I am a human rocket
On a mission of deployment
I’ve been cocked and loaded
Ready for the culmination
I am a human missile
Guided by a secret agenda that commands my every thought and deed
And wills me on my wayI am a human rocket
On a mission of redemption
I’ve been cocked and loaded, primed by everything I know
I am a human missile
Guided by a secret voice that commands my every action
And wills me on my wayThere is no turning back, there are no second thoughts
First things first and all things fair, be it love or war, they say
There is no plan named B on the land in the air or on the sea
That is what’s supposed to be
My duty now awaits meI am a human rocket
On a mission of instruction
I’ve been primed and programmed since the beginning of time
I am a human missile
Guided by a secret master
That commands my every motion
And wills me on my wayI’ve found my target,
I’ve reached my co-ordinates
I’m set to detonate and resonate
The final poem I will create
I’ve made a video
It tells a story, oh….
I guess it’s time to go
Don’t forget to rewind!I am a human rocket
On a mission of destruction
I’ve been locked and loaded
And ready for the confirmation
I am a human missile
Guided by a secret perfection that commands my full conviction
And wills me on my wayLarge parts of the experience will go by unnoticed
We are all distracted by the lights and sounds of everything and nothing
Did you remember the breath you took when I let you off the hook?
And sent you swimming away back into your cell?I am a human rocket
On a mission of reduction
I’ve been cocked and loaded
Since the dawn of time
I am a human missile
Guided by a secret voice that commands my every thought and deed
And wills me on my righteous way—Devo, “Human Rocket”, Something for Everybody
75 Years
Five years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the flooding of New Orleans due to the failure of the seawalls built by the Army Corps of Engineers, I republished a piece I wrote in 1992 for my book review magazine on the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Huey Long by T. Harry Williams. That was on the 70th anniversary of the day Sen. Long was fatally shot in the Louisiana capitol building in Baton Rouge.
Today marked the 75th anniversary of that assassination. In the past five years, Louisiana and much of the rest of the Gulf Coast have struggled to cope with the effects of Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans in particular has been irrevocably changed by the flooding of the city and the subsequent exodus of residents, many of whom have been unable to return. Then, of course, this year there was the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the true effects of which we aren’t likely to know for some time.
Huey Long came into national prominence in the hard times of the Depression. He’s thought of today mostly as a demagogue or a proto-fascist who appealed to the basest populist instincts of the masses, but Long’s was one of the first voices in government to be raised against companies like Standard Oil which he viewed as stripping the people of his state of their mineral and resource wealth and giving virtually nothing in return. And that was his view before the Depression hit.
Long’s “Share Our Wealth” plan was a means for reducing income inequality that put restrictions on inherited wealth and income that were far more radical than anything proposed by anyone in politics today, much less an elected United States Senator.
And here we are in the Great Recession. Three-quarters of a century on from the day the Kingfish was gunned down (he didn’t die for two days) and the problems he fought against have only ossified. Nobody in the Democratic Party is fighting corporatism (and forget about the Republicans). Reducing income inequality isn’t even on the radar screen; we’ll be lucky if we don’t get an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich that increased it over the past decade.
I don’t know how to end this post other than with this.