Free verse № 137076
Spinning, reeling
Let's make of it an abstraction;
the bombing, death, destruction--
just a reasonable reaction.
(Exercise the rhetorical;
dismiss dissent as political)
[oilOILoilOIL
OILoilOILoil]
Let's calculate the absence
of action:
what then could have been
the distraction?
[Economy falling
public schools failing
joblessness soaring
deficits swelling
Bill of Rights gutted
resources glutted . . .
nothing to see here,
move it along:]
We've freed the unfree!
God bless my country, tis of thee,
we'll bring Big Oil to Babylon--
thus our benediction!
(Just sustain the fiction!)
(Pare it to words no longer than two syllables,
present it as a flag-wrapped, plain-talkin' parable,
drape atrocity in ambiguity
to make it all palatable
and keep them all malleable;
keep the concept altogether simple.)
We'll need a new slogan,
keep them focused on the tagline.
Don't worry about the headlines-
Fox fixed the spin;
we're all in it to win!
What lies? Nigerian follies?
Our intelligence was solid!
Tony told us so--
how were we to know?
Don't blame our Popular Wartime Prezident(TM)!
He only lied by accident!
We must admit, your doubt leaves us perplexed--
it's not as if he lied about, say, sex.
13 comments
Here's what I mean by gut-punch:
"We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."
"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."
"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
"
-- From Gustave Gilbert's Nuremberg Diary interviewing Nazi war criminal Herman Goering from his cell during the Nuremberg trials.
It was much more immediate when I first posted it back in '03 or whatever. Now we're all just tired. (I know I am.) But I did rewrite the ending and all, and I did tell myself that for every new one I wrote I could repost an old one so . . . there you go.
This has possibly the greatest closing stanza of any political poem ever!
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