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Commentary :: Civil & Human Rights

AMERICA, a poem by STEVE ARGUE

written in September 1998.
America your president did not inhale, Monica did not swallow.

America sex is obscene but over a million dead Iraqis is justice.

America don't ask don't tell.

America if it was terrorism when innocent civilians died in Kenya and Tanzania, why is it different when U.S. missiles murder in Sudan and Afghanistan.

America the Warren Commission was correct and DDT is also harmless.

America you sent your sons to die in the jungle for no reason other than obscene profits.

America lets build another wall with the names of the Vietnamese dead on it.

America lets bring the two walls together and call it internationalism.

America lets call out the cops and National Guard against it.

America lets open fire on them and club them to death.

America lets build a monument to those who died at Kent State, Jackson State, the LA Chicano Moratorium against the war, and the Chicago Democratic Convention.

America let's call that monument a movement.

America Nicaraguan children have no moms or dads because of you.

America you are pro-family.

America you blame working mothers for the decay of civilization.

America you blame mothers on welfare for the same.

America you have prayed against abortion and for the death of communism.

America you have prayed for those with AIDS saying thank you God, die sinner die.

America AIDS has a face as cruel as any concentration camp.

America your so-called "Democratic" Party promised more money for AIDS, but only lied.

America AIDS is the pent up anger of seeing loved ones die as the government does nothing.

America you are still segregated and mean.

America your KKK rips the head off of black men dragging them behind pickup trucks and then rallies in celebration.

America your police attack and arrest us for protesting the KKK.

America your CIA imports crack cocaine while exporting death squad torture states.

America your police are killing black people while your newspapers call it a war on drugs.

America lets build another monument to Martin Luther King, the Black Panther Party, Philadelphia Move, and all others silenced by police bullets in the struggle for freedom.

America lets call that monument equality.

America your workers are being clubbed, tear-gassed and pepper sprayed on their picket lines.

America you spit on the working class.

America I do not want 100,000 new cops on the street.

America your cops have beaten me three times for the crime of caring.

America your cops are now peace officers and your wars are now peace missions.

America buckle your seat belt, big brother cares.

America never mind what I am saying, its not real, you didn't see it on TV.

America Rush Limbaugh complains I have no sense of humor.

America you made me pledge allegiance to one nation under God when I am an atheist.

America you told a black schoolmate that we couldn't that we couldn't read any Black authors because we were studying the classics.

America I was punished when I refused your silly oath to God and country.

America you made me feel isolated and alone.

America you made me want to become part of your mindless machine.

America I got over it.

America I never read my horoscope unless my girlfriend makes me.

America your newspapers are filled with astrology, but hardly a word about astronomy.

America in the face of your silly superstition I say that the Earth revolves around the sun, and evolution is also a fact.

America, I'd rather be surrounded by redwoods or ocean surf than contemplate any of your new age moneymaking scams.

America I'm more interested in your G spot than your mystery spot.

America I find whales a lot more interesting than anal probing alien abductors, and a lot more probable.

America you are screaming for us not believe our eyes but have faith instead.

America with your faith you are trying to poke out our eyes so that we cannot see.

America, if there was a god, she'd be pissed at all the killing you've done in her name.

America I wish your CIA didn't win in Afghanistan where the crime of teaching little girls how to read and write is now punishable by death.

America I think the right to abortion is a basic woman's right.

America Cuba gives free abortion on demand and Cuba is not sorry.

America I wish your CIA did not succeed in Guatemala where whole villages were slaughtered for the United Fruit Company.

America I'm glad you lost in Cuba.

America it is time you ask yourself why the world screams out for one, two, many Vietnams.

America I'm glad you lost in Vietnam.

America your police treat the homeless like Viet Cong

America the TV say Cuba bad, America good, rich man smart, poor man dumb, girl so cute, and baby sucking thumb.

America your union bureaucrats think I'm irresponsible, but they fit into the system so well they can't even win strikes.

America I've driven your trains and oiled your machine.

America you have forced me to work 16-hour days.

America I don't want to work for your bosses.

America I don't want to be a boss.

America your politicians all sound the same. They even look the same. They all look like bosses.

America let's take Mumia Abu-Jamal off of death row and run him for president.

America you are trying to execute Mumia for the crime of caring.

America free Mumia, Leonard Peltier, and all of your other political prisoners.

America your money is God and your Country Clubs are your temples.

America you steal from the poor and give to the rich.

America people are going hungry, some have no homes, and many have no medical care.

America your TV tells me that the poor are the problem.

America do you remember L.A.?

America do you remember the Boston Tea Party?

America it's time to organize the revolutionary party.

America your purple mountain majesty is obscured by smog.

America a speech by Al Gore telling us how much he cares is not going to stop global warming.

America future generations will never forgive how you traded Headwaters Forest for the sacred right of profit and private property.

America your pollution may end the human species for obscene profits.

America the working class does not make a profit.

America when we are not murdered quickly they are murdering us slowly.

America we are all on death row.

America I do not want to write my congressman.

America I do not want to beg my master for mercy.

America your master does not know the meaning of mercy.

America, great vaporizer of human beings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

America, wondrous scientific experimenter putting radiation in children's milk.

America, world cop.

America, world peace officer.

America go fuck your self righteousness.

America your conscious is not in power.

America your conscious is in our hearts.

America your conscious needs to get organized.

America your working class shut down Minneapolis and Toledo and San Francisco in 1934.

America your students and faculty took over universities in May 1970 to use them to organize against the government's war.

America we can do it all again and more.

America we can shut everything down, bring the capitalists to their knees, and take power.
 
 

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