlisch who wrote the song, and a tip of the hat to La Streisand who made it so famous fifty-odd years ago:
Oh, memories
Rustle in the vacuum of my mind
Sunlight struggling through the shadows
Blurring what was left behind.
Of the way we were
Memories,
Of the way things used to be –
EPA protecting people
From sea to shining sea,
Not profiteers galore
More memories.
From before the P in CFPB
Became O for Oppression Bureau.
Bringing consumers to their knee –
Who knows what more’s in store?
Memories
Of a Supreme Court once pristine
With probity, meting out sweet justice
Not a tool of today’s political machine,
The exploiters’ whore
Memories
Of universities’ inspiration:
Teaching unredacted history;
Embracing disputation
Let protesters advocate for more
Memories
When those welcomed by Lady Liberty
Were not despised deportees,
Dumped on the garbage heap of inequity
Prospective contributions kicked out the door
Nightmares
Of oil rigs in parks and on the beach
Billionaires bid on to exploit...
Oh, nightmares,
When the wealthy buy free speech
And laws are for the hoi polloi.
Sigh! Memories
Should they be only of a happier life?
Or form a cautionary tale
About a poseur serving up humiliation and spite?
Someone for the world to abhor
Memories
That shape our lives today, and yet
Like the dead we now remember
Are an incentive to never forget
Will it be the bitter laughter
That we remember?
Or have our fears rewritten every line?
Are we doomed to continue living
The failures of this time?
Or can we, will we
Rebuild the hope and human charity,
Reverse the precipitous decline
Of American ideals and democracy,
Promoting all of us, not “mine”!
Broadly shared productivity
If we have the chance to repair what has been done
Tell me, should we?
Let love reign supreme again
Tell me, would we?
Subvert Trump’s Faustian bargain
Pushing Truth Social to self-immolate.
Each of us exercising political muscle
Right now, or it may be too late.
To bring back to our country fairness for all:
An American phoenix soon to arise
To spread economic and climate justice across our skies
Tell me, could we?
Re-envision that long lost tomorrow
Re-engage the smiles we left behind
Forget the pain and all the sorrow
A better future for America to find
*Pierre Elliott Trudeau, progressive activist who dominated Canadian politics during the last half of the 20th century.
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno who now resides in Vermont and is a regular contributor to CityWatch on issues that she is passionate about. She can be reached at [email protected].)
