Requiem for a Presidency?      

 

Harry T. Cook

By Harry T. Cook
11/21/14

 

Requiem: from the Latin requiēs -- "rest" as in Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine or "Rest eternal grant them, Lord" -- the first words of what is known as the Missa defunctorum -- the mass of the dead.

Defunctorum is right, if you believe the pundits. The consensus seems to be that the Republican sweep in the elections earlier this month rendered the Obama administration -- and the president himself -- defunct. It is said that he is now at the mercy of those who from Jan. 20, 2009, to this day have plotted his downfall. The electorate did not cooperate in that effort in 2008 and 2012, but certainly did in 2010 and 2014.

It is a fact that Mr. Obama now faces the other two constitutional branches of the federal government, which are dominated by Republicans -- some of them sworn, it seems, to erase what they can of the image and efforts of the half-breed Hawaiian upstart with Arabic first and middle names and a Kenyan last name who had the unmitigated gall to run for President not once but twice ... successfully.

What is sure to come between now and Jan. 20, 2017, will be the longest missa defunctorum ever. The dies irae will be chanted again and again as the hellish fires of political retribution are stoked and their flames fanned to combust that hated audacity of hope and the hoper's thoughts about reclaiming the American dream. Remember that language?

The would-be executioners are now rehearsing their Gloria in excelsis Deo, omitting the heavenly hosts' second line: et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis -- which is the whole point: peace on earth, good will among its human tenants.

Peace? Good will? Nihil. Nada. Zilch. This requiem was composed as accompaniment to the burying alive of the hope for the bonae voluntatis that, given a chance, could change the face and the heart of this nation: widespread and comprehensive health care, public works that would both employ the unemployed and shore up the nation's shaky infrastructure, and the national will to pay the respect due to "this fragile Earth, our island home."*

Mammon, though, is the deity of choice right now. The anthem of praise to Mammon is heard in the cacophony of fracking for oil and gas, in the dynamiting of mountaintops for the extraction of coal, in the much-hoped-for gouging of the Great Plains to make way for the shipment of dirty petroleum across the fruited plains beneath their amber waves of grain.

There seems to be no political will to forestall this rape. The Environmental Protection Agency is a candidate, along with the rest of the Obama presidency, for the pyre.

What of those Americans who, because of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, finally have been able to get a good night's sleep knowing that seeking treatment for the simplest illness would not bring them to destitution? Shall their short-lived hopes be added to the conflagration? Dies irae, dies illa, solvet saeculum in favilla -- "Day of wrath, day of anger, will dissolve the world in ashes."

Or shall we remove the celebrants from their altar and the choristers from their choir? Shall we replace the score of the Requiem on the conductor's desk with an entirely new composition set in a major key, the libretto of which will soar with both resolve and optimism?

Instead of getting mad and yelling out the window that we won't take it anymore, why not look ahead to the elections of 2016, 2018 and 2020 to see what we can do to find potential candidates for office who can't be bought and won't sell out, who are unsullied by the swamp waters of politics as usual?

We will have to start with city councils, local boards of education, state legislatures, judgeships and compose an entirely new work: a missa pro bono publico in which the dignity of every human being becomes the continuo underlying and complementing the harmonies of environmental, social and economic justice.

The only "requiem" to be considered will be for those who will have labored to help the nation get to a day and time when the best in us will have begun to be realized in the governance of the People, by the People and for the People. Those faithful ones should be released to rest in peace.

There will be no Dies irae in our oratorio, and no triumphal march, either. Only a song of thanksgiving for the human spirit that cannot be extinguished, and surely not by political gangsters and other thugs. Aber nicht diese Toene. "Let us raise our voices in more pleasing and more joyful sounds!" -- so sings the tenor in the chorus of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

We can do that.

*Book of Common Prayer 1979, New York, NY. The Seabury Press, p. 370

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EVENTS THIS WEEKEND:  

Sunday, November 23, noon 

Readers interested in knowing more about the Koch Bros. political activities are invited to Room #5 of Sacred Heart Activities Bldg., 3451 Rivard, Detroit. There is no admission charge.

Sunday, November 23, 5 p.m. 

I will be giving a lecture on the Gospel According to Mark at the Our Lady of Fatima campus of Our Mother of Perpetual Help Church, 13500 Oak Park Blvd., Oak Park. The public is invited.