"PITY THE NATION"

[$tevie]

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
"PITY THE NATION"
(After Khalil Gibran)

Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
Except  to praise conquerers
And acclaim the bully as hero
And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture
Pity the nation that knows
No other language but its own
And no other culture but its own
Pity the nation whose breath is money
And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed
Pity the nation oh pity the people
who allow their rights to  erode
and their freedoms to be washed away
My country, tears of thee
Sweet land of liberty!

[max]

$tevie wrote:
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
"PITY THE NATION"
(After Khalil Gibran)

Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
Except  to praise conquerers
And acclaim the bully as hero
And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture
Pity the nation that knows
No other language but its own
And no other culture but its own
Pity the nation whose breath is money
And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed
Pity the nation oh pity the people
who allow their rights to  erode
and their freedoms to be washed away
My country, tears of thee
Sweet land of liberty!

You did not complain about exactly the very same conniving liars,
when your gang was running the show, perpetrating exactly the very same offenses.
In fact you were the one of their most valiant defenders.....

[$tevie]

It's a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti written well before Trump was in office. Go complain to Ferlinghetti if you don't like it.

PS: You needn't quote like that when the post you are quoting is directly above. You are just taking up real estate and crying for attention when you do that.

[Wild eep]

[quote=$tevie
You are just crying for attention.]

:agree:

[btfc]

"You are just taking up real estate and crying for attention when you do that."


Pity the fool.

[mrbigstuff]

wow, Ferlinghetti is still alive.

[$tevie]

mrbigstuff wrote:
wow, Ferlinghetti is still alive.

I know! Who woulda thunk it?

[Speedy]

In defense of max, deleting a complex quote or long post from an iDevice can be difficult. Apple, give me arrow keys or a virtual rocker button to move the cursor around.

[$tevie]

So hit Reply instead of Quote. There was no need to quote any of it.

[vision63]

$tevie wrote:
[quote=mrbigstuff]
wow, Ferlinghetti is still alive.

I know! Who woulda thunk it?
I am proud to say that I am acquainted with him. A foundation that I do work with funded a project of his. A radio project that was really cool. He is very much alive and very very cool.

Nice bit about him on the "Beat Museum" site:

http://www.kerouac.com/2016/03/happy-bir...linghetti/