How good is good?
How far does it stretch?
As far as a lie?
Good asks questions,
while evil denies.
Who looks stronger?
The one who seems not to know
and questions everything as it goes?
Or the one who never answers,
never pauses to reflect,
never shows another respect?
How skewed is our thinking?
How screwed are our lives?
Good reaches upward
while evil takes a dive.
How do we climb
from such evil depths?
How good is good?
How far does it stretch?
Filed under Uncategorized
Writing in the dark
is hard, requires balance,
leaning on insight.
Things do not smell right
despite heightened sense of smell
and story to tell.
Writing in the dark
makes hard to appreciate
journalists who fall.
Things are now hidden
behind false information.
See? Nothing at all.
And, so it goes down:
free speech, free press, redress.
Democracy Dark!
MY FELLOW AMERICANS
I hold my tongue.
It takes strength I do not have.
Whimpers escape
On shattered breaths,
In silent screams.
The fight worries my soul,
Battle weary and choking,
On words held tight inside.
Once the scream begins
I doubt I could stop.
I wait for your speech.
I yearn for your promise
To stop the authoritarian
Who has taken over our house,
Emptied its vaults,
Stolen its wealth,
Sold its power
To the highest bidders.
So, I write. That I can do
While I wait for you.
To me, this nothing new.
Do you believe me now?
The streets were lined for blocks on end.
Signs reminded all who rejoiced to attend
Why they walked and talked and smiled and waved
At passing cars who braved delays
While drivers honked horns and shouted out
“Vote him out and make it a rout!”
Costumed critters danced to our delight
Knowing their freedom would give him a fright.
Deconstruct the lies we have been told.
Deconstruct the narrative being sold.
Deconstruct the bullie’s hold.
Deconstruct institutional mold.
Gather in peace the young and the old.
Stronger are you, more wise, more bold.
Deconstruct so we can rebuild
What he has destroyed with his minions’ lack of skill.
We know how to do this, and more.
We have done it many times before.
My thanks to my friends in Clintonville area of Columbus who helped me attend this moment of patriots’ challenge to the con men robbing the USA of its power, wealth, ideals and humanity. The lack of media coverage was appalling. The misrepresentation of attendance numbers cannot be challenged when media fails to provide images of the gatherings. A local station covered it AFTER it was over and crowds had dispersed. Another stated hundreds attended when it was actually thousands. We are here. We are resisting. We are going nowhere until the despotism and kidnapping of people and the Supreme Court, universities, news organizations, social media outlets, medical and public health Institutions… even our very language and the meaning of words and phrases has been brought to an end and freedom restored.
We shall not be silenced.
Filed under COMMENTARY, POETRY, POLITICS
The day begins with signs
Of all that any patriot finds
In need of expression
To resist oppression.
We line the streets
Feet deep
Only to meet
Aggression
From those who seek
Our suppression.
Gerrymandered districts
Are incomplete,
Unable to meet
Fair representation,
Denying the nation
one person one vote,
Intimidation afloat
In every state.
We pray it is not too late.
We pray our efforts matter.
We pray our mad-as-hatter
Administration
Stops destroying our beloved nation.
We sing. We dance. We shout.
This is what democracy is about.
No kings today.
No kings in any way.
No kings over courts’ justice.
No kings over any of us.
Every king eventually falls.
We do not want a king at all.
Kent State taught us that white deaths matter more
than Black students shot at Jackson State the week before.
Will protests-to-come under attack by armed and masked militia
teach us that Brown and Black people under attack is indicia,
within the borders of a nation dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal to the oppression,
of rich men of ill will in hiding from congressional oversight
and protected by the US Supreme Court’s judicial might?
I see the writing on the wall, not graffiti, after all,
but executive orders illegal and ill-tended to destroy
the hoped-for dreams of every American girl and boy
not born into wealth, in no need of human labor
to offer enough cash to create a way to savor
all that life could offer a middle-class caste
now turned in serfdom, as in decades long past.
We are not in a culture war.
We are in a class war.
We are in war we thought civil war had ended.
Yet, we continue to watch the republic untended
by leaders who did not see the need to fight
and believed compromise with bullies was right.
Workers sold out over and over again.
Blocked in every effort to build strong unions.
Students sold out over and over again.
Blocked in every effort to get a sound education.
Children sold out over and over again.
Blocked in every effort to find safe protection.
None of us now treated with human affection.
None of us now safe in our streets or our beds.
None of able to take a breath without dread.
Whether you voted for this, or not.
This is what you wrought.
Now, this is what we’ve got.
I see you looking through the glass
aghast.
As Alice in Wonderland you fear
falling down rabbit holes.
We all do.
You think the glass is a window.
It is a door.
You seem not to know
it can open for you.
A small push against the lash
can open the way
to a world where anything
is possible.
Everything is now in play.
The old ways are falling away
pushed aside by fearful elements
with false ego and too much pride.
They lie to create a place to hide.
No door is too strong to block you.
You are an American voter.
Your vote holds sway.
Yes, I see the barricades
being put in place, more every day.
Your strength, dear voter,
comes in numbers so strong
they cannot hold the door closed too long.
Once through the door
we clean the debris away.
Americans living in the light of truth;
we light our own way.
American voters will have their say.
Duty.
Honor.
Country.
Fear.
Cowardice.
Submission.
The first three I claim
The last three I disdain.
No more need be said.
A national honor now dead.
Killed by those who fled
their duty to country,
a brilliant democracy.
I cannot shake the hand
of one unwilling to stand
by my side and claim
a nation fighting shame.
Pretense has no place
in a nation ruled by truth and grace.
Ignorance is no excuse for surprise
by those who choose to close their eyes
to crimes and fraud and hate
until it becomes too late
to grasp and seize and save
Duty,
Honor,
Country.
Parting ways.
annarino writes 
IT IS ALWAYS IN THE NUMBERS
Reports indicate attendance at NO KINGS events is somewhere between 5.2-8.2 billion persons. It is possibly much larger than any assumed count. For example. If one counts those registered with organizations who counted attendees, one simply gets a flat number of those who bothered to join through the organization. I registered and reported my attendance. By the time I attended three more persons joined me. They remain uncounted officially. I am sure this is true for families and friends of most attendees.
In the past, for individual rallies, law enforcement using drones mapped the crowd and made estimates using “so many persons per square inch” of their photos to create crowd attendance figures. While major big cities may have done so, mine did not. Local news did not. nor did Law enforcement in my locality. I am certain this happened in much of small town America. So when these numbers are posted, assume they are sorely undercounted.
Nevertheless, no matter the total count, the wide extent of events across the country in red and blue states and cities, in small hamlets, on rural roadway intersections, outside nursing homes and senior care facilities is significant. And, such small groups are likely not part of the count. Yet, the fact they showed such resilience and disgust for what is happening and took to the streets gives us cause to hope we can face down fascism and remove those traitors to our core American beliefs and to our Constitution from office; from School Board, Board of Health, City and County commissioners, mayors and city council, to Congress and the White House.
Local politics is sometime hard to unravel, especially for races where platitudes replace true positions and no party affiliation is required. We have tools those who came before us did not have, the internet and email addresses. Ask candidates for specific position statements. If they do not answer or provide gibberish, there is your answer. Be an informed voter. Help register new voters. Help motivate and take voters to the polls. We must now march to the polls as we marched through the streets. As Winston Churchill said, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Now, the hard work begins. Please remember the joy you felt on No Kings Day and let it propel you to even greater efforts. We now know for certain, what we believed. We are not alone.
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Filed under COMMENTARY, POLITICS
Tagged as congress, crowd control, crowd count, dictator, donald-trump, elections, journalism, law enforcement, news, no kings day, political organizing, politics, propaganda, school board, social media, voter registration, voter suppression, voting