The Word Pimps Spits Wisdom Like Seeds

With the 5th anniversary of George W. Bush’s fruitless invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003 just around the corner, I feel it’s about time to repost a poem I wrote on September 12, 2002—six months before the invasion. It seemed, back then, that I was one of the few opposed to the idea. Aside from showing off my uncanny prescience, it serves as a reminder of what Hillary Clinton was voting for while Barack Obama (like me) was advising against it.

lullaby

Rock a Bye baby
on the tree top

Sleep tight America—
slumbering giant—9-1-1
was no emergency.
Rest assured that our
government has our best
interests at heart, like
when daddy used Afghanistan
to slay the big bad red
bear then left it in a lurch,
lost in poverty, lost
in discord, little land lost
with nothing but its rock
& sand & guns & poppy
fields. ¡But father knows
best!

When the wind blows
the cradle will rock

Night night America—rest
right knowing the son,
the puppet president,
has it all under control,
the bees buzz buzz buzzing
in his ear, telling him where
to steer the bombs to leave
the corpses of our bastard
brothers, bloodied & belittled
because they would not be
ignored. The sins of our
children directly reflect
our fathers at their worst.

When the bough breaks
the cradle will fall

Let’s fight America—hold
your flags up high
as you send your children off
to die to keep those Iraqi
pipelines flow flow flowing
with that pitch black blood
pumping up our SUV
fetishes while we let
the red black & green
blood flow in the riverbeds
of the Congo—so long as
those niggers keep mining
what we need to power
our laptops, our cellphones
& our playstation(squared)s. Who
the fuck cares which nigger
owns the those mines…
No, its mine! BANG!
NO! It’s mine! BANG!
NO! IT’S MINE! BANG!
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
All while daddy stands idly
by.

Down will come baby
cradle & ALL

Peace is in sight America-
Ginsberg was wrong, Ferlinghetti
was wrong, there is no need
to howl & scream, those dead
& beat beats didn’t know we could
dream while our country watches
over us, profiling us in our sleep,
the land of the free
to be afraid. So just keep sitting
tight America
ready to fight
flexing your might
ignoring the light
shortening your sights
abandoning your rights
just so you can sleep
through the night.
Hush little babies
don’t say a word,
I’m just some insomniac
mockingbird crying the call
of down will come baby
cradle
& all.

Anyway, considering not much has changed, the poem is still relevant. I mean, you can change Congo to Darfur, but other than that… ¡& don’t think that because Darfur is getting the spotlight right now, that all is well in the Congo!

Seven score and eight years ago another seemingly inexperienced politician from Illinois was chosen to represent his party as a catalyst for change. He too had risen through the ranks of the Illinois State legislature, followed by a brief stint in Congress. He too recognized the need to change the way politics operated in Washington. He too was nominated by his party on the basis of his grand oratory and the hope he offered of uniting the nation. Of course, most of you recognize this inexperienced yet eloquent politician as one of our greatest American Presidents, Abraham Lincoln.

    Perhaps it is too soon to draw comparisons between Obama and Lincoln. After all, as of this writing, it is still not a given that Barack Obama will capture the Democratic nomination, much less the Presidency. However, the connections between the two are unmistakable, and if Obama does indeed win election to the highest office in the land, I believe it will be the ultimate fulfillment of everything Lincoln fought for.

    Before I get pounced on by the history buffs, I do understand that Lincoln did not, at first, set out with the purpose of freeing slaves. If anything, his campaign was a rejection of the status quo—continual compromises with slave owners that threatened to eventually expand slavery nationally—as not just ineffective, but dangerous.

    It was the general feeling in the South that every state should be able to choose whether or not to allow slavery, and their hope was that they could expand slavery into territories extending all the way to the Pacific. Meanwhile, pro-slavery forces flooded not-quite-a-state-yet Kansas with slaveholder settlements from the slave state of Missouri and elsewhere.

    When the time came to create a constitution, a requirement prior to statehood, slavery proponents imported thugs from outside of Kansas to stuff ballot boxes to assure that Kansas would in fact be admitted as a slave state. The delicate balance between North & South was in jeopardy. Lincoln simply wanted to maintain that balance and hold the Union together.

    Of course, things worked out a bit differently than expected. Southern states began seceding almost as soon as election results were announced, and soon after his inauguration, Lincoln and the country were thrust into a war no one really wanted. It was during the Civil War that Lincoln’s beliefs evolved. On September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. While not abolishing slavery outright, it did lay the groundwork for what would ultimately become the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Not bad for someone whose political experience amounted to eight years in the Illinois State Legislature followed by two in Congress.

    By this point, I’m sure you can see where I’m going. As a matter of fact, some might dismiss this essay as just another in a line of those I’ve written to support my candidate. This line of thinking is not entirely off base. However, regardless of whom you support, you can’t deny that the parallels between Lincoln and Obama are fascinating. This is not to say that I believe we are a nation on the brink of internal war. Nor am I guaranteeing that Obama, should he ultimately be elected, will be as great a president as Lincoln. I do however believe in Destiny.

    It feels a bit like Destiny when the first African American to have a viable shot at the Presidency can virtually tie up his nomination on the anniversary of Lincoln’s Inauguration (March 4, 1861 & 1865). It also feels like destiny that 148 years later, another presumably inexperienced, yet eloquent politician rising to prominence after a tenure in the Illinois State Legislature, followed by a short stint in Congress may soon be the one who will finally fulfill Lincoln’s Legacy.