The Fall of America

As an immigrant, I always assume that any observation or insight I happen to chance upon is already old news to the rest of the populace. Hey, have you heard the Eagles’ great new ballad, "Hotel California"? But who doesn’t know that Allen Ginsberg saw himself as a coda to Walt Whitman?

Where Whitman fathered American poetry, sculpted this country’s exuberantly democratic and virile image, defined how it’s seen around the world, at least to those not allergic to poetry, Ginsberg set up shop as our emergency room doctor and eventual mortician. He exhausted himself railing against our corruption and madness, yet the system remained unfazed. It even absorbed him, turned him into a sort of weirdo mascot. To attend a Ginsberg reading in the 80’s and 90’s was to witness a celebrity poet on tour, performing his greatest hits, their social and political contents sapped of urgency, merely ornaments from another era. Outside the windows, Molloch was alive and well, calmly prosperous and impervious to any poetic exposé or condemnation. Like L.S.D., Howl was something you sample in early youth before committing to the more serious, adult business of prospecting for moolahs (I almost wrote mullahs—wassup, Homeland Security!). Hell, even Bob Dylan became a holy roller and Jack Kerouac morphed into a drunken William F. Buckley. In short, our bard spoke too soon but, eleven years after his death, is America finally ready to kick the bucket? All of our vital signs are fucked, the Dow is on a nose dive, oil is at $110 and climbing, our brave men and women defending our freedom at 702 bases in roughly 130 foreign countries around the world on every continent including Antarctica are exhausted, our national debt is unfathomable... We are bankrupt literally as well as morally. It’s weird that not so long ago, phrases such as “full spectrum dominance" and “the end of history" were being bandied about, but even that old standby, “the American dream," now sounds embarrassing. For the millions of our citizens losing their homes, or killed or injured sacrificing themselves in an illegal war, the collapse has already happened. But hey, who do you think is going to win American Idol?