![]() DC Walking TourA Poem by riskrapper![]() impressions and observations on the politics and history of Washington DC![]()
1.
From my uneasy bed at the L’Enfant, a train's pensive horn breaks the sullen lullaby of an HVAC’s hum; interrupting the mechanical reverie of its steadfast night watch allowing my ear to discern the stampede of marauding corporate Visigoths sacking the city. The cacophony of sloven gluttony, the bawdy songs of unrequited privilege and the unencumbered clatter of radical entitlement echoes off the city’s cold crumbling stones. The unctuous bellows of the victorious pillagers profanely feasting pierces the hanging chill of the nations black night. Their hoots deride the train transporting the defeated ghosts of Lincoln’s last doomed regiments dispatched in vain to preserve the Federal Republic in a futile last stand. The rebels have finally turned the tide, T Boone Pickett’s Charge succeeds, sending the ravaged Grand Army of the Republic sliding back to the Capitol, in savage servility, gliding on squeaky ungreased wheels ferrying the Union’s dead vanquished defenders to unmarked graves on Potters Field. The Rebels joyous yell bounces off the inert granite stones of the soulless city. The spittle of salivating vandals drips over the spoils of war as they initiate the disassemblage, the leveling and reapportionment of federal property. The clever oligarchs have laid claim to a righteous reparation of the peoples assets for pennies on the dollar. Their wholly bought politicos move to transfer distressed assets into their just stewardship through the holy justice of privatization and the sound rationale of free market solutions. In the land of the pursuit of property, nimble wolf PACs of swift 527, LLCs have fully metastasized into personhood; ascending to the top of the food chain in America’s voracious political culture; bestriding the nation to compel the national will to genuflect to the cool facility of corporate dominion. As the inertial thrust of the plaintive locomotive fades into another old morning of recalcitrant Reaganism, it lugs its ambivalent middle class baggage toward it’s fast expiring future. I follow the dirge down to the street as the ebbing sound fades into the gloom of the burgeoning morning, slowly replacing the purple twilight with a breaking day of cold gray clouds framing silhouettes of cranes busily constructing a new city. The personhood of corporations need homes in our new republic; carving out new neighborhoods suitable for the monied citizens of our nation. First amongst equals, the best corporate governance charters form the foundation of the republic’s new constitution. Civil rights are secondary to the freedom of markets; the Bill of Rights are economically replaced by the cool manifests of Bills of Lading. The agents of laissez faire capitalism nibble away at the city’s neighborhoods one block at a time; while steady winds blows dust off the National Mall. Layers of the peoples plaza are plained away with each rising gust. History repeats itself as the Joad’s are routed from their land once again. A clever mixed use plan of condos and strip malls is proposed to finally help the National Mall unlock its true profit potential. As America’s affection for federalism fades the water in the reflection pool is gracefully drained. We the people can no longer see ourselves. The profit potential of industry is preferred over the specious metaphysical benefits of reflection. The grand image, the rich pastiche, the quixotic aroma of the national melting pot is reduced to the sameness of the black tar that lines the pool and the swirling eddies of brown dust circling the cracked indenture. From his not so distant vantage point, Abe ponders the empty pool wondering if the cost of lives paid was a worthy endeavor of preserving the damned union? Has the dear prize won perished from this earth? Was the illusive article of liberty worth its weight in the blood expended? Did the people ever fully realize the value of government by the people, for the people? Did citizens of the republic assume the responsibilities to protect and honor the rights and privileges of a representative government? Now our idea and practice of civil rights is measured and promoted as far as it can be justified by a corporate ROI, a shareholder dividend, an earmark or a political donation to a senators unconnected PAC. The divine celestial ledgers balancing the rights and privilege of free people drips with red ink. Liberty, equality fraternity are bankrupt secular notions condemned as expensive liberal seditions; hatched by UnHoly Jacobins, the atheist skeptics during the dark times of the Age of Enlightenment. Abe ponders the restoration of Washington’s obelisk, to repair the cracks suffered from last summer’s freak earthquake. I believe I detect a tear in Abe’s granite eye saddened by the corporate temblors shaking the foundations of the city. 2. The WWII Memorial is America’s Parthenon for a country's love affair with the valor and sacrifice of warfare. WWII forms the cornerstone of understanding the pathos of the American Century. During WWII our greatest generation rose as a nation to defeat the menace of global fascism and indelibly mark the power and virtue of American democracy. As Lincoln’s Army saved federalism, FDR’s Army kept the world safe for democracy. Both armies served a nation that shared the sacrifice and burden of war to preserve the grace of a republican democracy. Today federalism crumbles as our democracy withers. The burden of war is reserved for a precious few individuals while its benefits remain confined to the corporate elite. Our monuments to war have become commercial backdrops for the hollow patriotism of war profiteers. We have mortgaged our future to pay for two criminal wars. The spoils of war flow into the pockets of corporate shareholders deeply invested in the continuation of pointless, destructive hostilities. Our service members who selflessly served their country come home to a less free, fear struck nation; where economic security and political liberty erodes each day while the monied interests continue to bless the abundance of freedom and riches purchased with the blood and sweat of others. America desperately needs a new narrative. The spirit of the Greatest Generation who sacrificed and met the challenge of the 20th Century must become this generations spiritual forebears. The war on terror neatly fits the the corporate pathos of militarism, surveillance and the sacrifice of civil liberties to purchase a daily measure of fear and economic enslavement. It must be rejected by a people committed to building secular temples to pursue peace, democracy, economic empowerment, civil liberties and tolerance for all. Yet this old city and the democratic temples it built exulting a free people anointed with the grace of liberty is being consumed in a morass of commercial polyglot. 3. During the War of 1812 the British Army burned the Capitol Building and the White House to the ground. Thank goodness Dolly Madison saved what she could. The new marauders are not subject to the pull of nostalgia. They value nothing save their self enrichment. They will spare nothing. Our besieged Capitol requires Lincoln’s troops to be stationed along the National Mall to defend the republic. The greatest peril to our nation is being directed by well placed Fifth Columnists. From the safety of underground bunkers, in secure undisclosed locations within the city’s parameters, a well financed confederacy employing K Street shenanigans are busy selling off the American Dream one ear mark at a time, one huge corporate welfare allotment at a time. The biggest prize is looting the real property of the people; selling Utah, auctioning off the public schools, water systems, post offices and mineral rights on the cheap at an Uncle Sam garage sale. The capitol is indeed burning again. Looters are running riot. The flailing arms of a dying empire fire off cruise missiles and drone strikes; hitting the target of habeas corpus as it shakes in its final death rattle. I make a pilgrimage to the MLK Jr. Monument. Our cultural identity is outsourced to foreign contractors paid to reinterpret the American Dream through the eyes of a lowest bidder. MLK has lost his humanity. He has been reduced to a a Chinese superhuman Mao like anime busting loose from a granite mountain while geopolitical irony compels him to watch Tommy Jefferson shag Sally Hemings from across the tidal basin for all eternity. MLK’s eyes fixed in stern fascination, forever enthralled by the contradictions of liberty and its democratic excesses of love in the willows on golden pond. Circling back to Father Abraham’s Monument, I huddle with a group of global citizens listening to an NPS Ranger spinning four score tales with the last full measure of her devotion. I look up into Abe’s stone eyes as he surveys platoons of gray suited Chinese Communist envoys engaged in Long Marches through the National Mall; dutifully encircling cabinet buildings and recruiting Tea Party congressmen into their open party cells. This confederacy is ready to torch the White House again. Congressmen and the perfect patriots from K Street slavishly pull their paymasters in gilded rickshaws to golf outings at the Pentagon and park at the preferred spots reserved for the luxury box holders at Redskin Games. They vow not to rest until the house of the people is fully mortgaged to the People’s Republic of China’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. 4. A great Son of Liberty like Alan Greenspan roundly rings the bells of free markets as he inches T Bill rates forward a few basis points at a time; while his dead mentor Ayn Rand lifts Paul Ryan to her Fountainhead teet. He takes a long draw as she coos songs from her primer of Atlas Shrugged Mother Goose tales into his silky ears. The construction cranes swing to the music building new private sector space with the largess of US taxpayers money; or more rightly future generations taxpayer debt. Libertarians, Tea Baggers, Blue Dogs and GOP waterboys eagerly light a match to the the crucifixes bearing federal social safety net programs to the delight of NASDAQ listed capitalists on the come, licking their chops to land contracts to administer these programs at a negotiated cost plus profit margin. Citizens dependent on programs are leery shareholders are ecstatic. To be sure our free market rebels don disguises of red, white and blue robes but their objectives fail to distinguish their motives and methods with some of the finest Klansman this country has ever produced. 5. DC is a city of joggers and choppers. Corporate helicopters wizz by the Washington Monument, popping erections for the erectors inspecting the progress of the cranes commanding the city skyline. USMC drill team out for a morning run circles the Mall. The commanding cadence of the DI keeps us mindful of the deepening militarization of our society. A crowd rushes to position themselves, genuflecting to photograph a platoon on the move. I try to consider the defining characteristics of Washington DC. DC is all surface. It is full of walls and mirrors. Its primary hue is obfuscation. Open communication scripted from well considered talking points informs all dialog. The city is thoroughly enraptured in narcissism. Thankfully, one can always capture the reflection of oneself in the ubiquitous presence of mirrors. Vanity imprisons the city inhabitants. Young joggers circle the Mall and gerrymander down every pathway of the city. They are the clerks, interns and staffers of the judicial, executive and legislative branches. They are the children of privilege. They will never alter their path. You must cede the walk to their entitlement of a swift comportment or risk injury of a violent collision. These young ones portray a countenance of benevolent rulers. They seem to be learning their trade craft well from the senators and judges whom they serve. They appear confident they know what's best for the country and after their one term of tireless service to the republic they look forward to positions in the private sector where they will assist corporations to extend their reach into the pant pockets worn by the body politic. 6. Our nations mythic story lies hidden deep in the closed rooms of the museums lining the Mall. I pause to consider what a great nation and its great people once aspired to. I spy the a suspended Space Shuttle hanging in dry dock at the air and space museum. Today America’s astronauts hitch rides on Russian rockets. America rents a timeshare from the European space agency to lift communication satellites into orbit. Across the Mall I photograph John Smithson’s ashes in its columbarium. I fear it has become a metaphor for America’s future commitment to scientific inquiry and rational secular thinking. I am relieved to discover a Smithsonian exhibit that asks “what does it mean to be human?” The Origins of Humans exhibit carries a disclaimer to satisfy creationists. The exhibit timidly states that science can coexist with religious beliefs and that the point of the exhibit is not to inflame inflame religious passions but to shed light on scientific inquiry. I imagine these exhibits will inflame the passion of the fundamentalist American Taliban and provide yet another reason to dismantle the Moloch of Federalism. The pursuit of science remains safe at the Smithsonian for now. 7. Near K Street at McPherson Park a posse of well dressed lobbyists, the self anointed uber patriots doing the work of the people stroll through the park boasting a healthy population of bedraggled homeless. The homeless occupy the benches that have been transformed into pup tents. Perhaps some of the residents of this mean estate were made homeless by a foreclosed mortgage. The K Street warriors can be proud that their work on behalf of the banking industry has forestalled financial market reform. Through it exacerbates the homeless problem it has allowed these K Street titans to profit from the distress of others. Earlier in the day I photographed a homeless man planted in front of the Washington Monument. I wonder if my political voyeurism is an exploitation of this man’s condition? I have more in common then I probably wish to admit with my K Street antagonists. In another section of the park the remnants of a distressed OWS bivouac remain. The legions of sunshine patriots have melted away as the interest of the blogosphere has waned. As the weather improves Moveon.org and democratic party operatives pitch tents in an effort to resuscitate the moribund movement. They hope to coop any remaining energy to support their stale deception, a neoliberal vision based solely on the total capitulation to the bankrupt corporatocracy. I heard someone say a campaign lasts a season; while a movement for social change takes decades. If that metric proves correct, and if the powers don’t succeed in compromising the people’s movement I’ll be three quarters of a century old before I see justice flowing like a river once again. 8. I circle back to the L’Enfant and find myself tramping amidst the lost platoon of Korean War soldiers. My feet drag in the quagmire of grass covering the feet of this ghostly troop. My namesake uncle was a decorated veteran of this conflict and Im sure I detect his likeness in one of the statues. The bleak call of a distant train sounds a revelry and I imagine this patrol springing to life to answer the call of their beloved country once again. Yet they remain inert. Stuck in a place that the nation finds impossible to leave. The eyes of the men stare into an incomprehensible fate. They see the swarms of Red Army infantrymen crossing the Yellow River streaming toward them in massive human waves, the tips of sparkling bayonets threatening to slash the outmanned contingent fighting to bits. They are the first detachment to bravely confront the rising power of China many thousands of miles away from their homes. America like this lone company is overwhelmed and lost in the confusion that confronts them. Looking up I perceive the bewilderment of my muddled image reflected on the marble walls surrounding the memorial. I am a comrade-in-arms, a fellow wanderer sojourning with the lost platoon tramping onward to another uncertain midnight. The ambivalent eyes of my comrades look upon the wall beholding the fleeting image of our shared predicament. It records in the stone tablets, a ubiquitous moment of a nations incessant wandering in a wildness of dismay, entrapped in the intractable morass of unending war. Did those eyes looking on from an expired century perceive Viet Nam Granada, Panama Gulf War One Somalia Balkan War Gulf War Two Afghanistan Iraq Libya? Is our terror the intractability of war? Do we have no other vision but to look forward to the next conflict? 9. I drive down to Charlottesville to tour Monticello. I roam the grounds of Thomas Jefferson’s beloved plantation. It is magnificent and enthralling as the man himself. The author of the Declaration of Independence built his bankruptcy on the exploitation of slave labor. Monticello sits atop a stable of dependencies like a new world pyramid. All the laborers and their labor, the foundation stones of his beloved mansion, tucked under the house, hidden from view, so that Mr. Jefferson could enjoy an unobstructed view from the peak of this modest mount. Sally Hemings managed the affairs of the chamber for our third president. It laid beyond the eyes of history for almost two centuries. This giant of the Enlightenment was free to enjoy the pursuit of his keen intellect and converse about worldly matters with esteemed guests while enjoying an unencumbered view of the Blue Mountains as he sat atop the subterranean blues of his well concealed dependencies. Music Selection: The Band, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down Dedicated to the memory of Levon Helm, Godspeed Beloved and Robert Lowell's For The Union Dead Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam (“they gave up all to serve the republic”) Washington, DC Charlottesville, VA 4/12/12 jbm © 2012 riskrapperReviews
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2 Reviews Added on April 23, 2012 Last Updated on April 23, 2012 Tags: Washington DC, politics, history, K Street, 527, LLC, corporate personhood, MLK Jr., Monticello Author
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