"As American as apple pie!" the old saying goes.  As we enter a summer, which promises to make life in America as uncomfortable as implied by the title "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof", it is amusing to watch this slow-motion train wreck rumble through the consciousness and vision of the American people without causing a drop of latte to be spilled, the dust of a line or can of an energy elixir left unconsumed. 

The "Made in America" cultural icon of Apple Pie has been replaced by the more "balanced" American phenomena of double cheeseburger, fries and an aspartame tainted iced drink.  Somebody once said, "You are what you eat."  The singular allusion of America, land of liberty and hope for any man or woman, represented by the iconic and aromatic product of sugar and spice and everything nice of a good naturally grown and harvested American Red Apple has been replaced by the modern idea of diversity embodied by plastic cheese, soy-product augmented factory-farmed and ground flesh, plastic cheese substitute, the gene hybrid tomatoe and virally gene-altered spuds.  It is no wonder, then we have become a passive stupid, and as we shall see, potentially suicidal society. The allusion works.

At the end of last month, I traveled by train from the West coast extreme to the East Coast extreme, down to the Gulf of Mexico and back to the West Coast. My journey began in a car of mixed races. The language of conversation was standard middle-class American English. 

In Chicago, the world changed.  From Chicago to the District of Columbia, to New Orleans and on to Los Angeles, the company and the language was predominately ghetto black, mixed with common American black.  Four thousand miles or so of immersion in a bilingual New America. When the black transsexual hookers spilled their bag of manual dildos and associated vibrating, twisting and pulsing toys into the aisle, nothing seemed particularly out of time or place. The conversations often turned religious and the atmosphere was as natural as the toys in the aisle. Southern black Christian content  was as inherent in the company's speech as was the American black dialect.

Humans adjust to their environment. White boys, (excepting "good old boys"), having no natural environment of their own, are particularly adept at "becoming one with their environment" in short order.  They have no roots.  (I am now reasonably fluent in detecting the nuances of  "Where he be?" and "Where he at?".)

Where is all this going?  Well my friends, it's going to extend the idea implied by the title of this essay, "Bye, Bye American Pie".  Our society and our country are not the society and country we believe to be.  I hope this fact to be temporary. 

Our country's society at this time is composed of locusts - locusts of race, religion, greed, control and apathy.  Their numbers cannot be counted and their aggregate darkens our sky. They prosper and propagate and leave a devastated landscape behind their travel. A countryside barren and soiled, a condition that only time and nature in its due course can repair. Good fortune, if you can call it that, is that the time of locusts is short and these locusts eat each other.

For about 3 years, I've alluded to the times of trouble in our future. Those times have arrived.  We are now able to see, grasp and experience the changes which may destroy our country, our society and possibly, many of us.  But we are locusts and we cannot see beyond our immediate hunger and gratification.  We will not see our own self-destruction in our submission and complacence.  We fear to acknowledge our weaknesses and failures and we refuse to hold ourselves accountable for our submission to the crimes of our leaders.  We lack the will, individually and as a society, to be free to determine our own futures, relying instead for others as frail as we, to define our rights, our liberty, and our lives.  Yes, fools we are.

Yes, fools.  But even fools, when their feet are put to the fire, can learn and grow to meet life's challenges.  Today, we can see the smoke, tomorrow, feel the flame.  The trials of our society have now begun and we have but weeks to recognize the work that is fallen in our moment to our generation and bend to our unwelcome and much delayed tasks.  The months which will bring us through the beginning of the next year will place in our hands the future of our country, of our free society and establish the conditions of life for ourselves and our children for decades to come.  Be aware, be prepared and act. Do not allow yourselves to be consumed by the fires of change.