A SONNET FOR A CAPITALIST SOCIETY

by Claude Clayton Smith

But woke capitalism is a paper tiger. Companies embrace identity and cultural inclusion as a way to expand their market share to new communities while obscuring their raw political power and the ruthless underpinning realities of shareholder capitalism. Elites on the right, meanwhile, know very well that it is a paper tiger but are more than happy to play along with a shuck and jive that allows them to wield “woke” as a cudgel against the left—and for some voters, it does the vital job of stoking resentment. (Graphic by Brandon Celi) —Lydia Polgreen, The New York Times, July 12, 2023

They call us Homo sapiens but we

are no such thing. Homo consumo is what

we are—dumb dogs that chase our tails with glee

and gladly sniff the rank capitalist butt

that shits in the face that licks it, absolves itself

of sin, and crassly fouls America’s soul.

Got that? Harsh words, I know, knocked from the shelf

without Roget to soften. Life was whole

in early years on planet Earth—when all

survival meant was food and shelter, not

an endless senseless cycle of corporate gall.

Now comes a new human sort—Homo rot.

The economic life that fails to share

will never cure the ills that it lays bare.

Professor Emeritus of English, Ohio Northern University, Claude Clayton Smith is the author of eight books and co-editor/translator of four. His work has been translated into five languages, including Russian and Chinese. His first adventure as a solo editor—Gauntlet in the Gulf: The 1925 Marine Log & Mexican Prison Journal of William F. Lorenz, MD—was published in March of 2023. His degrees include an MFA from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa.

BOOMER'S LAMENT ON THE 55TH ANNIVERSARY OF JFK'S ASSASSINATION

by George Salamon
November 22, 2018

"Did a president of the United States, while in command of total nuclear war, detach himself enough from its power to give his life for peace?" — James W. Douglass,  JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.

We imagined everything differently
Before our generation's leader was killed.

We read Albert Camus, our bible,
And vowed to be neither executioner nor victim.

We wanted to be rebels, in our fashion,
But ended up consumers in their niches.

We witnessed the Empire's revenge
When bullets took down our peers at Kent State.

We stumbled into our adult lives in the Seventies
While the spirit of Nixon settled over America.

We protested when his agents devastated Vietnam,
Now we howl as Agent Orange deconstructs the presidency.

We tried to make a difference
As the Armies of the Night

We buried our hopes with our heroes
As the colors faded after 1968.

Editor's note: Although he did not film the home movie streaming above, the 13-year-old who now edits this journal will never forget being in the crowd at that place on that day to cheer the future President.

George Salamon has the opposite view of the 1960s from those expressed by the Wall Street Journal's editorial writers.  He lives and writes in St. Louis, MO.

RESISTANCE, AMERICAN STYLE

by George Salamon

“But the resistance doesn’t do vacation.” 

in “The Resistance Now: Trump's on vacay, so now's the time to act” 

—The Guardian, August 4, 2017

"Not my president," they shouted.
Resist! their signs urged.
Petitions flooded the corridors of Congress.
Pundits wetted their . . . lips.
Our country will never submit
To that authoritarian blowhard and bigot.
He twittered as he tumbled in office, and
We salivated at the prospect of his fall.
Seven months later, he's still in the saddle
While the resistance saunters on its high horse.
Woe, above all else we're consumers.
We commodified our resistance
As we do everything else.
For everything that happens in the land
There's a space on a shelf in the market.
Call it American exceptionalism.


George Salamon lives and writes in St. Louis, MO.