COMPLACENCY

(I was looking through my files for something else and came across this bit of doggerel that I wrote some years ago.  I'd filed it away and forgot about it, but I still agree with it.)

"Man's Inhumanity...." is truth; oh, hear! And share the blame
For Justice limps with blunted sword, and cowards steal her name.
Our children's children bear the brunt, as villains flaunt their shame.

"We care not for the Public Mood; The Public has no sense
And needs us to look out for them and see to their defense."
So "Public Servants" justify their legal violence.

Slow erosion takes our rights, injustice takes our wealth
Innocents are murdered in the name of Public Health
And burglars could take lessons from the bureaucrats in stealth.

"What Country is this in?" you ask, and "Does the U.N. know?"
"Our President should look into that Country's tale of woe."
"How horrifying, when the State becomes the People's Foe!"

Our brethren turn with hunted eyes to Freedom's Torch, now charred.
We shake our heads in disbelief; "Not In My Own Backyard!"
But the truth is that WE are the ones who left the gate unbarred.

Ignorance is NEVER bliss.  And the Vote is not a Right
But a Duty that we owe ourselves, who stand in Freedom's fight
With our Ballot and our Labor and our Love, against the night.

written June 13, 1997

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