SEARCHING FOR UNCLE SAM: The Pursuit of a Myth

	Uncle Sam – why are you hiding?
	Why don't you appear?
	Have you taken up a different occupation
	or succumbed to fear?

	Dear Sam –
	many people are looking for you
	& hoping you're alive.
	Please tell them
	democracy has passed away –
	but deceit & greed thrive. 

	One word of caution:
	Don't feed people much bullshit –
	Small amounts argh tolerable
	but overloads turn us
	into Trumpian pigs &
	cause common sense to quit.

	Be brave enough
	to tell Americans the truth:
	money alone determines
	what people can
	or cannot do.


Kris:  (chuckling) There's something ridiculously naive about this author. Uncle Sam is 
       as real as Santa Claus.

Tim:   Precisely. In one sense, myths are larger than life. The icons people believe 
       in have more power than flesh and blood. Reality is seldom as powerful as myth.

Sam:   Shrewd leaders feed the myths to the masses in order to realize their own agendas. 
       Myths give people a reason for living. Without myth, there's a curious hollowness to existence.

Terri: In that sense myths are pre-eminent propaganda tools.


=================================================================================
from _AmeriSong: Poetry, Art, & Dialogs about Amerika_ by T Newfields
SUMMARY:  A post-democratic yankee lament and discussion of the power of myths. 
KEYWORDS: Uncle Sam mythos, post-democracy, populist poppycock, propaganda production

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955)
Begun: 2004 in Tokyo, Japan / Finished: 2020 in Yokohama, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

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