American Poems
L’CHAYIM (Sandburg Speaks)
to life – to liberty – to truth
People will
say most anything!
They come
along calling
President
Obama a Hitler
even an antichrist now,
talking from both sides of their mouth.
Where do they
get all
this talk from, I ask an old friend?
Now leaning
more than a bit towards the right.
I like a man
who speaks his mind, and lets you
know what he’s thinking, an open
and honest opinion shared is critical
to any democracy.
But to be
fair, there is no comparison
or truth in what they offer or say in this,
they are far off the mark my old friend.
And this I
know is not you my friend
it never has been and it never will be
Where are the
concentration camps, where are the
death camps, where are the six million plus dead Jews,
the Freemasons who died for tolerance, for freedom,
the gays and the lesbians who were persecuted and then
experimented on.
All the children of Auschwitz who labored and died, for what.
And the other
camps too, Buchenwald, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen.
Can you name them all, memorize each name
(1,200 camps and subcamps)?
All told,
counted by some, at twenty one million dead
in a democide, genocide, politicide,
and mass murder
unimaginable today.
Where are the
Gypsies and their children? Only two
survived at Auschwitz. Did they know that? I doubt they did.
How dare they
compare that which they know nothing
of obviously now, or have forgotten, lost in fear - fed
on a diet of - fear and intolerance.
And this I know
is not you my friend
it never has been and it never will be
What the hell
do they know of "The Shoah" anyway?
They know nothing of this word, this history. I tell you my
brothers and sisters and family died there in that time and place.
Go ahead and
let them get angry all they want - split a gut open
for all I care with their hatred and myth making. But at some point,
somewhere some poet or writer is going to tell it true.
And then they
will mourn at their own shame if they will see it,
own it for what it is and how they helped a great nation fall into
fear and spread that fear even further.
And this I
know is not you my friend
it never has been and it never will be
We are all equal in God's fine sight, we are all his
children.
America is as
much about taking care of its own, than some in
Congress or
the media, or some of the poor bankers and board
room executives on Wall Street might have you believe.
And stop
using them as trigger words to manipulate some poor
girl working in a "Dime Store" or "Wal-Mart" or some
such place
at minimum wage, or a poor person living only on Social Security.
These good
Americans might want to open a newspaper or a history
book, or an economics book first, and read and read again, and then
learn something more from reading, than all this garbage they are
spilling out now in the name of America and religion.
And this I
know is not you my friend
it never has been and it never will be
Stop and
think, please, that at least one half the people or more in
this great nation, don't see it their way. And, thank God, they never
will,
which makes us stronger as a nation.
When you look
back and see where we all came from, it wasn't from this landscape?
Although we
have made it our own, the farmers,
the ranchers, the bakers, the builders, the dreamers,
even the immigrant ditch diggers.
My ancestors
have been here since nearly
the beginning, 1635 or so, long before the first
American
Revolution and by God you can't tell
me that this is why they came;
this America that some people say
is without hope, that lives in fear.
Because that
is what I hear in all these words
and blubbering, no hope: a world and a nation
without hope, a world of fear.
And some keep
buying into it seems.
And this I
know is not you my friend
it never has been and it never will be
And if they
knew anything of history, they would know,
this is exactly how Hitler and his "Bullies" and
"Brown Shirts”
manipulated his own people and scared them into killing
the Jews, the Gypsies, the Freemasons,
the mentally disabled. The Christians, like Dietrich Bonheoffer
who spoke up in truth. It was Hitler's own voice of FEAR
that took them all in that direction, and I hear echoes
of it today from the far right.
The talk show hosts with their rhetoric of fear.
And this I
know is not you my friend
it never has been and it never will be
And while we
are at it, we might remember, with great reverence
that there were decent men and women in the world, like our
own fathers and mothers. Good people who rose up in World War II
and other wars beyond these and fought to end such hatred and killing.
“Is the wish
to kill never killed?”
It seems not
in all their angry words, the killing is going on still
and then there is the shame, the deep, abiding shame
in embracing a hopelessness beyond all knowing.
By not
knowing or loving, by forgetting whom we are
as people, as Americans.
And this I
know is not you my friend
it never has been and it never will be
Ron Starbuck
I've watched
segments of this nation embrace a level of fear and intolerance for over six
years, or more now. And seen a President whom many of us admire in his
openness to the American Dream and American People,
labeled as many things; a communist, a socialist, Hitler, even an antichrist now
to some. Let us instead embrace the "better angels of our
nature."
They are all
dead wrong in using such labels, fed on a steady diet of fear and
misinformation, spinning out untruths, half-truths, and nothing resembling
truth itself. If Americans and other people within the world would simply
stop and think, become more thoughtful, they would see how distorted this is,
and hurtful to a nation that has always embraced a dream that enables us to
realize our full human potential.
President
Obama is none of these things, he is far more complex, and he is certainly not
a Hitler, a Stalin, a mass murderer or an antichrist.
Sometimes the conversation and the rhetoric go too far, it just goes far too
far. Often times it is a knee-jerk reaction to something someone has
posted on the internet, a thoughtless emotional
response.
Using the
poetic voice of Carl Sandburg, this poem speaks to that and calls
out to all Americans, or any decent person in this world, to rethink the labels
they so easily grasp for in their political agendas, ignorance, passions, fear,
and many times their hate and misunderstand, painting others with a very broad
brush.
There is in
the end, a deeper truth we must search out and know about one another and
ourselves. There is a respect and tolerance that must be embraced, a
fairness that must be known, a truth that must be revealed.
This is not
to say we cannot agree to disagree on certain policies or politics in general,
but let us take the "highest ground" and put a right perspective on
such things, and realize that a common vision is what we seek; central moderate
positions where we find what works, and work towards that aim together,
embracing compromise.
"We are
not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have
strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of
memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living
heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of
the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of
our nature." - Abraham Lincoln's - First Inaugural Address
There was a time when people labeled John F. Kennedy as the antichrist, as the nation's first Roman Catholic President, he was believed to do the Pope's bidding. At the 1956 Democratic convention, he received six hundred and sixty six votes, the number of the beast. Actually there is a long list of them, from Nero to Bill Gates. It’s sad how people are quick to label others based on their own fears and bias, so very sad. And in the end, it’s like a "witch hunt" or a neo-McCarthyism people embrace in their fear and uncertainty.
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