A Conversation with India

I look at those starving in your country
And I look at the food in mine.
I see you want the freedom---so they say---
To earn a living and eat.
What you fail to understand
Is that America was once much more
Than a place where your freedom was to be fat
And drive a car.
Freedom meant saying what was really on your mind
And speaking against the government.
Freedom was knowing that your stuff wouldn’t be rifled through
By government agents, or that you wouldn’t be spied on.
Freedom was the right to fight against the government if it ever crossed those boundaries.
You should read Roseau.
The freedom of this country was that censorship was against the rules.
Monopolies were against the rules, also.
The Sherman Act made sure of that.

Kids, in the 1980s would smoke cigarettes in the school hallways.
It was common for companies to hold picnics.
You could swim in the river or lake---
There wasn’t safety equipment everywhere
Stifling you, or treating you like you were some kind of fool.
Lawsuits were uncommon.
I could say “Retard” I could say, “Faggot” I could say an offensive joke.
If it truly crossed the line, people would reprimand it.
They wouldn’t cancel it.
YouTube, as you know, had anything a man could imagine on it.
It was the golden age of information.
I could publish anything---hypothetically, though this was never proven---
And I could make a living off of it.
I could challenge the government.
I could speak words of insurrection and not be investigated.
And nobody would bother me.

I don’t feel I have that freedom anymore.
My only freedom, so said my brother one day,
Is to eat. That was my freedom.
And how slowly that freedom is being taken from us
As prices for everything go up---
What was once a forty cent candy bar
Is now two dollars.
What was once a dollar soda bottle
Is now two dollars and fifty cents.
What was once a dollar a pound meat
Is a four dollar a pound meat.
What was once fourteen bags of groceries
Is seven.

I want you to have the freedom I experienced.
I want that for you more than anything.
I know, watching me---it’s my delusion---
You saw an entitled snob who chased Veplow all around the playground.
I don’t want you to starve;
I want you to have work.
If it’s creative, artistic, manual labor, data entry, healthcare, craftsmanship, cookery,
Whatever the job is you have, I want you to enjoy it,
And be satisfied by the blessings of good government.
I invite you to read Roseau.

You had a Communist Revolution.
It left you desolate.
You had a Capitalist Revolution
And your freedoms were taken away.
Work is paramount;
So is entertainment;
So is ample food and clean water,
Sewage systems, electricity…

I wish you had what I had.
It’s my greatest wish that the whole Earth was satisfied by the blessings I’ve had.
Unfortunately, my country is not the ideal nation anymore.
Does one exist? Perhaps it ought to;
Words cannot hurt someone.
Yes, people made fun of me
But it was a common thought that I despised Dodge Ball from my friends.
I did not. I loved Dodge Ball.
The thing I despised was the selfishness, bitterness, arrogance and unkind nature
Of all my peers. Which I took on their bad qualities.
I suppose America is falling for that reason.
But, I invite the whole world to take what we had,
And build for themselves the kind of society I enjoyed.
Ideas ought never be censored;---
Pornography;
Violence;
That might be best censored.
But, then again, what is real is something immoral
If it’s being sold as entertainment.
Real sex, real violence, real life.
Stories are meant to supplement reality, not be reality.