“America I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.”

Allen Ginsberg said that in 1956, as America mobilized for a new, cold war; straightening toward a political and cultural orthodoxy that would explode into a million scuffles on the streets and in the parks of Chicago a dozen years later.

Eight weeks from now America will elect a new president. What direction will we take?

“America this is quite serious.”

With earnest and relentless prodding, after seven years following the attacks on New York City and Washington D.C., America emerges wrapped in that familiar and comfortable us-and-them cold war orthodoxy.

How easy it is to fall into old habits. It can happen as suddenly as a plane out of the blue. We ask “what if?” And “what now?”

And soon a family in Westbrook is caulking the window to keep the poison gas out. All the products certain to allay our fears and defer our mortality located at the nearest Home Depot or Wal-Mart or Tommy Hilfiger outlet. A White House warns that Americans ought to be careful about what we say and by the way here’s $200 – promise you’ll spend it all in the same place.

“America when will you be angelic?”

As Bear Sterns executives dreamed about how many mortgages could dance on the head of a pin, crude oil rose from $23 a barrel in 2001 to more than $140 on the Fourth of July. The oil delivery driver expects cash or check and now, so does the bank.

But the minimum wage went up, even as real wages went down. But we’ll fix that for you hard-working folks just as soon as we get rid of that darned estate tax and maybe even the income tax while we’re at it.

“Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?”

By the way, are you watching what you say? ‘Cause we might be listening. No need to worry as long as you’re not doing anything you shouldn’t. What shouldn’t you be doing? That’s a secret – hidden in the Vice President’s desk. He’s like Santa Claus that way.

“When will you take off your clothes?”

(At the airport, in front of strangers – Ginsburg would have liked that). We fight intolerance and insularity by becoming less tolerant and more insular. Going to Quebec? Passport please. Going to Des Moines? Passport please. Opening an account? Passport please. Enrolling in school? Passport please. Broke your leg? Passport please.

“America this is the impression I get from looking at the television set.”

And here we are. The surplus spent, factories chained, houses empty. We trade our dollars for caskets and oil and our treasury bonds for the latest styles from China.

The president boasts his scheme has worked and points to the sign on the idle factory floor: 2,555 days in a row without a terrorist attack, even as tens of thousands of young Americans face the every day threat of being blown to pieces – some losing their lives, others their limbs and still more, their minds. For what? But to ask is to disparage those men, and women as if they are accountable for the orders under which they march.

Meanwhile, Russia invades an ally and we send the Coast Guard with some blankets. Ah, Russia, our old friend (1941), our old enemy (1945), our new friend (2001) our new enemy (2008). From 1989 to 1991 we went from detente to hegemony. It took Iraq to go from supremacy to impotence. But it least it feels familiar…

“Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.”

Mission Accomplished.

“It occurs to me that I am America.”

And I want a new mission.

“I’m sick of your insane demands”

I’m helping push a new wheel.

– Ward Peck

(Ward Peck is the editor of The Sanford-Springvale Register and Kennebunk Post)