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Trapped in the Ivy League

Kathy Boudin thought the U.S. beyond repair,
She thought she saw the deep reality, and it was unfair.
From SDS to the Weather Underground,
She dived deep in Marxism, plain sense no longer found.

A bomb went off, unintended, by chance,
Meant to shatter lives at a soldier's dance.
Kathy didn't learn from  that gory scene,
She fled intact, still in the radical dream.

She tasted deeply of the bitter cup,
When stopped by cops, she gave herself up.
But behind her guns took two cops away,
In Bedford prison for years, her price to pay

[chorus]
You say you're for right, end up for the reverse
The end of the road is a funeral hearse
The road to hell is paved with ideals,
Know thyself, its honesty that heals

A model prisoner, sorry but still red
After decades released, but her victims just as dead
Then hired at a university of high renown
Or was Columbia just a facade, already going down

A contrast was Yeonmi Park, a source of light
She escaped North Korea one frozen night
Walked across the Gobi Desert, a long, hard trek
Got mercy when she held a knife to her neck

Columbia told Yeonmi patriarchy to blame,
To censor her voice or join in their victim game.
Echos of a homeland that brooked no debate
Both places she observed anti-American hate

In North Korea you had to obey
In the U.S. students would throw their rights away
North Korea's great leader, a feudal regression
But U.S. Students had illusions of oppression.

[chorus]
You say you're for right, end up for the reverse
The end of the road is a funeral hearse
The road to hell is paved with ideals,
Know thyself, its honesty that heals

Boudin thought it moral to join the B.L.A
A Black Army who claimed crime was OK
She thought it was not for her to ask why
Trust the oppressed, her self-erasing lie.

At the Hamas protests, a leftist describes
Students manic, electric dazed look in their eyes
Who, do you think, more worthy of respect
Yeonmi, Kathy, which one ultimately correct?

Which way will those students go
Will they relearn what the rest of us know?
Must they repeat Boudin's trail of fear
Is there any intelligent life down here?

Copyright © Mark Springer

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