Bye-bye Miss American Pie

Outrage is hard to sustain. It becomes, over time, numbness, cynicism, apathy.

We thought at first that the things that had always mattered still mattered. We dug in and waited, sure of ourselves, for we were right.

And nothing happened. 

Bye-bye, Miss American Pie …

What we watched happen was what we said from the first would happen. And more. 

Justification is replaced by disbelief, disbelief by dismay, dismay by despair. 

We are not who we thought we were after all. In fact, there is no we. 

And there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again ...

We mourn. More than two years into this tragedy, we mourn. There is no going back. They have let this go too long, too far. They have let us go. They have let everything go. 

And in the streets the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed …

What country is this, where a president makes himself king, where the governor refuses to be governed by the body tasked by the founders to that purpose, where law is shunned, where the powerful say "Nothing to see here. Move on"? 

And while the king was looking down
The jester stole his thorny crown
The courtroom was adjourned 
No verdict was returned …

It's not that they sold their souls when we weren't looking. It's that they sold them when we were looking. We the people. Case closed. 

And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died

And he was singing'

Bye-bye Miss American Pie