Let's see if I have psychic powers.

I'll admit that I didn't know enough about Maya Angelou. I'm really not a huge fan of most poetry. It's just not how I'm wired.

But she died last night at age 86. From what little I knew about her, she was a wise woman, and a lot of people liked her poetry. She was widely honored, with a Pulitzer, a Tony Award nomination, three Grammys, the National Medal of Arts and several other awards.

But here's my point. Despite all that recognition, I foresee a coming dark cloud.

See, she was awarded the Lincoln medal by GW Bush, but then recieved the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama. She didn't always agree with his policies (she initially supported Hillary Clinton), but she and Michelle Obama corresponded, and Barack Obama quoted her in speeches; they might not have been close friends, but they knew each other.

Given that, it will not be unreasonable for Obama to speak about her death. And now I'm going to make a prediction. When he does so, there will be an outcry on the right that Obama is racist because he only honors black people. (The word might not be "honors" - I'll give them credit for knowing what a thesaurus is.)

Hear my words, you wise men; listen to me, you men of learning. What I foresee will come to pass.

Club Vulgus

Any perusal of comment sections on such public forums as CNN.com leads one to the inescapable conclusion that there is a vast sunless sea of people united by the conviction that their incomprehension results, not from some inability on their part, but from the stupidity of those they identify as a Liberal Elite. Being uninhibitedly glib in the facility of self promotion through Liberal bashing is a cheap initiation fee and all the dues they deed pay to belong to the only club that will have them as a member.

Reading this morning, for instance, of a rather uninteresting Van Gogh floral arrangement having been stolen from a Cairo museum and about suspects having been apprehended trying to flee Egypt, I encountered the predictable comments amongst which are:

"I am starting to think that Americans are the most entitled, dumb people on this planet. Are all Americans as dumb as this post implies? Or are you just the dumb liberals- who we always knew were dumb? If you are not happy with living in the USA then I will pay for you to move somewhere else. "

What an ugly picture! 50 million? covet much? Oh look, shiny baubles!!!! I MUST OWN THEM AT ALL COSTS!!!!"

More copy book comments followed in quick non-sequitur: about Republican lobbyists, the foolishness of art in general and other populist drivel scarcely worthy of having been scribbled on the walls of the worst toilet in Scotland, although I suspect the grammar, spelling and logic might be better in that venue. The rabble are only to happy to pay their dues.

Of course it is indeed a most uninspiring painting and it's proposed value would have been more appropriate to the late 1980's when Japanese corporations were buying up Western art and Van Gogh in particular, as part of a scheme to transfer money illegally between corporations. I doubt it could be sold at nearly that price today, yet still; one of the uncountable things that mystify the untaught crowd is art and it's monetary value. That which is not understood needs to be denounced as worthy of only fools -- and of course Liberals. If you want to belong to the Vulgus Indoctum after all, you need to pay your dues.

I wonder if one could earn life membership by offering to finance the expulsion ( as a Liberal elitist parasite ) of anyone who might distinguish between Van Eyck and Van Dyke or perhaps have a nice little solution for Fermat's theorem. I might in fact, apply for the deportation so kindly offered, but that any of these folk-slingers could afford the sort of place in Monte Carlo I have in mind, I have serious doubts.

Muslims hate dogs

Shortly before I left the Midwest for Florida, a local Methodist Church with a largely Korean congregation was spray painted with the message: "Chines go home." Swastikas were spray painted on sidewalks and a leader of a self-styled Evangelist Church murdered a black Football coach and shot up a car containing two local Korean-Americans in protest of the growing ethnic diversity of America. Yes, it was an upscale suburb of Chicago and yes, most people were appalled. Since then, we've become more inured to such things, and since then, major political groups have become indistinguishable from what was a demented, lunatic fringe. The largest news disseminator in the country has become a preacher of the same kind of rage -- and we listen as disciples at the feet of wisdom.

I can't act surprised to see a similar fear and loathing phenomenon pervading my Florida neighborhood. No shots are being fired, but it's hard to come away from any social gathering without that sick, sinking feeling in my stomach resulting from some offhand remark about Mexicans. What must they be thinking of me? Is anyone really a bigot as concerns only one group? I think not. Is such bigotry confined to the uneducated? Hardly: the Beck Brigade contains the majority of millionaires I know and none who have anything to worry about from some undocumented day-laborer hanging around the Home Depot parking lot. Yet they do. They worry themselves sick that our government is being taken over by Black people who will make sure that no other black people will have to work for a living any more. They worry themselves sick that American Muslims will somehow institute Sharia and set aside the constitution, while they themselves see that tattered document as an impediment to Christian sovereignty.

"Islam is not a religion. It is a worldwide political movement meant [sic] on domination of the world. And it is meant to subjugate all people under Islamic law...."

reads an anonymous e-mail tied to a California Tea Party group. Where I live, such a thing is likely to be as sermon to the converted. It's a tenet as firmly adhered to as that "Obamacare" depends on "death panels" to keep costs down and that the US constitution is meant to subjugate all people under Christian law. But there are no Mosques here, not Islamic community centers as there are in other parts of the country. In California, in Tennessee, in New York and elsewhere, the bigoted scum that is America is being called upon to disrupt prayer with loud protest and being encouraged to bring dogs: because Muslims "hate dogs."

When I was a young man, traveling and studying in Europe, I heatedly defended my country against pervasive charges of racism and bigotry and imperialism, pointing to the strides being made in the 1960's. I was wrong, I was a fool and I wish I had not been. We have been jailing people for their political thoughts since the beginning, we replaced slavery with repression and subjugation, we've had laws reducing the rights of one ethnic group after another. We've denied entry and we have expelled citizens for their racial origins. We whine about invasive government while we use it to invade the lives of millions. We've made a straw devil out of those who have worked to undo the intrinsic hatred that is American culture. We have, save for a few glorious moments, been cowards, bullies and barbarians as likely to tear our own countrymen apart as the enemies, real and imagined, from without. There is no patriotism, no sense of a common goal, only flag waving and warriors at war -- and fear, always the fear.

Have we forsaken our ideals or did we ever really have any beyond "every man for himself" and "fuck you?"

Oh no we can't!

I know, the worst thing one can do is to feel shame for your community, your country, your fellow man. Patriotism, being the same as dishonest self-promotion and hyperbolic Chauvinism, I'm certainly being unpatriotic by saying that the relentlessly partisan viciousness, the partisan slander and libel and indeed the abuse of political and religious freedom by my own community is shameful. Certainly others who agree with me have been so labeled.

Recently some local students at the Martin County High School Junior Achievement Club put together a website and planned a "Recovery Rally" to bring attention to the unemployment and the high foreclosure and business failure rate which plagues our county. They put together a video with the object of sending it to the President as an invitation to attend. It ended with a proud "yes we can!" Some would call that sort of community spirit and enthusiasm inspiring, others:

COMMUNISM! MARXISM!

Imagine allowing citizens to petition for redress of grievances! Why that's just like Pol Pot or Ho Chi Min! What kind of good ol' cracker conservatives would permit that without a fight? I mean it would have been OK to invite Bush and indeed when he made a five minute appearance after Hurricane Frances flattened several counties; when he disrupted critical activities at the Red Cross and then promptly forgot about us, he was sold as a hero, but then, he wasn't a Marxist, Muslim, Communist, Kenyan Antichrist who pals around with Terrorists and murders old women, you betcha.

Yes I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed at the letters from idiots who write to the local paper. I'm ashamed of people who want to pull their kids out of a school that allows kids to participate in peaceful attempts to attract government interest -- because Government is, by the Gospel of St. Ronald, all evil. Diana Blackard went on Fox last week to howl at the moon about her daughter's future being ruined by having said "yes we can" in public.

“I’m concerned about this turning up 20 years from now when she’s running for political officer [sic] herself, trying to get a high-profile job,”

Certainly it constitutes paling around with terrorists to promote local businesses. It's almost treason to suggest that the people can do anything at all in a democracy without it being communism and Fascism. It's dangerous to respect the president, said another deranged citizen writing to the paper.

"since the dems think respect is given like all their other entitlements."

Hard to know what he means but then insanity is like that, Republican politics are like that.

"I resent dealing with people who believe they can spit on us and burn our flag "

says the dishonest but passionate Fox-Republican of the President of the United States -- without any apparent concern that he's done neither, or anything remotely like it.

"Filled with vile hatred, there is no common ground"

says a writer of all who support any effort to let the government be the government, all who are willing to use the government to serve the people, all those who reject the cancerous, self-hating, self-defeating Fox-Fundamentalist doctrines choking the life out of our country. Unaware like so many of the brown-shirt thugs of Martin County Florida of being a maggot, a vile worm eating away at the heart of America.