Fairfax, VA, USA. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Darkness lay across the face of the void — and we don’t have a dime to our name.

They told us growing up we were building a dream. They said go to school and jobs would be there. When there were cars to make and guns to bear we were right there. Peace and glory lay ahead.


Why should we be standing in line, begging for jobs that meet our college educated standards, watching a President campaign for re-election on our iPhones? We were building a dream, goddamnit, full of that Yankee Doodly Dum. We paid our social security, we paid our Medicare. We put money in the banks the Government guaranteed. Bought U. S. Savings Bonds and put money in the stock market to save for our retirement. And now three hundred and thirty million of us are slogging through hell and the damn fool says to push on.

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Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

Lyrics by Yip Harburg, music by Jay Gorney (1931). Performed by Al Jolson. Time: 00:03:11.

They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;
Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?"There's something happening here, What it is ain't exactly clear ... to you, is it, Mr. President? Well, here's another clue for you, Mr. President: they aren’t dancing in the streets, you know.

The Mid-East is exploding, the European Union is crumbling. There's hurricanes in Florida and Texas needs rain, our blood is so unbalanced we have gone insane.

Yet you tell me over and over again that you see the light at the end of the tunnel somewhere conveniently just the other side of your re-election.

That you have a grand plan that you will read us all in on somewhere conveniently just the other side of your re-election.

That if we just believe and click our heels together all as one, we will wake up in Kansas tomorrow morning.

That if we all would just nod in agreement, our problems would just go away, a healthy economy would magically reappear, and the world would be safe for democracy and your health plan.

Do you remember what Tinkerbell asked Peter Pan? You know that place between sleep and awake? That place where you still remember dreaming? Don’t go there. The world’s grown too old to believe in faeries. We’ve found they don’t put food on our tables or clothes on our children.

When the day is drawing closed and the night is but hours away, sweet words and promises do not suffice. Drama class anger is an artifice best left on the off-Broadway stage.

Middle Class Americans, you know them: the citizens who cling to their guns and religion, festering in the small towns in the Midwest where the jobs have disappeared — they don’t cotton to empty suits or suffer fools gladly. No one wants to write a book about them or read one written by them. What do they know anyway?

So their lives go undocumented and ignored. No one wants ventures out of the bicoastal preserves of progressivism and advanced degrees to see what is going on away from the oceans and great lakes. Hardly any of them went to the right colleges anyway.

However, questions do arise:

If no one writes a doctoral thesis about you, do you really exist?

Is there a sociologist on the planet who has examined someone other than captured college students for his research?

Does life exist outside of the proper university and, if it does, does anyone actually care?

Everyone pays lip service one way or another.

Democrats say they support gay rights and a woman’s freedom of choice but continually fall short when crucial votes are taken. The President himself, who, when cornered, talks a good fight, appears to be physically uncomfortable around the gay community and not entirely accepting of women into his inner circle.

If the votes of the gay community and democratic women were not considered a sure bet, the Democratic Party might pay as much attention to gays and women as it does to the Automobile and Teachers’ Unions.

If women and the gay community gave as much money to democratic candidates as the Unions and business does, perhaps we would see more action by the Democratic Party and less talk by their candidates.

If women, the gay community, and those of us with a transsexual history were not taken for granted by the Democrats … but we are, so they do as little as possible.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was passed under the signature of President Clinton, not some Republican. A Republican Secretary of Defense demanded its repeal and told the Service Chiefs that they would either support the repeal or he would find someone else to do their job who would. The last two Republican presidents named Bush were both at ease around the gay members of their administration. It was no big deal. Both of them hired and supported the rights of women with an unhidden transsexual history. No big deal here, either.

The Republican Party, which makes great noise about Family and Morality (matched beat for beat by the Democrats but no one seems to notice), in life supports gays, lesbians, and people of transsexual history to the extent that the American people support gays, lesbians, and people of transsexual history. Change is coming.

But then, the Republican Party wants the votes of the gay community, wants the votes of women with a transsexual history and their families and, unlike the Democratic Party, does not assume they have their votes. Support from either party can never be counted on as a sure thing.

If you read your twitter feed, watch television, glance at the newspapers, or listen to the President’s campaign stump speech, you’d think that all Democrats are as saintly as Steve Jobs and the Republicans are evil-intentioned, fascist Satans.

The President, of course, is God’s representative on earth and the government is his church. Meanwhile, the economy continues to tank, the jobless rate remains static, and the country is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Action speaks louder than words, but this is already an election year and all we get are words, promises, fudged budget numbers, and more words.

Can’t anyone around here play this game?

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