Dig the scene: Brick building, wood floors, low light, smoke filled room. Forty people at most, mostly drinking. Not the kind of bar you can just walk into. Attention loosely turned towards a small stage at the back.
A young flaneur steps up with a rolled up copy of The Declaration of Independence under his arm. He wears an intellectual’s garb: tweed-type suit, slack pants, black boots. Nervous, but not shy, he has a devil’s look in his eye.
Everything is quiet, the room can hear him breathe… or is that the walls? One more breath, another moment passes. He holds up The Declaration and unfolds it.
He reads:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles…
The room falls quiet.
He continues:
If I had my way, I’d tear this whole fucking system down.
They teach about freedoms that don’t exist.
They kill us in cold blood.
A minority in America is target practice for broken systems.
This ain’t no democracy, it’s more like a corpocracy anyways.
Corrupt is the only way to describe America if you’re living in it. Terroristic is the only word if you’re not living in it.
And how did the land of the free become this way?
It was obviously a rhetorical question, but you can feel people formulating their own opinions.
Was the very beginning not just the beginning of the end?
Was it not those same people who said 'all men are created equal' and signed their names to it, the very same to buy and sell people as property.
We put them on our money; we enshrine them, carve their faces in stone and are taught that they were great men.
But if I had my way, I’d tear the whole system down!
At this moment the young flaneur shows his right hand empty, fingers open wide, front and back.
Then he squeezes his hand as he says, “A lot of blood is on their hands,” and blood drips and flows from his hand, apparently coming from nowhere.
The scene is wirey, the onlookers are trying to make sense of what it is that they are seeing. Many are wrapt up in the angst of it. Others are just drunk.
The flaneur continues, this time in rhyme:
Pardon old fathers if you still remain
Somewhere in ear shot to hear the stories end
It started how it always starts
With a vision, a dream
But since its conception turned a nightmarish tale
Vision turned to scheme
Due alone to your hypocrisy
The very souls you deemed free
Were the very souls you sold into slavery
The dream shriveled up and died
Other false notions were pursued over time
I’ve heard of great men, I’ve heard of fairy tales too
I’m not so naive to believe words from the likes of you
Panzi play acting paupers who cried indignation at the throne
All along you wished to be kings of your own
Set fire to the slicksters in their three-piece-suits
Set fire to the publicity-stunt politicians who turn a blind eye to their people
Set fire to the government buildings where much evil and expensive nothingness dwells
To hell with their lies, to hell with their claims
Pardon old fathers, if you still remain
As you turn, turn in your rotten little graves
Turn once again I’ve a few words left to say
Fuck Thomas Jefferson, slave owning criminal of mankind
Fuck George Washington, dirty little agent of both sides
I revel in the freedom that’s been promised to me
I bask in the wide open pastures of plenty
Sun-beating and sweating, I’ll water the ground
With toil and tears, with blood and bones
My freedom tree will rise and in the winds of change its seeds shall blow
My freedom tree will grow, it will grow greater than any building that has ever been known
I’ll pick from its fruit, wait and watch while the branches wave
So pardon old fathers, if you still remain
Get the fuck out of my sight, there’s nothing left to say
As he finishes, he steps forward from the mic.
He rolls up The Declaration and tips it over his head. Blood flows copious, as if from nowhere. It unravels, and he does a half-assed salute to the audience and exits the building.
There's no applause, no nothing. The next act walks on stage. It’s a juggler doing a wonderful act juggling three sharp knives.
A man in the back yells for the bartender: “I need another rye-whiskey.”