Seven years ago, in a post entitled “Deforestation,”* I offered my answer to the question: “What is the crappiest famous poem?” I was moved to write that post after hearing a rendition of the famous musical setting of that nausea-inducing work "Trees."
I have recently determined what is the runner-up to the musical version of “Trees” as “crappiest famous”: “I Believe.” In case you have had the good fortune of having forgotten how it goes, let me do the dirty and remind you:
I believe for every drop of rain that falls,
A flower grows,
I believe that somewhere in the darkest night,
A candle glows.
I believe for everyone who goes astray,
Someone will come to show the way.
I believe,
I believe.
I believe above the storm the smallest prayer,
Will still be heard.
I believe that someone in the great somewhere,
Hears every word.
Every time I hear a new born baby cry,
Or touch a leaf or see the sky.
Then I know why,
I believe.
Every time I hear a new born baby cry,
Or touch a leaf or see the sky.
Then I know why,
I believe.
*
Conducting independent research during the most recent precipitation event in New Jersey, I must admit that I did not get a bouquet of horticultural delight; what I did get was wet.
I was lucky to escape with merely a minor cold.
*
Unfortunately, people’s beliefs (in opposition to soaking epistemological evidence) can (and do) have deleterious outcomes for others. Consider:
For weeks now, White House officials, Treasury Department officials, and G.O.P. leaders on Capitol Hill have been blithely asserting that their big tax plan—which features huge giveaways for corporations and wealthy investors in private partnerships—would pay for itself. The argument is that the plan, by sparking a wave of business investment and hiring, would generate enough extra tax revenues over time to offset the initial fall. Gary Cohn, Donald Trump’s top economic adviser, said it (“We believe we’re going to get more than enough growth to pay for this”). Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, did, too (“We believe . . . that we’re right there in the sweet spot, with economic growth that gives us more revenue with where we need to be”). And Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, agreed (“We believe this is a responsible budget and a responsible tax reform”).**
It is most likely that those of us who are not a corporation or a multi-millionaire will end up being soaked by the recently-enacted Republican tax fiasco, er, bill. Despite the weedy beliefs of Cohn, Ryan, McConnell, and their fellow delusionists, trickle-down economics has never proven to be workable, and the calculations of showery mathematics (as practiced by Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, for example***) predict a flood of future misfortune for middle- and low-income families.
But don’t knock the believers: we may all end up with flowers—or, more likely, hay fever.
*
By chance, today my fortune cookie, courtesy of Hunan Wok, read: “He who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak.”
True enough, if you’re W. C. Fields: “Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer.”
However, what of the fate of A. B. Spottsworth?
It was a confusion of ideas between him and one of the lions he was hunting in Kenya that had caused A. B. Spottsworth to make the obituary column. He thought the lion was dead, and the lion thought it wasn’t.**** P. G. Wodehouse, “Ring for Jeeves” (1953)
The moral, I guess, is: “Have another libation and stay away from big cats.”
That is a conclusion, one might declare, “Right as rain.”
***
**** As happens many times, the verbs “to think” and “to believe” are interchangeable. For example, “I think it’s going to rain”=“I believe it’s going to rain.”
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