The Wasteland: America's Search for Redemption

by Mark Romel

Imagine the Spirit of America as the Fisher King - the Maimed King - of the medieval Arthurian romances. The King is charged with preserving the Holy Grail (American greatness). But the King has been wounded in the genitals and rendered impotent. The power of the Grail is the only thing that keeps him alive. He cannot move. He is unable to perform his tasks. His kingdom suffers just as he does. His impotence stretches across all the land, affecting its fertility, devastating it and turning it into a barren wasteland. The Wounded King reigns over a cursed land.

Is that not America today? It is a divided, bitter, angry land, full of warring factions. It has no unity. It does not know which direction to go in. It has lost its way. It no longer knows the path.

The King has to wait for someone to save him, to heal him. Only the chosen can accomplish the feat.

The Wasteland reflects the symbolism of a cursed, desolate land in need of a hero to lift the curse and allow the land to prosper and grow again. Only the hero can restore the land to its old glory.

In the Arthurian tales, the great knight Percival comes to the majestic Grail Castle. Every night, a magnificent Feast is held, and a solemn procession takes place through the castle's grand dining hall, in which various hallowed objects, including the Holy Grail, are displayed.

Every morning, Percival wakes to find the castle in ruins, and deserted. No one else is there. But every night everything returns to its pristine perfection, and the castle is full of people. Such is the magic of the Grail Castle.

Percival learns that it is his own failure to ask about the mysterious Grail procession which ensures that the Fisher King's wound remains unhealed, and the country stays as a wasteland. Percival should have asked the simple question, "Whom does the Grail serve?"

What is the big question Americans have failed to ask? Every American needs to ask, "Whom does America serve?"

Does America exist for the glorification of its private elite (the 1%), or is it there to give the people (the 99%) the best possible, most fulfilled and optimized lives, with the greatest number of opportunities open to them? Do hard work and talent take you far in America, or is it all about who you know rather than what you know? Do doors open only to the privileged elite with access-all-areas golden passes?

No genius needs to spend much time looking at today's America to reach the inescapable conclusion that America's sole purpose is to enrich the 1% and allow them to enjoy extravagant, luxurious lifestyles beyond the dreams of kings. One of the 1% now sits in the White House itself (America's Grail Castle, which is supposed to protect the national soul). All power has been transferred from democracy (people power) to plutocracy (the power of the rich elite).

America has suffered a coup d'état, and is so blind, so brainwashed, so under the thumb of the elite, it hasn't even noticed.

Abraham Lincoln defined democracy as government of the people, by the people, for the people.

America is in fact a cynical, sinister plutocracy constantly manipulating the people. It's government of the people, by the plutocrats, for the plutocrats.

America is a Wasteland for its people. The rich elite - the 1% - are the wound that afflicts the nation and curses it. Only the plutocrats prosper in America. Only they have great and glittering opportunities. Everyone else is left to fester and rot.

The masses are supposed to spend their whole lives fantasizing about success, about the "American Dream". As George Carlin wryly said, "It's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it."

Where are the American heroes, the noble knights, to heal the dreadful wound in the American psyche and make America the great land it ought to be? Who will bring America to redemption?