Ranting or reason?
Donald is red and Bernie is blue Then there’s Ted, Hillary, and John, too. The choice is yours but when all’s done and through What on earth is a sane person going to do?
But who lives at the White House is not the real question, A symbol at best of our chosen direction. The economy’s good for the one percent faction But they’ve reaped their gains without taking action.
For workers who once made a decent wage Have been cut from the market in this new golden age. Technology does what labor used to do And guess who controls that factor, too.
The coefficient of Gini measures the skew Between rich folks and people like you and me. It looks much worse now than it ever did And frustration is fixing to blow off the lid.
It’s sad but it’s true, the same Teflon factor That protected the banks in the ‘08 disaster Is working its magic in the corporate US That now shares with Congress its growing largesse.
So the income of policy-makers, it’s plain, Is set by the giants who stand to gain From measures that concentrate money and power While ‘the People’ are left to grovel or glower.
Now stir in the shift in the demographic scene To Asian and Latin and African genes And low and behold there’s a ready-made target For those who once led the middle-class market.
This lethal concoction of greed and obsession Would be bad enough without Smith and Wesson But gunpowder smoke now wafts in the street So often our hearts scarcely skip a beat.
Our country’s become like a forest that grew With no care for the future by those that hew. So the new trees with promise are surrounded by slash That an instant’s neglect could reduce to ash.
With this danger at hand you’d think the discussion Would be how to avoid that fatal combustion. We need leaders who know the name of the game Not an arsonist, ranting and fanning the flame.
Let’s hope in the end that a coalition Of sanity reigns over greed and sedition, That those who stand for inclusion and peace Will again prove the worth of the Land of the Free.
JIM BROWN
Amissville