Tonight, I am inspired...
If you missed it, PBS's "American Experience" had an absolutely wonderful episode about the bard of these United States, one Walt Whitman, born May 31, 1819 on my native Long Island. If you didn't catch it, find it here:
http://www.pbs.org/...
But while you are probably all aware of Whitman and his contribution to the literature of the world, "Leaves of Grass," there may be a few things about the timeless poet you may not be aware of...
He was, in fact, an original Kossack.
Before the age of the internets, the complex system of tubes through which all of the information on the planet is available to you with the right search engine and a major credit card, the printed word was all the rage. In his 20's, Whitman, not quite yet a poet, became a journalist of some note.
The note, unfortunately for his bank account, was of being an immensely talented, but lazy, writer. He was fired from just about any New York paper he would work for, either for taking four-hour lunches or writing completely rambling editorials that would more often garner him a sound thrashing than acclaim.
But even in those early days, Whitman had a strange knack for not only seeing through the B.S. of the powerful and elite, but also writing about it in a style that would later define his poetry: the ability to connect what he felt in his present with the reader of tomorrow. This timeless quality would ensure the popularity of his poetry, but alas, was too raw and unrefined to save most of his political analysis through the ages.
However, Whitman did have a few choice words for the politicians of his day, words that eerily ring true even today. Last week, with all of this "Bittergate" nonsense clogging up the the befuddled minds of the traditional media, the reality of Obama's statement, as well as the transparently false outrage of both HRC and McCain were lost in the shuffle.
In his 1856 essay "The Eighteenth Presidency! Voice of Walt Whitman to each Young Man in the Nation, North, South, East, and West," Whitman SLAMS the traditional methodology for choosing REAL elitist leaders and, shock of shocks, warns small town voters that they will lie to you to get your vote...
http://etext.virginia.edu/...
WHAT RIGHT HAS ANY ONE POLITICAL PARTY, NO MATTER WHICH, TO WIELD THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT? No right at all. Not the so-called democratic, not abolition, opposition to foreigners, nor any other party, should be permitted the exclusive use of the Presidency; and every American young man must have sense enough to comprehend this. I have said the old parties are defunct; but there remains of them empty flesh, putrid mouths, mumbling and squeaking the tones of these conventions, the politicians standing back in shadow, telling lies, trying to delude and frighten the people; and nominating such candidates as Fillmore and Buchanan.
Wise up, voters...you're being had...
PARTY PLATFORMS, SECTIONS, CREEDS. What impudence! for any one platform, section, creed, no matter which, to expect to subordinate all the rest, and rule the immense diversity of These free and equal States! Platforms are of no account. The right man is every thing. With the downfall of parties go the platforms they are forever putting up, lowering, turning, repainting, and changing.
Flip-flop, flip-flop...
At present, we are environed with nonsense under the name of respectability. Everywhere lowers that stifling atmosphere that makes all the millions of farmers and mechanics of These States and helpless supple-jacks of a comparatively few politicians.
Clinton's attacks on Whitman's elitism will being in five...four...three...
Somebody must make a bold push. The people, credulous, generous, deferential, allow the American government to be managed in many respects as is only proper under the personnel of a king and hereditary lords; or, more truly, not proper under any decent men anywhere. If this were to go on, we ought to change the title of the President, and issue patents of nobility.
Bush...Clinton...Bush II...Clinton II or McBush...
Of course it is not to go on; the Americans are no fools. I perceive meanwhile that nothing less than marked inconsistencies and usurpations will arouse a nation, and make ready for better things afterwards.
There's hope?
To-day, of all the persons in public office in These States, not one in a thousand has been chosen by any spontaneous movement of the people, nor is attending to the interests of the people; all have been nominated and put through by great or small caucuses of the politicians, or appointed as rewards for electioneering; and all consign themselves to personal and party interests.
Spontaneous movement? Hmmm...go on...
Whenever the day comes for him to appear, the man who shall be the Redeemer President of These States, is to be the one that fullest realizes the rights of individuals, signified by the impregnable rights of The States, the substratum of this Union. The Redeemer President of These States is not to be exclusive, but inclusive. In both physical and political America there is plenty of room for the whole human race; if not, more room can be provided.
Inclusive, huh?
TO EDITORS OF THE INDEPENDENT PRESS, AND TO RICH PERSONS. Circulate and reprint this Voice of mine for the workingmen's sake. I hereby permit and invite any rich person, anywhere, to stereotype it, or reproduce it in any form, to deluge the cities of The States with it, North, South, East and West. It is those millions of mechanics you want; the writers, thinkers, learned and benevolent persons, merchants, are already secured almost to a man. But the great masses of the mechanics, and a large portion of the farmers, are unsettled, hardly know whom to vote for, or whom to believe.
Hmmm...sound familiar?
No man knows what will happen next, but all know that some such things are to happen as mark the greatest moral convulsions of the earth. Who shall play the hand for America in these tremendous games? A pretty time to put up two debauched old disunionist politicians, the lees and dregs of more than sixty years! A pretty time for two dead corpses to go walking up and down the earth, to guide by feebleness and ashes a proud, young, friendly, fresh, heroic nation of thirty millions of live and electric men!
Ah, Walt, you precognitive bastard...were that you were alive today in more than just your words and spirit...