dmits to being a Communist in his youth, and that he is not sorry for being one. The sheer audacity of a statement like this in 1955 has no comparison in present-day American society. In effect, Ginsberg was announcing himself as a criminal, a felon, and a traitor. Yet he antagonizes the situation further by saying, "You should have seen me reading Marx. / My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right." (P-M 369) Ginsberg's cynical nature shines here as he is pronounced sane by a doctor, who is probably certified by a federal department of medicine, when Senator McCarthy would have you believe that Communists are dangerous and/or mentally instable. It is also important to mention the reference made to marijuana in this passage. Ginsberg was an avid marijuana user and was at the forefront of the psychedelic revolution in the late 1960's, but it is apparent that he used the hallucinogen regularly almost a decade earlier.In the second stanza, Ginsberg changes from addressing America to addressing himself. This is an important transition because it is here where he comes to the conclusion that there are two Americas. "It occurs to me that I am America. / I am talking to myself again." (P-M 369) This revelation comes by way of Time Magazine, which he is obsessed with and reads religiously. "It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. / Movie producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me." (P-M 369) Time Magazine acts as a window into the other America, where everyone is pushed to produce, and pushed to be serious. He continues with this theme in the third stanza, examining that America.Although it is not explained until one of the last lines of the poem, the last stanza is Ginsberg's glimpse of America through the television set. "Asia is rising against me. / I haven't got a chinaman's chance." (P-M 369) As the Cold War waged on, the Iron Curtain began to spread into Asia, first with China, and then int...
