Read this poem by Frank Messina and more of his poems if you want to follow the link.
We are not just the good guys. We ain't wearing white hats. Messina makes that clear.
http://www.spokeface.com/disorderlyconduct.htm
Disorderly Conduct
To the people of the world
You’re all under arrest
for giving in to your oppressors
anything you don’t do or won’t say
can and will be used against you
You are hereby charged with
Complacency in the First Degree
Possession of Ambivalence
and failure to obey a distress signal
from your fellow citizens
You have the right to remain "violent"
shouting down the Big Machine
with words of rage till daybreak
instead, you crouch down in silence
drinking, smoking, choking
while your own family stands on trial
You have the right to bear arms up
against the cold, steel face of injustice,
break down barbed walls of dogma,
You have the right to burn the burka,
the straitjacket, the suffocating drapery
smothering your daughters’ dreams
You have the right to make a left turn,
you have the right not to be straight
you have the right to do the right thing
but you’re all guilty, guilty of everything!
You have the right to
"not go gentle into that goodnight"
you have the right to fight,
to break open the pale face of Hatred
and shut it down once and for all
All human race
You have the right to
steal the keys to Freedom’s door
dangling from Tyranny’s drooling jaw
you have the right to infiltrate, to violate
to launch a coup d'état
You have the right to break-in and enter
instead, you break down and bolt
abandoning naked children
lying, dying, crying
beside crooked gates of hell
You have the right to overthrow the king
whose castle’s walls your own hands built
you’re all guilty, guilty of everything!
Guilty of lethargy
guilty of medicating your life away
from harsh truths that daylight brings
guilty of talking the talk
but not walking the walk
guilty of not working for peace
guilty of not working for peace
guilty of not working for peace
Get against the wall!
You’ve been condemned
and convicted by the people
for your crimes against them
Look up at the sun
through blindfolded eyes
until it hurts you to see
Remember those you betray
and remember, you’re guilty
guilty of everything!
copyright 2001, Frank Messina
The refrain "guilty of everything" pays homage to
Herbert Huncke's biography, "Guilty of Everything
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Comments
we are NOT all guilty of anything. we are a huge country. I just love (not) these diatribes where we're all so damned guilty of "crimes against blah blah".
in a way this teaparty movement to disassemble government, to look at and investigate where the money goes might have once been a positive. maybe then we might have heeded eisenhower and took a deeper look at the military industrial complex. but nope. that day of reckoning is no longer possible.
we are a people. we live. we struggle now. we're fighting for our lives. many people, maybe most of us, possibly at least 20 percent of us are unemplyed. struggling to keep food on the table for ONE FIFTH of the american people.
the rest are worried. there's a small percentage, a very wealthy percentage that would whore their mothers in aid of getting just a little richer, because they've already sold the rest of us out.
the rest of us are innocents. and we are part and parcel of a machine that's milking us dry while it funds some evil shit. we elected obama to end the wars. WHO CAN LEAD US NOW?
you tell me. frank messina, you tell me too. Who can fight this political machine that drives us all? it's easy to dump on "the people" who are guilty. fuck that noise.
dump on the fucking evil that is driving this government and enough of this liberal collective guilt. ORGANIZE something and figure out a way to reach into the frightened minds of a country that is no longer feeling that tomorrow has promise. but please...don't start this cannibalistic shit again.
We are, all of us, every one of us, either part of the solution or part of the problem. The legions of us who do nothing but ask "Who will lead us now" are no different than those who believe placing a yellow magnetic "Support the Troops" ribbon on their car means they've somehow done something toward that end.
Anyone who is not standing up and getting in the face of evil is tolerating it and as the British say in Parliament, "The absent are always guilty." Most of us have been absent for this entire fiasco.
Thanks for the comments. I have not been around in awhile. I have nothing against grieving the victims and do so myself. However I also will grieve as you do the collapse of the economy meaning Bin Laden won because that was his stated purpose for the 911 attack. That is why Bush told us to shop. He was a crazy man but he had reasons for saying that. I grieve that we allowed said crazy man to lead us into perpetual war for a product that defines scarcity. I grieve the loss of soldiers put in harm's way. I grieve for the soldiers returnng with PTSD who cannot escape trauma. I grieve the loss of civil rights. I grieve the political divisions in this country. I grieve the rise of fundamentalist religion and the blurring of religion and state in many countries in the world most particularly ours. I grieve for the collateral damage in the Mideast also known as innocent women and children. I grieve for my daughters who must live in the world we created out of reactionary fear. The Barnum and Bailey 9.11 Grief Fest is nothing but a red, white, and blue circus that serves as a shiny thing to distract us from the great injustices perpetuated against us and much worse by us.