No matter how
Many people die,
They look the other way,
It being far more important
To help corporations
Make money from death
Than to care for the
Well-being of human beings.
This is how it happens:
People who are hurting
Are manipulated
To feel irrational fear
By entities that have
Something to gain from
Keeping them in pain;
Scapegoats are created
To harness all the negative
Energy. A constant, urgent,
Martial drumbeat sounds above
An underlying current of
Existential danger.
On the other side,
Numbed by corporate dollars,
Those who could provide clarity,
Sanity, reason, true comfort,
Forget what courage is,
Ignoring whom they represent,
Neglecting to provide a
Counterbalance.
With no visible alternative,
A large segment of the populace
Gravitates to those who
Promise safety, purity, strength,
A return to order.
All it takes
For a democracy to
Self-destruct is for
The people who run it to
Decide that the only thing
That matters is money
And their own power.
Lofty words succumb easily
To base drives.
Dissent is not tolerated
In these quarters,
It is swiftly and savagely
Crushed with severe prejudice,
Anyone advocating equality
Or common decency is
Smeared as aberrant,
Protest is denounced as disloyal,
Suppression and humiliation
Usurp openness and discourse.
Terrified they won’t
Be able to step on anyone
They want to any longer,
Torment people just to feel bigger,
For any reason,
Grotesque hubris,
Hundreds of years
Subjugating and oppressing,
Nothing too extreme in their
Appalling crusade for dominance.
They’ll stop at nothing,
Including the destruction of everything,
To stay in power,
Leering maw of supremacy.
The statue was
Put up there to
Remind people of
Their place,
Glorifying a
Sordid history of
Degrading human beings
For profit while
Feigning civility
And decorum.
It’s clear what
Is being said here.
If you’ve grown up with a
Certain set of advantages
It’s natural to not be aware of them,
After all, they were always there,
You could just enjoy what they
Did for you without worrying about why,
Or whether it was fair or not that
They weren’t available to others.
For your fellow human beings
Without those advantages,
The world is a very different place,
One where they may not have access to
The things you did, where they have
To work more to succeed less or
Live under an intractable cloud
Threatening to wash away their dreams.
For those in shadow,
The light looks very different.
Now softened by
The filter of time and
Short attention spans,
They trot him out
To make small talk,
Fawning over how
Friendly he appears,
Forgetting that this
Is the monster
Born of privilege that
Did so many cruel things
To vulnerable people,
Pandering to the worst
Elements in our society,
Setting the stage for
Where we are today,
A swaggering fraud,
Insecure to the core.
The regime issues
Carefully crafted lies,
Methodically shaping
The narrative,
Mocking any dissent,
Labeling the truth unreliable.
To the uninitiated,
Or those who have an
Inclination toward
Absolutism, it all
Seems perfectly normal,
Justified, righteous,
Comfortably rigid,
A strongman lying,
Creating an unreal reality
To circumvent the rule of law.
