Let America Be America Again

by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

What is democracy?

Democracy is the most radical idea in the world today.

Historically, it harkens back to nothing. There is no historical precedent for true democracy. There is no clear model to be followed.

And yet, there is a resonance in the heart with true democracy.

There is a playground sense of fairness that persists in even the most self-actualized adult and which only true democracy can satisfy. But democracy is not puerile or simplistic.

Though no adequate historical model exists for democracy, it suggests itself – and even manifests itself – from time to time in the organic unfolding of our daily lives. In truth, were it not for the persistent recurrence of democracy in our daily lives, we would long ago have self-destructed.

Democracy is both an ideal and a practical method, available to us at every turn and in every social decision.

As an ideal, democracy is a baseline against which any social injustice is comprehensible and without which we would be left only to ask, “What is Truth?”

As a practical method, democracy is a discipline involving non-violence and honoring the personhood of those with whom we find ourselves in conflict.

In a time of crisis, it is critical that we uphold democracy as both ideal and method.

The one who upholds democracy as ideal is a Prophet of our times.

The one who upholds democracy as method is a Peacemaker.

Democracy demands faith, for only faith can lend the courage to trust that democracy requires. Only faith can lend the strength to surrender that is the prerequisite of peace, and peace is the crown of democracy.

The small and the weak are honored by democracy. The poor and the needy are democracy’s concern.

The rich and the powerful are the servants of democracy. The belligerent and the greedy are democracy’s burden.

Democracy has the strength of the individual spirit and the frailty of the individual mind.

Democracy is required by our times and cannot be dispensed with – not if we are to survive.

Democracy in our world requires democracy in our nation. Democracy in our nation requires democracy in our states and towns. Democracy in our states and towns requires democracy in our communities.

Democracy in our communities requires democracy in our families and in each of us.

Democracy is a small and delicate flame and the world is a hurricane.

We must light it, keep it safe, warm ourselves by it, and share it with everyone we encounter.

Vocamur: We are called

May you live in interesting times. -An ancient Chinese curse

We are certainly living under this curse today.

I recently tried to determine the year the United States began to go wrong. It didn't just start with our current Leader.

I was thirteen years old when Reagan was elected and I was terrified then. I had learned through my own research that, as governor of California, he had once advocated the use of nuclear weapons to win the war in Vietnam. I will always remember 6 November 1980 and the images of mushroom clouds that my mind conjured and which haunted me even as I slept that night.

My fear was justified by the passage of time, although its initial focus was slightly wrong. It was under the Reagan regime that I first became cognizant of the arrogance and inhumanity of our national character among the community of nations. I was angered by our training and sponsorship of Central American death squads, by our support of vicious totalitarian dictators, by the bastardization of our most fundamental national principles (with the exception of Consumption and Profit) by our invocation of "democracy" and "freedom" to achieve a very undemocratic and repressive control of other nations' destinies.

Reagan's re-election for a second term profoundly affected my confidence in the right-thinking of the American populace. Every national election since has reinforced my suspicion of the national collective intelligence.

But this country did not start going wrong with Reagan, either.

Before Reagan, the bulk of the Twentieth Century stood as a testament to the death of democracy and its interment in Washington, D.C. The National Mall is a cemetery of half-baked good ideas which - from a historical perspective - were barely ever tried.

Democracy is an earth-shaking, radical idea, and we do not practice it as a nation or very frequently in our communities.

Maybe we once did, though, but when? When did we stop? When did we go wrong?

As near as I can place it, United States international aggression was already a fact in the late 1840's, when it came to be called Manifest Destiny. It continued to develop and pollute the national conscience until in 1898 a phase transition occurred with the Spanish-American War and US Colonialism was born.

Did we ever truly stand for freedom and democracy? I'm reminded of the version of the American Revolution told in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia - so similar in many ways to the British version of the story - which emphasized the wealth and indebtedness to the English Crown of the leaders of the revolution (and founders of our government). When I was a child learning American History in school, the self-interests of our nation's founders were never a topic for consideration.

What if there was no wrong turn in our history? What if ours is entirely a history of the struggle by an elite for wealth and power?

What if my notions of political righteousness, justice, democracy, and freedom are only the residue of an immature, childish perception of the world?

What if it's past time to grow up?

I do not believe that transcendental humanism is childish or immature.

Nor do I believe it naive to prefer peace to aggression, dignity to wealth, truth to rhetoric, integrity to conformity, dissent to nationalism, non-violence to patriotism.

Once again, our Leader is beating the drums of war, now holding up Iran as the Devil d'jour...

“Beware of the leader who beats the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into patriotic fervor, for patriotism is a double-edged sword. It emboldens the blood and narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need to seize the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.”

I cannot escape the perception that we are reaping a harvest in global politics that we ourselves planted and long cultivated.

When the news spread about the Oklahoma City bombing, my first thought was that it had begun. Someone had figured out how to strike at the geographical heart of the nation and destroy not just lives and architecture, but the comfortable illusion that we could not be touched by the consequences of our international misdeeds.

I was premature in my conclusions. I would have to wait for 2001 for that prophesy to be realized.

We can be touched. We can be dragged down and destroyed. This came as a surprise to us, but it did not have to be a surprise. We have assiduously overlooked the murderous nature of our own government throughout its history and the course our own lives. If others could die so easily, what flesh did we think we possessed that made us so much stronger?

In our name, the President of the United States acts out policies of butchery and destruction. In our name, the US Congress grants its imprimatur to atrocities and does the dirty work of budgeting for murder on a scale which only a Superpower can achieve.

Our Leader and the power-mafia that make up the government of this country would assert that they rule with the consent of the governed. That lie was exposed before by one of their more prominent spiritual predecessors...

“But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
-Herman Goering

We are called to something better.

We are called to freedom, and that is a frightening thing.

The free do not think the thoughts given to them by those in power. The free think their own thoughts.

The free do not cooperate with evil. The free act only for good.

The free do not seek to gain life for themselves through the death of others. The free are urged on by the proliferation of life.

The free do not lie or remain silent in the face of lies. The free speak the truth and act in accordance with their words.

The free to not cower when confronted by bullying force and coercion. The free expect the blows of the unjust and pray for those who persecute them.

We are called to freedom. We are called to justice. We are called to truth.

In these most interesting times, we cannot afford to disregard this calling. Our own lives and the life of the world depends upon our affirmative response.

The established regime in this country has only intensified the belligerent and arrogantly coercive policies which created (quite naturally) the violent hostility and radical extremism of those who oppose us. Indeed, whole new generations among the most dispossessed and hopeless populations of the world are being reared to believe that their best hope for their own futures is suicidal self-sacrifice in the cause of violence against America.

Our solutions to our current problems MUST diverge from the causes of those problems.

We have deeply wounded the world and the world is not accepting of its fate at our hands.

We are called to speak and to act, especially upon this government which acts so heinously in our name.

We are called to bear witness before God and our fellow man that we do not serve this Leader or his cronies, nor those who would replace them and continue their evil mission.

We are called to anger at the injustices enacted in our name but without our consent.

We are called to non-violence as the only means for healing all that, by our silent assent, we have previously wounded - to rebuild all that we have previously destroyed.