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Should We Be Proud
How can we take pride in a country
that is sliding into dissolution and chaos?
We praise ourselves for ending slavery.
yet racial prejudice is still much with us.
We pay slave wages and refuse to change
the minimum wage to a living wage.
We call all people equal under the law,
yet privilege and money or the lack of it
make legal decisions unequal every day.
We have liars, cheats and criminals in
our supposedly democratic government,
chosen primarily by a voting system
that is funded by moneyed corporations
with a vested interest and the wealthy.
Goal: to remain in power.
We declare all are entitled to liberty,
justice and the pursuit of happiness,
yet how can a people be happy without
security that they will not go bankrupt
because of hospital and medical bills?
How can we be proud of a country
where the supreme justices of the land
arbitrarily take away our rights
to make decisions about our sex lives
and personal decisions about our bodies?
Who choose to exercise the power of a
ruling class against the will of the people?
In a country founded on freedom of religion
we are more and more governed by those
who propound a certain religious mindset.
We are not yet living under a dictator,
and have freedoms not dreamed of in
dictatorships, but for how much longer?
Our freedoms are being taken away,
unilaterally, without recourse.
Our democracy is in mortal danger,
not from enemies abroad, but from within.
Copyright ©
Barbara Peckham
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