American Exceptionalism

This is the poem by Thomas Merton that Lenny Bruce would
read during every show. Often he closed with it.

---

My name is Adolf Eichmann.
The Jews came every day
to vat they thought vould be
fun in the showers.
The mothers were quite ingenious.
They vould take the children
and hide them in
bundles of clothing,
Vee found the children,
scrubbed them,
put them in the chambers,
and sealed them in.
I vatched through the portholes
as they would dahven and chant
"Hey mein Liebe, heyyyy."
Ve took off their clean Jewish love-rings,
removed their teeth and hair
for strategic defense.
I made soap out of them,
I made soap out of all of them;
and they hung me,
in full view of the prison yard.
People say,
"Adolf Eichmann should have been hung!"
Nein
Nein, if you recognize the whoredom
in all of you,
that you would have done the same,
if you dared know yourselves.
My defense?
I vas a soldier.
People laugh
Ha ha! This is no defense,
that you are a soldier.
This is trite
I vas a soldier,
a good soldier.
I saw the end of a conscientious day's effort.
I saw all the work that I did
I, Adolf Eichmann,
vatched through the portholes.
I saw every Jew burned
und turned into soap.
Do you people think yourselves better
because you burned your enemies
at long distances
with missiles?
Without ever seeing what you'd done to them?
Hiroshima . . . Auf Wiedersehen!

My son, Adam James Ganzer, was raised by his mother who understood the important of a son knowing his father. When sober, she permitted Adam to come visit on Saturday. I remained mostly sober. His maternal grand parents would pick him up on Sunday to go to mass at St. Anne's Church.

Adam listened to Rush Limbaugh daily. His mom liked Rush. My former father-in-law was in charge of the Chicago office of Baker MacKenzie, the largest international law firm in the world. Ralph was appointed to Annapolis, graduated, served his six year stint, and ended up in the diplomatic core, stationed at one time or another in seven foreign countries. He's a charming man, handsome, articulate, Harvard educated too (he went there to law school after his stint with the State Department). A true believing Republican. His family was poor, and his father died when Ralph was quite young.

So he has this self-image as a self-mad kind of guy -- the American Dream writ large. Understandable, I guess.

However, Adam's maternal grandmother came from the right side of the tracks. Her father was at one time the longest continuously elected mayor in America, in Rapid City South Dakota. Primarily a druggist, he built an adjacent saloon during the Great Depression, serving sandwiches and beer cheap. Poor working folks NEED their vices. They are just about all we have to look forward to. But that was back in the day, when the West was a progressive place, he was a democrat.

I suspect dating the mayor's daughter helped his Annapolis appointment. Thus, this self-made man had his college education and initial white collar career paid for on the taxpayer's dime. He might argue the point, but facts truly have a liberal bias.

Adam James once asked, "Why do you hate America?"

An astonishing question, but, the ditto heads succumb like cobras to snake charmers to the hypnotic sound of the fat racist junkie pig's voice. Rush tells them what to think. Rush is the epitome of the military-industrial-infotainment-educational-corporate complex that believes it predominates the American scene, a transmitter of racist thought memes that reinforce the white supremacy doctrine, so closely held by certain segments of the population.

Thus, to criticize "America" is to hate America. My son knows. Rush told him so.

"I don't hate America," I answered. "I hate the policies of our government that have caused so much destruction and despair in the world for so many years."

I wish I knew then what I know now. I could have cited chapter and verse. But he wouldn't have believed me. Too much of a disconnect between his "reality" and his "mythology". How could the best nation in the world, god's chosen nation, how could such a nation do anything other than good?

We accepting status quo no peep,
We closing our eyes feigning sleep,
We clinging to lies that do keep,
Our hearts inured to suffering.
Blessed, blessed, blessed are we
We living in the land of the free
Blessed, blessed, blameless are we
We living numb dumb liberty.