AMERICA THE pitiful

When I was little, people liked to strike up the band and sing “America the Beautiful.”*

America today, however, is far from beautiful. 

The last beautiful place was the Indus Valley Civilization, a goddess-centered civilization that flourished from around 2600-1500 BC. 

In the Indus Valley, no one was poor, everyone was equal, and everyone owned the same-sized, nice houses.  In these houses, everyone enjoyed the same fine furniture and other stuff.  

No war marred this marvelous picture (see archaeologist Jane McIntosh’s A Peaceful Realm: The Rise and Fall of the Indus Civilization). 

What’s more, every Indus person owned indoor plumbing.  Universal indoor plumbing didn’t happen again for another 4000 years -- around 1960, in Western countries.  (Ancient Rome had indoor plumbing – but only for la-de-dahs.) 

Now take a gander at Jehovah-soaked America: sweeping poverty, hungry babies, joblessness, sadness, hopelessness, despair.   Wounded, legless, armless Vets begging for health care, can’t get it, committing suicide. 

Indoor plumbing for everyone?  Yeah – but how many can afford to keep it running up to snuff? 

America?  I’d love to call you beautiful, sweetie. 

I’d also, however, like to call myself logical. 

_________

*O beautiful for spacious skies, 
For amber waves of grain, 
For purple mountain majesties, 
Above the fruited plain! 
America! America! 
God shed his grace on thee, 
And crown thy good with brotherhood 
From sea to shining sea! 



O beautiful for pilgrim feet, 
Whose stern impassioned stress.
A thoroughfare of freedom beat, 
Across the wilderness! 
America! America! 
God mend thine every flaw, 
Confirm thy soul in self-control, 
Thy liberty in law! 



O beautiful for heroes proved, 
In liberating strife. 
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life! 
America! America! 
May God thy gold refine, 
Till all success be nobleness, 
And every gain divine! 



O beautiful for patriot dream, 
That sees beyond the years. 
Thine alabaster cities gleam, 
Undimmed by human tears! 
America! America! 
God shed his grace on thee, 
And crown thy good with brotherhood, 
From sea to shining sea!