I woke up with the Sounds of Silence in my head. Not the Paul Simon version, the Disturbed version.
The original, by Paul Simon, from the ‘60’s, was always, to me, quiet and reflective. A song about isolation, possibly confusion. Maybe a need to speak out against the machine, the growing madness.
The song by Disturbed strikes me as an anthem for today. The time for reflection long past, it’s all about rage now.
The explosive divided 60’s. The great American military-industrial complex was gearing up, but it was somehow still narrowly controlled. It wasn’t yet the government.
We were divided, but there was a road back. People complained about the cost of moon shots vs. feeding the hungry, but we did both, or we tried, neither effort went as far as it could have.
The war tore us apart, Nixon’s troops killed kids on college campuses, but I think there was a sense that as bad as it was, as bad as it got, we’d survive Nixon. We’d heal.
Congress was a mess, but there was still a handful who’d cover our backs. They wouldn’t abandon us to the fascists. We were still Americans.
One of the best conversations of my life was with a guy born in Mississippi, 1957, same year as me.
That’s a post all on its own.
The skinny black kid in Tupelo, Mississippi in 1963 had a different worldview than the fat white kid in Middletown, NY. Today, I finally can connect with his angst and despair; his sense of abandonment.
He said to me as our conversation was ending, “we are all on our own, Bill. No one, ain’t no one got your back. This government has always wanted us in chains and leg irons. You just didn’t see it. Your white privilege protected you.”
He was right. Being white and fat and middle class and from the north allowed me to believe the illusion a little longer.
America today reminds of what it must have been like on the deck of the Titanic that frigid April night in 1912.
We are sinking, breaking in two, and there ain’t nobody coming to the rescue.
And, brother, we are sinking fast…
