The American Crusade

 I worked as a professional pianist in the cruise industry for a decade.  My compatriots thought this "work" a paid vacation.  There are perks.  You travel and see foreign places which is enough to validate the job.  Compared to America now, it is appealing.  There is a blatant irony.  Becoming a caregiver for my mother, which was essential for our family, I made this unusual and possibly unseemly situation work for us.  My mother, a teacher, was no pushover.  She was a hard ass, and   cohabiting with her I learned as an adult it stemmed from being an educator in the North Carolina public schools.  When she returned to the profession after having children, she was at the predominantly black high school in Fayetteville.  She caught the bus home from school, and often she was crying.  This uncultured, low-income, prejudiced black student body did not welcome whitey.  She developed a tough skin, and it was not a stretch.  She grew up poor on a Shelby diary farm picking cotton in the fields during the Great Depression.  I always will remember one of her chores was cleaning the glass chimneys on kerosene lamps.  They did not have electricity, and it is interesting that people can be without it.  Perhaps the values then were more tangible and beneficial to the human experience.  Our values now in America because of the internet are detrimental.  America is slow to notice, because those making money participate in ruthless, immoral, and criminal behavior.  One that springs to mind is companies that benefit from detaining seeming immigrants.  Can there be such a thing, companies or corporations that profit as private pawns of the government?  A loud guffaw escapes from my coughing lungs.  This is America.  We have become a nation that the government subsidizes almost everyone, whatever political ideology that is.  I believe there still is an open market system, but the odds are so stacked against a newcomer it takes more than a village to reap the benefits.  Perhaps the last one to do such a thing was NWA, Niggers With Attitude.  A small group of rappers, musicians, and artists harnessed the rebellion of American youth.  This became Hip Hop.  Popular culture has preened successful business before, and it is one of America's great offerings.  It possibly is the American Dream.  That has faded, and the evil seeds of other governments have crept in.  While most populists won't acknowledge it, I feel our current "Conditions of America" are nothing more than the fight against Communism.  The Cold War ended, the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union disbanded during the Reagan Presidency.  Ronald Reagan was a pawn, a hired actor to play the part of the American president.  I do not like for what he stood.  Contrarily I have positive feelings and recollections of his time in the White House.  America was at her creative and artistic peak.  It was the age of MTV, blockbuster movies, prime time television, and American popular music.  The substance of the precedent music was more relevant because of civil rights and Viet Nam, but a more beautiful era cannot be found in American history.  Look at any notable film from this time and you will see and hear unfettered, unabashed, artistic beauty.  Today this kind of beauty does not exist.  We are damaged, so  we mock society like we have no control.  Democracy has failed either because it has been hijacked by subversive parties like Donald Trump, or because we have lost sight of our own constitutionally awarded power to govern.  Congress has regressed to its worst form in recent history.  Because of the absence of God, our country has regressed to the brink of fascism.  It is difficult to discern our own responsibility.  If the meek are to inherit the earth, then do we just lie down?  America is not this.  If we look we will find the "Good Fight," the kind of moral crusades that eventually pay off.  Today moral behavior is punished.