Pharoah's Tribe

It's Saturday morning, and Houston, Galveston, and most of the refineries are all still in one piece. New Orleans is a bit wetter, a bit more destroyed.

I'm glad for all of us in this country that Rita didn't destroy as much as the media had so gleefully anticipated--I feel badly for the people directly in its path, but at least it's fewer people than it could have been. But I'm also glad because--how cynical I am--George Bush is going to miss the opportunity to appear "Presidential."

He's desperate for some opportunity to repair the damaged caused by stealing two elections, by ignoring warnings of imminent terrorist strikes in the summer of 2001, by creating the Iraq mess, and by ruining FEMA to the point that Wal-Mart did a better job of responding to Katrina than anyone from the US government did (Wal-Mart did indeed show up and start helping people in the disaster zones before FEMA or even the Red Cross--check out the new issue of Fortune). Not that I've become a fan of the Evil Empire, of course.

Yesterday Bushie scrapped a planned pre-landfall trip to Texas. His handlers, smarter than the First Boy himself, realized that a presidential visit to a place gearing up for disaster could backfire--could cause more harm than good, and further damage his low stature in the eyes of an awakening American public. After all, what could he have done? Told the Texas National Guard how to do their job better? He has such great experience in that area, of course.

Instead, he played it safe, coming to Colorado to hang out with the kindly folks at Northern Command, or whatever it's called--the command center set up at Peterson AFB after 9/11 to manage disasters, whether human or natural. Of course, he may just log on to the wrong computer, and instead of a nice game of chess we'll be faced with Global Thermonuclear War (for those of you who weren't, as I was, smitten by Matthew Broderick in the summer of 1983, that's a reference to his film War Games). If you're still alive this evening, after he's left Colorado Springs, you can bet his keepers kept him from touching anything.

The title of this posting may just seem a bit cryptic, given what I've said so far. It's from a Bob Dylan song (this is Bob Dylan Month, apparently--two new archive albums, and the Scorcese film on young Bob on PBS Monday and Tuesday night--on Monday it's opposite EastEnders--what will I do?) called "When the Ship Comes In." I was listening to this the other day--there's a version of it on the soundtrack album to the Scorcese film--and it struck me. Here's part of the song:

Oh the time will come up
When the winds will stop
And the breeze will cease to be breathin'.
Like the stillness in the wind
'Fore the hurricane begins,
The hour when the ship comes in.

Oh the seas will split
And the ship will hit
And the sands on the shoreline will be shaking.
Then the tide will sound
And the wind will pound
And the morning will be breaking.

It's going to be Morning in America, folks. I'm sensing a shift. My cousin Ken told me last night that in the month that he's been away from this country (he and his partner Ken just spent a month in Russia) people in his town (Las Cruces) have scraped off the "W" bumper stickers from their cars. He used to see them all the time, and he's only seen one this week. I've noticed the same, even in the red-state suburb where I work. People have kept their Kerry Edwards stickers--I even know of a yard sign still standing in my neighborhood--but having "Bush Cheney" on your SUV is becoming a mark of shame. There's also a yard sign in my neighborhood that says "IMPEACH BUSH."

Continuing Mr. Dylan's song, skipping several verses:

Then the sands will roll
Out a carpet of gold
For your weary toes to be a-touchin'.
And the ship's wise men
Will remind you once again
That the whole wide world is watchin'.

Oh the foes will rise
With the sleep still in their eyes
And they'll jerk from their beds and think they're dreamin'.
But they'll pinch themselves and squeal
And know that it's for real,
The hour when the ship comes in.

Then they'll raise their hands,
Sayin' we'll meet all your demands,
But we'll shout from the bow your days are numbered.
And like Pharaoh's tribe,
They'll be drownded in the tide,
And like Goliath, they'll be conquered.

That song was written 42 years ago, and he probably had the foes of civil rights, the commie-paranoid former McCarthy-ites, and what Nixon would later call "The Silent Majority" in mind when he wrote it. Those people haven't gone away--they've simply bred new generations of fearful twits who mindlessly vote for whomever their pastors and televangelists tell them is the right protector of the faith. They are Pharoah's tribe, and their days are indeed numbered. I won't quote from Mr. Dylan's far more well-known song on the same subject, because it would be trite to say that the times they are a-changin'--especially since that song is now being used in a TV commercial--oops, I've just said it. Well, you get the picture. Now: move away from the computer, get off your ass and start interacting with humans. It's up to us to change the times.

Dylan lyrics: Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music