How long will the citizens sit still and wait?
It's looking like Europe in '38
Did they move to stop Hitler before it was too late? (No . . . )
How long, America, before the consequences
Of keeping the school systems segregated
Allowing the press to be intimidated
Watching the price of everything soar
And hearing complaints 'cause the rich want more?
It seems that MacBeth, and not his lady, went mad
We've let him eliminate the whole middle class
The dollar's the only thing we can't inflate
While the poor go on without a new minimum wage
But what really happened to J. Edgar Hoover?
The king is proud of Patrick Gray
And there are those who say America's faith is drowning
Beneath that cesspool -- Watergate
How much more evidence do the citizens need
That the election was sabotaged by trickery and greed?
And if this is so, and who we got didn't win
Let's do the whole goddamn election over again!
~ Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson
I know, I know, I said I was going to take a break from politics. But I watched the Comey hearing this morning, and it was compelling, to say the least. I tried to find a song that would relate by googling things like "FBI" and "Senate Hearings" and "This is all batshit crazy and we're all going to die!" And then I came upon "H2Ogate Blues" and checked out the lyrics. History repeats itself? On steroids?
"H2Ogate Blues" appears on Gil Scott-Heron's Winter in America which was released in . . . (pay attention, this is important . . .) NINETEEN SEVENTY-FOUR! So if you thought the lyrics that appear above are about our current situation, that is understandable, but you would be wrong. Obviously, the song is about Watergate. If the references to Watergate and Hoover and Gray were removed from the lyrics, the song would stand as a commentary on today's news. And I find this troubling. "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." True words.
Gil Scott-Heron is known for his spoken word recordings. If that's not your thing, you might have skipped listening to the song/poem. But he does a cool thing about "the blues" in the beginning that might be worth a listen. And, of course, the rest is about Watergate. Some of you lived through that era. I did. Not having been a good student of history and government, I found much of it confusing at the time, but I understood the gist of it. And many members of our current administration lived through that time, too. Did they fall asleep in front of the TV? I often use the phrase "Lessons learned." It seems that there are some that refuse to learn the lessons that are placed right smack in front of them. We can now have front row seats to their unraveling, just as we did in the early 70s, as the Nixon administration crashed and burned. Get your popcorn ready.
"H2Ogate Blues" ends with the following refrain:
Four more years,
Four more years,
Four more years,
Four more years of THAT?
Deja vu.
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