Hello, Dolls!
Here’s something that you might not know about me, but many of you will find no surprise in. In spite of growing up in the greasy ass crack of Western Frogspit, North Cackalacky, I was raised by two astonishingly liberal and progressive Baby Boomers.My mother was raised on a farm in the sticks. Her mother was German, and her father was of Scottish Highlander stock. Devout Christians, they started their family early by today’s standards. My point is that my mother’s family was older than Methuselah’s foreskin by the time she gave birth to me and my evil twin brother at the age of 33.
While my mother’s side of the family was Democrat before racism was co-opted by the Republican Southern Strategy, she was not raised racist. The general idea was to leave all of the heavy lifting that comes with pious judgment to God, Himself.
Having been raised on a diet of “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” my mother was an inquisitive child that noticed things such as back-of-the-bus seating and a lack of toilet facilities and water fountains for people of color. My father’s family: Not so much.
Born and bred on a heavy dose of racist ideologies, every aunt and uncle from my father’s side of the family couldn’t use the N-word enough.
They were two Christian families, but only one of them was actually Christ-like when it came to the worth and value of all of America’s citizens.
This week, I received an email and attached video from a paternal cousin who, no doubt, has grown tired of hearing me alert the other members of my mother’s household to what a dumpster fire the current president is.
The video was a twangy, country, red-state anthem titled, “Red Like Reagan” by some bumpkin named Buddy Brown. The lyrics were just about as ignorant and obnoxious as we have all come to expect from the supporters of the failed reality game show host and admitted sexual assailant that is currently transmitting Whopper grease and Cheeto dust from his miniscule hands to White House door knobs.
I would like to break it all down for my cousin, and you, my gentle readers. (The video for the song is on YouTube, so if you’d like to hear it, crank up the volume while lowering your standards.)
“Red Like Reagan”
I can read your mind
(Nobody is buying that you can read, Cletus.)
We ain’t about to get along / And I know why / You think we owe you and we don’t
(You raise this same argument with your utility providers. Sit down.)
Yeah there’s a welfare line / Wrapping round main street / That money ought to help our boys / Coming back from overseas
(True story: 1.5 million recipients of welfare benefits are veterans. While you and your sister-wife are using those same benefits to feed your 12 filthy children Vienna Sausages, you ignore the fact that your sympathy for bone spurs and draft deferments fly in the face of this logic.)
We’re gonna paint this country red like Reagan
(Ronald Reagan was cognitively-impaired during his second-term and later years, which ended with his demise from Alzheimer’s disease. Considering that you currently support a tiny-fisted tyrant in the throes of dementia, I’m not at all surprised that you worship Reagan.)
Gonna shoot our guns, gonna eat our bacon / There’s a great big bald eagle who’s smiling on us / And soldiers who died for your privilege to fuss / If you wanna leave / ‘Cause you can’t take it no more / Man I’ll show you to that door
(While I have no problem believing that you can point to the busted screen door that keeps all of the insects from escaping your hovel, those of us who have been employed have seen every penny we have ever earned, saved and spent TAXED. We paid for the right to stay in our motherland and call out the blatant stupidity of the moron that you’re yee-hawing to.)
And all these protests / You’re throwing out some heavy words / And I’m just wondering /How the hell’d you get off work?
(We risked losing our jobs to protest and demonstrate; something that started with tea being thrown overboard in Boston Harbor by other patriots. You should try it sometime instead of singing this stupid song around the Skoal dripping from your wonky, jack o’ lantern mouth.)
‘Cause I got 65 long hours / That I just put in last week
(How are those “trickle-down” Reagan economics working out for you now, Skeeter?)
Now I gotta go back home / And hear you whining on TV
(Try watching something other than Fox News and reruns of “Duck Dynasty” if you want to mix it up a little, Roscoe.)
Anthems such as these serve only to rouse the rabble and empower broke-down rednecks with nothing to lose or gain so they feel important. Rather than actually being a part of the political process, these country-fried hayseed yokels choose instead to buy a Chinese-made flag at Wal-Mart and blast the likes of Lee Greenwood’s “I’m Proud to be an American” from behind their rickety gun racks.
Racism sure is hard, ain’t it, ‘cuz? If you want empowerment, turn off the radio and get to a library.
Amen,
The Divine Grace
