America the Seeing-Eye Dog

Policy or personal questions? In the poem Two White Wines a child adopted from Cambodia is a thing of beauty, and so she is as she showed herself to be yesterday. Lovely. However the poet implies market, i.e. economic, forces brought her to America when, as her parents know, it was war, the sad Vietnam War or the War with America as I think the Vietnamese remember it. Honor and bravery equal courage. Reed Whittemore's poem about a photo of Viet Cong prisoners, stoic, defiant under an American officer's boot expresses admiration for the enemy. Then and now a dangerous sentiment. Your fellow citizens, denizens of convenience stores, even your family, may come to see you as the enemy. Once ostracized, the other, not belonging to the loved ones, you're not long for this world of dew. **** and **** Ken says, describes America's culture, not its poets or jazz. What's worth fighting for? Your land, your right to be stupid on your land. Now there is one large land, one people and many. The vote is a crude, monosyllabic grunt, no way to express the subtle degrees of experience our long lives represent. Thus, it is good, when the family gathers, to talk, each person speak of what has been forgotten, forgiven and forgone. Trading or taking every family must be tithed or taxed. Every man who finds his meaning in war will be pained into wisdom and gentleness. Who comes home comes home to a future that bypassed the fighting, or did it? The oil must be sold, even Saddam or Osama cannot withhold it. You can drink your quota of water and still your heart can ache. Empire or democracy of nations? We can choose to be the reigning kings between the last empire and the next or we can implement a vision of collective deliberation. America the seeing-eye dog, not America the junkyard dog. Going question by question toward predictable, transparent governance. Example: How can a people become a nation without resorting to violence or incurring violent reaction?