Gideon Oknin Poet Lyric

Notes About The Poem

The "David" in this poem is David Horowitz.   He was a leader of the New Left.   His road away from it began when he recommended an idealistic lady he knew, Betty van Patter, as a bookkeeper for a black radical organization called "The Black Panthers".   She discovered fraud in their finances, and shortly afterwards her dead body was found floating in the bay of San Francisco.   The Black Panthers killed whites and blacks, but leftists liked their supposed ideas.   The police thought that they were the culprits in the murder, and so did David.   Anyway, that's the background for this poem.

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Vanguard

David sought a vanguard for revolution,
The Black Panthers seemed the perfect solution.
He built them a foundation, it employed his friend,
Until she found fraud and met a quick end.

Betty’s murder raised questions—who and why?
An inconvenient truth his friends had to deny.
When a jarring fact is a bitter cup
Dave found that Marxists cover that truth up.

He lost faith in the Panther vanguard,
Murder was murder, the truth hit him hard.
His heroes turned out to be certifiably bad,
It was time to revise the beliefs he once had.

[chorus]
Dave couldn't forget his shock on the day:
that Betty's body was found in San Francisco Bay.
A nagging voice within wouldn't stay mute,
His former beliefs would no longer compute.

There are tools to use, the mind God bestowed,
Like a flashlight guiding on a darkened road.
Dogma can rationalize away an oncoming truck
So latch onto the questions that others duck.

David goes to campuses, sounds the alarm,
Jeered and attacked, threatened with harm.
A favored tactic is to brand him with hate,
Yet he does what he can, though it may be too late.

A radical once said "the cause is not the cause" 
If you’re tempted to join, that might give you pause.
Beware the idealists for all mankind,
If you end up in the bay, they won’t mind.

[end]
When discrepancy nags, will you be mute?
When the flak hits the fan, and your enemies shoot?
Will you touch the third rail, your reputation tarred
Will you find a place in the real vanguard?

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