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Salvador Allende Has Words for Barack Obama from the Other Side of Death
For the last decade, I have been haunted by voices from the other side of death. In this way, back in 2003 I transcribed the words of Pablo Picasso after a tapestry version of his famed painting Guernica at the entrance to the Security Council was covered over at the U.N. just before then-Secretary of State Colin Powell was to present the Bush administration case justifying an invasion of Iraq. From the depths of ancient Mesopotamia, I transcribed the words of Hammurabi, the exalted prince of Babylon, as he reviled Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for laying waste to his ancient land. And in that same year I found that Christopher Columbus, too, had words for the new warriors/conquerors of the twenty-first century, while the poets William Blake and Franceso Petrarca asked Laura Bush how she could sleep with the man responsible for so many deaths.
The dead were then silent for years, which left me unprepared when Salvador Allende came to me offering advice for Barack Obama. It seemed, at first glance, a strange connection. Elected president of Chile in 1970 by popular vote, Allende was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup three years later. On that other September 11th, also (coincidentally enough) a Tuesday, terror rained down from the skies as the Chilean air force bombed the Presidential Palace where Allende died, ending an experiment in constructing socialism through peaceful, democratic means, and inaugurating the long dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
Barack Obama has never, of course, claimed to be a revolutionary like Allende, though he did once upon a short time ago give the impression of being a reformer dedicated to bringing about significant change. And though, like Allende, he has faced ferocious opposition to his plans from similarly conservative forces, there has never been the slightest rumor of a coup d’état in the United States (nor, as it turned out, any need for one) -- though who knows what would have happened had Obama decided to take on the military-industrial/national security behemoth that essentially governs the country.
And yet, I have no doubt that Allende would have sympathized with Obama on his entry into the Oval Office, and that he would have appreciated his urge to search for common ground with his adversaries, as well as the intelligence and sophistication of his mind. And I’m sure he would have greeted young Barack’s election in 2008, as I did, with a certain joy, seeing in it the popular wish for a different sort of politics, a different sort of world.
Evidently, based on what follows, Allende did feel that it was worth sending a message to the American president from the shores of death where so much becomes clearer, where we will all ultimately discover whether we truly kept faith with the lives and dreams of those who, in turn, had faith in us.
Here, then, is his message:
I have held off, Barack Obama, till now,
I have bitten my tongue in this dusk and averted my gaze
if words like tongue and gaze and bitten biting bite
have any meaning under this grim face of night.
Now it is time that you knew what awaits you here
once you join us in the vast kingdom of the gone,
what your retreat and regret will be if you do not learn
the lessons I learnt from defeat,
the omen I am sending your way as you fail to lead
and flail and neglect the reason you became our hope.
I held off this warning, young Barack, till now.
Who was I, after all, to send you words of advice?
Surrounded as I am in this dark by the many who tried and failed,
who gave their lives to change the world so those unheeded
in the shadow of strife, the child who cries in the dawn of life,
the women and the old and the working poor could rise.
I am surrounded in this sorrow by those who did not prevail.
Who am I, after all, to send anyone a word of advice?
I died that September day at La Moneda in Santiago.
The bombs were falling and the fires burned
and I was worried about the child inside the womb of Beatriz,
my eldest daughter, I ordered her from the Presidential Palace
and only then started to rehearse in my head en medio del fuego
the last words I would pronounce, my goodbye
to the people of Chile, mi adiós, and my greetings to a world
that would have to continue without me, without one more word
from the man who was convinced he could bring justice and peace
to his people without bullets and blood, without widows and their sighs.
No more words from this dead mouth, except for these few I now send
and that may not arrive in time, Barack.
So many words die before they can be heard.
Back then, in 1973, in September, as the bombs fell,
as the soldiers mounted the stairs and I grabbed the gun
with which I would kill myself rather than be taken alive,
pay with my death so others might remember,
there were no thoughts of fire or hate for the United States,
of Richard Nixon who tried to destroy my land,
or Gerald Ford who followed through on that illegal plan,
elected by their people as freely as I by mine,
why waste my last breath cursing men like them,
how to anticipate that a boy like you, then barely twelve,
would someday steer the realm that hounded me to death,
that I’d send words like these to any American president?
The dead that keep me company swear it’s no use, no good.
Spartacus is nearby,
Jeremiah fills me with prophecy,
Nat Turner rebels again and again in his dreams,
our Joan of Arc, who knows so much about perfidy and pyres,
all, all calling out to those who live to repair the wounded world,
all without rest until the living attend the faraway
dead who did not betray.
They tell me not to speak to you, the enchantment gone.
He’s done it wrong, they say, too afraid to brawl and rage and stage
a final confrontation where his foes will bite the dust.
Not me, not I, it’s not a revolution he pursues.
Who was I to tell him to draw a bitter line in the sand?
Do you want him to end as I did, with a divided land?
And yet I was wrong, wrong,
I let myself be seduced by his song.
I gave you, young Barack, the benefit of too many a doubt,
I prayed you would not need my words from beyond the beyond,
that you would clean up and heal a world gone mad with greed.
Before you disappear, before you can no longer hear
my words from beyond the beyond and inside the ground,
before your run ends in downfall and rout and retreat,
let this old heart beating with the Earth and the stars
and the need for not one child, not one, to die for lack of love,
let me tell you one last secret found in the abyss of despair.
It is true that he who is mighty is he who makes of an enemy
a friend, mighty and wise is he who offers the foe
a way out, a bed to sleep in, a meal to share.
But not without a fight. Not without a fight.
Listen to me, Barack, listen to this man who left too soon
and never saw his grandchild born and lost his way.
You will be destroyed. I have seen men like them before.
They will stop at nothing, they want it all and more.
Can’t you see, can’t you see what is being planned?
You are the victim of a silent coup, an invisible invasion
of every last corner, every last law, every last height.
Don’t you understand that they want it all, that they don’t care?
I have seen them, they will not be stopped by smiles.
You will be destroyed, take down with you all that is good,
what the wretched of the Earth built against the dark.
These are the same men, the same billionaires, who did me in.
They will blow it all up, derail the train, they do not care.
They deal in fear, they do not know right from wrong.
Oh do not let yourself be seduced by the siren of their song.
They are coming for you as they came for me.
I can hear their footsteps drawing near.
And you ever more alone.
Listen, listen: if you are to go down, go down fighting.
Barack, listen to your name. Lightning, glittering of weapons,
blessed, blessing, be your name, go down fighting.
You might even win.
Barack, listen: if you are doomed, go down fighting,
so others can come after and build,
so a legend is left, a spark to start the next fire, to inspire
and bring word of a new world waiting to be born,
fight so there may be peace, fight for what you believe in,
do not leave the dead without consolation and the living with no faith.
Trust your name. Go down if you must, but go down fighting.
So that when you arrive on these shores
and look back as I do, you will have no regrets.
Go down if you must, but go down fighting.
Or do you wish to face, one by one, the lovers and mothers
you did not defend? Spend the rest of eternity, one by one,
with the stories of the pain you did not assuage or mend?
One by one, one by one, they will haunt you in the dusk.
Go down, Barack Obama, go down and rise up fighting.
This time we might even win.
Never believe it is ever too late.
To listen to Timothy MacBain’s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Dorfman discusses the Occupy Wall Street movement and his own experience with democratic rebellions click here, or download it to your iPod here.
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71 Comments so far
Show AllThis article is what's called whistling in the wind.Appealing to a persons conscience works only if they have one. If you think Obama struggles with his conscience every time he does the bidding of the elites he serves, you are still living in the fog of Hope and Change
Truly... whatever Dorfman has taken, it appears to be a powerful hallucinogen.
There is no comparison between Allende and Obama. Allende was a true populist, Obama is a faux populist who revealed his true colors before he was elected President in 2008.
A nice creative piece of writing that continues the myth that Obama is one of us. He is not! He is a corporatist and as such devoid of conscience, a sociopath in power. Look to Obama for nothing and expect nothing. Get beyond Obama now!
Nice but not concrete enough. Look up Operation Condor -- that's what Allende would remind Obama of -- the orchestrated economic chaos meant to popularize and defeat any semblance of progress. The holding hostage of a nation by corporatists that leads to fascism. Pay Attention, Be forewarned. Get you ass out in the streets and build the Occupation --
Build the revolution --
Build the Commune!
The poem makes the mistake of assuming there was anything of worth to begin with in the mind and body of the person we call Barack Obama. I might have believed it a few years ago, but I certainly don't now.
Obama did "rise up fighting." He's not fighting on our side.
Three years into Obama and we still get confronted with this garbage on an almost daily basis. It's as useful as suggesting that GW Bush or Reagan "rise up fighting."
I'm going to transmit some advice from Pablo Neruda from the other side of death: "Please stop writing!"
Thank you Ariel Dorfman for sharing your beautiful, passionate art that emanates from a cache of wisdom so deep it nearly separates ones' breath from the breast.
Very sorry to say, though, the Barack Obama you so sincerely implore is the issue of the american advert machine, he has never been an actual living, breathing human being, but a puppet whose strings are entwined in tendrils of greed and beneath the attractive manufactured surface, there is not a beating, feeling, compassionate heart but a void.
The hope for my country is with the people, the ones who have fiercely refused to succumb to the soul-sucking siren call of our mainstream culture. The ones that line the streets, fill the open spaces and the jails and lay their exquisite humanity flagrantly open for all to view so that it builds a contagion of courage in others to do the same.
These are our sisters and brothers, they are the tenuous hope for those yet to come. The revolution will arise from the goodness that burns unextinguished, holed up deep down in the soul of our people. This, my friend, is the hope.
You sound more like Thomas Pain than an Iowa pinko. You sound more like a real American than Obama. Keep up the good writing.
Hoa binh
Very nicely stated. Thank you.
No army takes out the decider.
There are no heroes in power left,
all have capitulated to wealth by theft.
The great decider knows that, no bomber is flown,
to kill the commander of Praetorian guard and drone.
Who do the Plutocrat rulers really fear?
Neither the poor, or homeless do they hear.
nor the mentally ill, or the witless and infirm,
Nor relatives of the broken or never to return.
Ignore those struggling to survive with no help at all,
and those working for wages and conditions that appall.
Those sick without hope of treatment, can be left to waste,
with dispossessed or disenfranchised, or of unfortunate race.
All can be bombed, beaten up, shot, or locked in gaol,
Or as an army of slaves, sold to a lying war tale.
When life gets tough, the wealthy get rough,
and let protestors be beaten till they bleed all their stuff
And then the wealthy will steal again a lot more,
because for themselves the sky is the floor.
No challenge to their power will they allow,
Not even if the world would end, will they bow.
True bravery with no choice only poorest can attend,
When they have nothing left, to fight and die in the end
I think your thoughts are a lot more cogent than the article, B3nign.
B3, much appreciated
The work in the article is "Copyright 2011 Ariel Dorfman".
Is yours "Creative Commons" ?
http://creativecommons.org/
Excuse me Mr. Dorfman, but never been a coup d`etat? I suppose you have never read Smedly Butler's "War is a Racket", take a moment, you may be surprised! It's just that this time they are succeeding!
The classic American coup d' etat occurred in November, 1963. Kennedy should have ducked.
The second coup came in 2000 during the 'Brooks Brother Riot' in Florida.
Z1
Much history has been supressed over the generations by the oligarchic MSM ("oligarchic" is definitely a more accurate adjective than "liberal".) That's why so many of us are oblivious to so much. Let me add that Smedley Butler's revelations related to plotting against FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt).
Another episode that doesn't get enough coverage is the Woodrow Wilson administration. I was in my 40s before I found out that his record is definitely a muddy one. I had only known of him as a founder of the League of Nations. But he also sent U.S.troops to Russia in 1918, in an attempt to suppress the Bolsheviks in that Russian civil war. The oligarchs certainly didn't want us to know that we ever backed any losing side. Wilson also established sedition as a crime, which he used to imprison Socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs, Debs got a massive number of votes in the 1920 election while still in prison.
I'd like to see some Jeopardy questions formed about the Palmer Raids, Shay's rebellion, massacres of Indians by whites, etc.
"You are the victim of a silent coup..." Obama is no victim. Obama is no Allende. Obama is one of them. Obama is a Freidmanite and of the very school who murdered democracy in Chile on September 11, 1973. What happened in Chile is happening to US as we speak. Obama is playing a lead role in the demise of America.
Why do so many portray BO as the "victim", when he is a vested participant? Lots of pretty words here...
Cynical friends.
I'm not sure anyone has been more critical of Obama than I have. He is the Traitor-in-Chief.
But, please, do not denigrate the sheer beauty of these words because of the abject disappointment that the perspective that appears as Barack Obama has been.
The description of Allende bearing no malice toward his murderers at the time of his death - of knowing they would come and yet understanding that his journey dictated that he must nevertheless fight the good fight - is, in a word, beautiful.
There is worth (the divine) inside everyone. With all politicians, this 'worthy aspect' is constricted by their own special form of mental illness. Dorfman is trying to penetrate the veneer of this mental illness by reminding BO that he is going to be worm food soon enough no matter what he does and the only real question is "what did you stand for".
He may be whistling in the wind, but his words are beautiful.
Agreed.
I found his words nauseating, not beautiful. They are the words of every liberal who prefers the comforting feelings of hope and "positive thinking" to the presence of justice and peace in the world.
I once read of a Tibetan Buddhist monk who was imprisoned by the Chinese. After he was released, someone asked him what his greatest fear was while he was in prison. He replied, "The fear that I would lose compassion for my captors."
Those were beautiful words. By contrast, asking someone who has chosen to be your dedicated enemy to fight for you is merely foolish.
Welllll . . . from a literary perspective, there's no reason to assume that Allende, by being dead, had become omniscient. :-)
Visiting Professor is correct. Obama is more like Pinochet, but with better spin doctors.
Your lecturing is sheer asininity. For shame indeed. It's obvious you haven't the slightest familiarity with what poetry is or how it works. It's not that Dorfman's poem is "great" by any means, but it does communicate something substantive, even if you disagree with holding out any hope whatsoever for Obama turning around and showing some progressive moxie. I don't happen to think he will either, but that doesn't make me vilify Dorfman for using this particular vehicle to cast some light on just how desperate Obama's current position is, because he's been flagrantly ignoring the will of the people, those 99% of us, to shovel favoritism and protection to the criminal class.
Dorfman is saying that if Obama persists in this vein, he will lose everything, and even if he does make an unexpected shift toward progressive principles, "they" may just come after him the way they came after Allende. But at least he will have saved his soul. Is that something to get all heated up over, accusing Dorfman of being "cheap" and phony, channeling Shirley MacLaine and being crassly "egotistical"? Your hectoring is pure curmudgeon speak. Get a grip.
VP, I love ya', but this is art, not history. Art is about communication, the transfer of ideas that connect with emotions. It seems to have worked, wink, but I won't be buyin' the book. Frankly, I hate it when they pitch their books here, especially in the comments.
I'm 100% behind your contrast of obama to Allende.
With Buck, I also appreciate Visiting Professor's thoughtful comments, and in this piece I view Dorfman's wishful thinking as art. Apologies to President Salvador Allende, who heroically sought peace with justice and sacrificed his life in this cause.
Bill in Dubuque
Great piece.
Obama has been all about corporate support from the get go. I do not understand why people ever believed that he was a good thing, or maybe it was desperation and well wishes that propelled that vote. Things are far more bleak than that, my friend. There are no good guys that I can see who are not hammered down as soon as they begin to show talent.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" said Jefferson, and really there is no substitute for civic involvement.
@ Puck: "I do not understand why people ever believed that he was a good thing"
Corporate media printed some signs that said "hope and change." Corporate media made sure a "first black" or "first gay" or "first woman" got to be president to give their latest corporatist presidency a "new and improved" feel. Corporate media told us that we were in love with Obama, and that he was "different" - like Apple computers.
These are some of the reasons I haven't watched TV or Hollywood in over a decade.
The price of commercial free to air TV is to open your mind, as a toilet for the highest corporate bidders.
Obama may be a victim , but then he is a most willing and enthusiastic one.After Bush ,it was necessary for those who really govern the US to have somebody who very much looked like the antithesis of the Butcher of Baghdad.Bush is ,or at any rate looks,old, Obama is young; Bush is ugly,Obama handsome; Bush is coarse and vulgar,Obama refined and charming;Bush is Republican,Obama Democrat,Bush is White, Obama Black. That's at least what people think, that's the image conveyed by Obama.In fact,he is no less vulgar and despicable than Moronic Bush; he's not even Black.
Those who govern the US needed a pillock who looked so unlike Bush , but who ,in fact, could outBush Bush. And that's how Obama became President of the US.
Pity the US citizens !
I like how you called Bush, the Butcher of Baghdad. It fits perfectly.
And you, reader behind the screen, what are you making with your life on earth?
You were raised to study geometry and English Lit. Your teachers vaguely hinted about the big bucks you would make. Then the TV ads told you to become a medical transcriptionist, a trucker, a something, so that you could earn a pretty good income all your life. In the meantime you dreamt of being an anatomical engineer or maybe you'd become chief Dawg.
Now you learn that the jobs that make all the difference on earth aren't "museum fundraiser" or "assembler". They are jobs that you make yourself into, from scratch. Often as not you will not be paid or even thanked, but as Mother Teresa would say, do it anyway.
"A working class hero is something to be." -- John Lennon, famous cultural worker.
Jesus of Nazareth was both a healer and a nonviolent strategist. If you haven't tried healing, well, why not? You shall be led down a really strange path, guided by voices, and ultimately the voices will guide you right back into the center of the movement. You shall try to heal torture victims. You shall try to heal rape victims. You shall walk through the gay community working on burned out Aids buddies. You shall work on people poisoned by the billionaires' carcinogens. You shall see God in these victims and in yourself.
Got brains? Be an alternative energy inventor. Maybe you'll make progress, maybe not. No one will pay you. Do it anyways and be brave. "Each and every rising sun is greeted by a lonely one" -- The Moody Blues. Or, try to reinvent a better government online. The current one doesn't work, right?
No brains? Organize a food truck, bring it to the streets and feed other people.
Ready to lead? Study hard, communicate, and keep your head down, ok?
Inspiring!
Big Brother: Literature is a device intended to move the imagination and inspire empathy. This one was not crafted as a history lesson, per se. My "take" on Dorfman's piece is closer to what "Mayor" stated, and here is why:
The presumed leader of a powerful nation stands atop a precipice far greater than what you or I face. It is POSSIBLE for any individual to face a reckoning in life; and the more at stake, the greater and graver the nature of that necessity.
We ALL know that Obama sold out; and yet none of us knows (since we cannot answer for what's in the man's heart and would-be soul) at what point his ideals became radically betrayed. Was it when the glowing brass ring of the presidency was held up before his incredulous eyes? Was it when he won some bona fides at an Ivy League college, or when the groups nearest to the presidency dug their teeth into him, their well-funded candidate?
A lot of us realize something in the order of a coup began with the NSA in l947, grew with the McCarthy phase of the l950's, and expressed its first tragic crescendo in the form of the assassination of JFK in l963.
Therefore, with that prelude, my "take" on this inspired piece of writing is that the author is hoping to pluck what's left of the human cords that still pulse within Obama... and remind him that his power is temporal; that all the things he fails to do while strategically positioned to do FAR more than he has (in the way of furthering goodness for the greater majority, and curbing the rapacious profit-mongers who we ALL know appear to control him) will haunt him.
Those in the CD forum who profess to be atheists, along with those intolerant of spiritual precepts, may not take much stock in this idea that one's RECORD remains eternal; but spiritual persons do understand and respect how this Universal Law operates. Like gravity, belief is not required to be held to its effects.
It must be quite amazing to be waited on hand and foot, to eat whatever you please, to hopnob with celebrities, to board a luxury plane and go anywhere... largely to be revered and celebrated wherever you arrive. In short, it's a banquet to the ego's foremost vanities; but then there is the soul. Mr. Dorfman is writing about the nature of, and legacy of that soul. None of us can ever liberate ourselves from its inheritance. Thus the poem is an inspired reminder to Obama's better angels.
Just as the serial killer can experience a moment of reckoning before he heads to the proverbial gallows, it is within the realm of POSSIBILITY that Obama could have such a reckoning... and just as things barrel towards the abyss, do an about-face. Unlikely as it is to happen; and unlike the poem, ironically that would define the more probable point at which THEY would come for him. Sadly, the right wing media would twist around any principled moves taken from a higher conscisouness, as they've already done such a comprehensive job of convincing a segment of the MSM public, that his policies are socialistic, etc. Thus, for all the false bravado around Obama's "Progressive" inclinations, each one betrayed at the "altar," SHOULD he reverse his posture and actually endeavor to promote such an agenda, the media would turn it into an impotent, political version of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." He truly is in an unenviable karmic position. Having used so many chameleon-like inverted moves to mollify the public, while essentially picking its pockets... he truly will be damned if he does, or does not. And therein lies the not just literary rub.
Poetry speaks to the Spirit, not the cold intellect. Strange to see some of the best thinkers in this forum apply the parameters of logic to that which is aimed at an altogether different plane.
Siouxrose: With all due respect, the fact that Mr. Dorfman phrased his appeal to Obama in the form of a poem should not render his words immune from criticism. He might as well read poems to a pit viper for all the good it's likely to do.
If he wants to help move civilization forward, let him write poems to the young people camped out in Zuccotti Park and in other city squares all over the world, who hold fast to a vision of the future worth struggling for.
Brother: I hear you; and as you know, I fully respect (and admire) your political astuteness. When I speak of the spiritual, I'm alluding to the POTENTIAL evolution of the soul. Those of us who believe in reincarnation and karma, recognize that all debits must essentially be paid--or balanced. There is NOTHING to say that someone cannot do a complete moral about-face and alter their behavior. Although it's neither typical, nor common, in a leader, the premise DOES exist as a potential.
The story of Scrooge meeting the Spirits of Christmas and undergoing a moral reckoning that leads to a complete alteration of his actual behavior, is what I have in mind. It's a shame that Obama's own daughters' smiles don't evoke that type of reversal of priorities; yet it may well be that like a Mafia attorney, he's in too deep (and knows too much) to turn on his paying sponsors now. However, is a moral reckoning possible? I have to say yes. And that is true of the greatest purveyors of evil because it speaks of the Essence of the eternal human soul (in my view, a filament of Creator).
The harsh judgment in this forum, while warranted on the basis of the vast betrayals underway, might leave a little room for the possibility of change.
Each one of us is both a separate ego-based entity, and also tied to the underlying Spirit that connects One with all. Therefore, from a spiritual perspective, and recognizing the importance of these times--where borrowing from the tire commercial, SO MUCH is riding on this era--such a shift in Obama (were he able to stand up to the MIC and equally malignant forces from the "financial sector") would be VERY meaningful for the world. THIS is a critical juncture. The times are most unusual.
In closing, while you allege that there need not be a gap or conflict between logic and the Truth of the spiritual realm, the fact is, the conflict between the lower self (ego-driven motives) and the higher self IS the battle every mortal wrestles with. The story of these often antithetical drives (or forces) is the idiom of much of literature. It's also codified into the Tarot, and spoken for, when not debated, in religious texts.
Were Shakespeare to write a new version of Othello based on Obama, he'd have the man wrestling with his ambitions, against his inner spiritual moral compass, in the deep of night... a lot like Lady Macbeth seeking to wash the blood from her hands in dreams that will not let her soul sleep.
Perhaps a Gemini mind can find the balance between these two polarities... however, neither Donald Trump, nor Henry Kissinger, or George Bush, Sr. seems to have done so. It's trendier to toss all spiritual cognition by the way side, to do what establishes mundane power in salutations to Mammon (Wall ST) or Mars (MIC).
Peace, friend. I do take your critiques to heart, and will revisit the points you made.
Were it easy to align spiritual truth with logical analysis, I think there'd be less conflict on these concepts, and what they mean for human existence.
Many here speak of the obvious and practical... the poet speaks to the imagined, or possible, if not materialized.
PS: I just noticed that you posted at 10:31 AM and I completed my post at 10:31 PM... nice little omen of agreement there, with post complementing post, I'd say. But you may see it as other...
Whateve Dorfman said, is of little consequence compared to the boatload of hate and cynicism expressed by the posters for this article against Obama. No wonder our country is in such deep trouble. All you people can see is the negative. When that's all you focus on, that's all you will get.
It's not an "article" it's a poem!
mayor -
Well said. Every time I see Dick Cheney with a twinkle in his eye being sucked up to by the US media on his book tour, or George W Bush grinning gleefully from his VIP box seat at the ballpark, I have to struggle to remind myself that (as you say) "There is worth (the divine) inside everyone", including politicians.
What I am drawn towards in Dorfman's imaginary message to Barack Obama from Salvador Allende's ghost are passages like this:
"It is true that he who is mighty is he who makes of an enemy
A friend, mighty and wise is he who offers the foe
A way out, a bed to sleep in, a meal to eat.
But not without a fight. Not without a fight.
Listen to me Barack, listen to this man who left too soon,
And never saw his grandchild born and lost his way.
You will be destroyed. I have seen men like them before.
They will stop at nothing. They want it all and more.....
These are the same men, the same billionaires, who did me in."
Like Allende, Obama came to power by democratic means, and briefly held the ability to do great good. Both mighty men believed they were being wise by choosing not to prosecute anyone for the torture, theft, or other dark crimes of the predecessor regimes.
Those generals and intelligence agents and rich businessmen in Chile who were offered a way out gladly accepted their reprieve, patiently bided their time, then turned and devoured everything when the moment was ripe for them to regain power. There was no reciprocity, no way out, ever offered in return. Such is simply not in the nature of men who want it all and more.
Maybe Dorfman's spectral Allende is still naive when he implores "Never believe it is ever too late" to rise up and fight for justice. I sense that even if Barack Obama does emerge with a comfortable bed to sleep in, abundant meals to share, and some semblance of a presidential legacy, he has already been destroyed.
That's why Dick Cheney has a twinkle in his eye.
Bill from Saginaw
Wise words!
So while this site is called "Common Dreams" I'm having trouble understanding why so many people are being so damn utilitarian with their comments! It's a poem! Not a lecture from Chomsky (however interesting it might be).
One of the problems with the Left (anywhere) is it lack of poetic imagination and immediate instinct to criticize before letting it sink in. Just relax the mind for a while, get past the cheap immediate anger at having politically allowed Obama to make the mistakes that he made and see a different type of value written in this piece. If you still can't - then good night and good luck!
A poem doesn't fill an empty belly.
Yes - of course - but the danger of that argument lies in the killing fields of Mao and Stalin. It's the argument the Grand Inquisitor makes to a chained Jesus in The Brothers Karamazov. Beware, it can kill.
Indeed. I was playing the "utilitarian" .
Words have power. Look at the KJV, parts are so beautifully written, as is the Book of Common Prayer. Henry IV is inspiring. Speeches are given at inaugerations and commencements.
Words have power, power to inspire people to do good or evil.
As many have already written in this thread, we must look past the art, through the power and to the message.
...nor does a demagogue's rant, if they don't move good people to appropriate action.
EL JUST: I hear you!
Justo, Justiciero!