The powerful, the rich, and the credulous say, "Mock me, and you mock America."

I, lowly writer, say, "Mock America, and you mock me."

I visit the Lincoln Memorial, and it now stands mocked. Government of the people, by the people, for the people? Not in this America.

I visit the capitol. We, the people, of the United States, in order form a more perfect union? No. In this America: We, the powerful, rich, and credulous people, one of whom actually said, I—I—am the government. L’Amerique? C’est moi.

I visit the Vietnam Walls. 50,000 silenced voices speak a greater truth than that spoken by poseur cowboys who mock by making truth hostage to greed: Bring ‘em on.

I visit the National Cathedral. He who spoke here in the house of a crucified god three days after the attack went on to loose forces that mocked all religious belief. The hooded, wired man of Abu Ghraib, shrouded in black (so great the mourning for America), with his spread arms obliterates a sacred icon.

I visit Ground Zero, and it, empty now and neat and clean, stands mocked. The coward, the poseur, the smirker came here and, using the bull-horn of Selma, spoke empty words to the brave of bravery, to the falling dead of death, to the hopeless survivors of hope.

I visit the United Nations, and it stands mocked. Two days after the attack, America, the world’s ungainly but boundlessly optimistic kid brother, was beloved by all. Now, with breath-taking thoroughness, the powerful, the rich, and the credulous have made America not merely mocked, but hated by the whole world.

I go west, crossing the fruited plain through amber waves of grain to the purple mountain majesties, mocked. Drill here. Axe there.

And you better not drink the water from Walden Pond. Not merely mocked, but poisoned. And what, do you think, the nearby Minuteman of Concord would say if he came alive and saw not merely mockery but tyranny itself loosed and in control of the City on the Hill?

The revered flag itself is mocked as the powerful, the rich, and the credulous wrap themselves in it, stride—mocking—the fields of honor, and proclaim themselves kings—kings!—not just of the mountain but of the world.

Sullied by greed, tainted by torture, land of the false free, home of the craven, this America, America the mocked, is not my America, not America the beautiful but America the ugly.