And Who Shall Bear These Colors?

Join MeanMesa for a moment of waxing prose...

MeanMesa is challenged by the darkness which has descended upon our progressive cause. Massachusetts, a dead health care bill, a legion of lobbyist mercenaries gleefully preparing to defeat us again in our limp, gutless assault on the banksters and gangsters who have wrecked our homeland, wounded her more deeply than all the terrorists in the world might have.

We have an army, but we have no voice, no leader. The neo-con monkeys in the Congress humiliate us with every puerile outrage their small, tragic minds can imagine, and all the while, we stand there and take it. Our Democrats, like little girls agape as they watch the bully shove one friend after another, silent, look not one moment for anything akin to victory or honor -- only for a place to hide.

Day after day, the Republicans twist our words and our world ever further toward their tormented dream while we only retreat farther and farther from the contest. We have sent Obama, but we have left him standing alone. Without us, he applies his formidable intellect to minimize the disaster, but he cannot hold that lonely line too much longer. We have sent him no aid, no relief column -- not even a torn scrap of a flag we might have all agreed serves to show our colors, our will.

Instead, we have filled our mouths with oatmeal, hoping against hope that the fearful conservatives might, out of some unexpected altruism, reward us with less punishment than otherwise for not having spoken so loudly against them when they have fully taken the field for a victory we have not challenged.

Here and now, while defeats and insults surround us, we see them dance, singing the shallow song of foolhardy arrogance to an audience of the uninterested. These soldiers whom we fear so much are but crones, dusty mannequins acting out what seems to be a life. They have no blood for in their veins a saddened greed fills them far too full of bile to leave a space for life's red kiss. We can find them by their blinders, all aglitter with cheap dull stones of suspicious quality and unknown origin.

Meantimes, both our own bright goals and our own strong souls are tarnished by a long forsaken courage. Dreams we have must be poorly sold away. No one speaks for us. No words arise from the fires in our hearts. Only the dismal gray of defeat and gloom are proffered forth for the brave, hopeful message we once bore. Hope is shrouded in dark veils of reasons. Reasons! We are paralyzed by reasons!

Oh, we lament. Nothing can be done. Our dim tomorrow is lit only by memories of long distant days when our song might still have breathed. Now, we sit, surrendered to the wind storm, snared amid the remnant of a gossamer web long ago abandoned by a desert spider now dead for seasons. Hopeless. Our milky eyes are no longer wet by those last tears. We cannot now so much as recall those last tender drops in our forlorn, frightened memory. We know only fear and cowardice, a wretched mating organized by despair.

A soul wrenching, carefully crafted, yet, totally unfounded despair.  We remain, in fact, as we might see ourselves with clearer eyes.  We are still an army, numbered far beyond our adversary,  We stand ever ready, armed with our temporarily hidden spirit, our carelessly set aside, trustworthy decency and our indomitable conviction of our unconquerable vision.

We cry out for the last of our champions. Lead us back to the fight! We can still walk, and we can still stand! Better death in glory than by rust of spirit!  Our Captains are cowards and crooks!  We have chafed under their "leadership" long enough!  While we bleed and retreat, they only stumble, crazed by a toxic brew of fear and avarice, guarding themselves.

Yet, there are indeed champions remaining for us, brave, bold and ready to step to the line. Why, one strong, sincere word will sound the trumpet for our return to the field of battle! But, just now, that golden horn is suffocated in our reasons. Reasons for our caution. Reasons for our fright. Reasons for our despair. Reasons for our surrender. Reasons for our defeat.

Who would MeanMesa send into the fray? Who would MeanMesa follow to the edge of Hell itself? There may be more than two, but heroes we have!

In the House, Alan Grayson has shown his mettle and his bravado. He has spoken to the wretches and not apologized, stood firmly on his ground. His voice is one of intellect, but more important, one with spirit! While his fellows hide away behind their reasons, Grayson speaks for us, to us. His timeless message?

"I am not afraid. Here's how you do it."

In the Senate we have bemoaned the sickly odor of the sub-humans, but not risen to stop them. The Liebermanns, Baucuses and Nelsons -- both the timid and the corrupt -- deserve to be as frightened and discouraged as they have made us. But who will speak for us?  We have words of fire, but we have yet to find voice!

MeanMesa, its hopes founded only on intuition, says Al Franken. We all know he has a voice just as formidable now as before. We know he has an intellect more than a match for the task. But more than anything, we know he has the spirit to lead us. We have seen it.

The miscreants should shudder in despair when they think of their petty schemes enduring what these two spokesman will effortlessly discharge once the contest is joined.

MeanMesa, already inebriated by the sprite of Shelley, recalls Ozymandias. It will be cast in the same words as those solitary, ancient steles under old Assyria's desert sands.

Ozymandias

 I met a traveler from an antique land
 Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
 Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,
 half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
 And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
 Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
 The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
 And on the pedestal these words appear:
 "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
 Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
 Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
 Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
 The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley 

After all that we have endured and overcome to reach this moment of our history, will we fade into the night or make real what we have dreamt? 

will we fade into the night or make real what we have dreamt?

PS:  What could be a better place than this to post a copy of a recent email from Congressman Alan Grayson?  

Coming Soon: "The Distinguished Senator from Saudi Arabia"

Dear Chad,

Thanks to so many of you for contacting Chairman Conyers Friday and thanking him for helping to save our democracy. His office was overwhelmed with calls and e-mails. One of his staffers said that it was "like working the phones at a telethon."

I've been thinking a little more about the Supreme Court's decision. This ruling gives foreign powers more rights than U.S. citizens. Imagine that! Aramco, a corporation owned by the Saudi Arabian government, will have enormously more influence in choosing your senator than you will. That's one thing that I meant when I said that "if we do nothing, you can kiss this country goodbye."

This will not stand. It cannot stand. There are too many Americans who love this country and won't allow it to happen. And you are one of them.

We are making a movement. If you have a moment, please forward this email to five of your friends, and ask them to sign our petition at www.SaveDemocracy.net. And then a mighty voice will rise up from the land.

Courage,

Alan Grayson
Member of Congress

Remember, Ozymandias.