Trump, in his Biblical knowing, is familiar with barnyard animals, and feels free to interpose himself in virtually any manger scene, particularly if it calls for the most big-league baby of all. Jesus Christ, what the hay!!
President Donald Trump declares Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel, and being a bang-up capitol-ist, The Don blows through Bethlehem and any measly accommodations The Prince of Peace has too tender, immaculately misconceiving the fortuitousness of a Palestinian Jew. He’s off, to Jerusalem to get his big hands on what he stupefyingly sees as a virgin, piece of property, to be grabbed by his celebrityness, with no regard to the other party.
In honor of the nativist Donald Trump blowing through any peace-loving nativity scene like a loony Tasmanian devil, I have created this parody Christmas card to the whirled courtesy of our narcissist-in-chief, in the form of a free poster: TRUMP Promises to Bring Peace From Bethlehem to Jerusalem And Good Will Toward All Men (Women Not So Much) NATIVITY Scene with TASMANIAN Devil Trump.
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
The Republican tax scam, noted for its practically psychotic connection to reality, came closer to crashing into reality as Senate Republicans passed their tax bill, huge tax bill, in the middle of the night. Senators had four hours to try and digest the bill before put on the floor. The indigestion could last much longer. In honor of this fiasco, I am publishing yet another free poster in my series, “Parity or Parody.” Sen. ROB Portman (R-OH) and Prez Donald “The Don” Trump don their Christmas attire only hoping to be the psychosis they want to see in the world. Please feel free to share or print out this satirical poster, Sen. ROB Portman and The DON Dreaming of a Green Christmas with Tax Cuts for Rich:Mother Jones got the story right with their articles: Senate Passes Sweeping Tax Bill That Overwhelmingly Benefits the Wealthiest Americans: Corporations receive a permanent tax cut, while everyone else gets a smaller temporary cut:
Just before 2 AM Saturday morning, Senate Republicans passed the most sweeping tax legislation in 30 years. The final version of the three-week-old bill was not released until four hours before the vote. There have been no hearings on the bill and none of the bipartisanship seen during the last major tax overhaul in 1986.
The bill, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, is projected to add more than $1 trillion in deficit spending over 10 years, but passed a Republican caucus that spent the Obama years obsessed over the national debt. There was just one dissenter in the party, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee. The final vote was 51 in favor, 49 against, with all the Democrats and Corker voting no.
There were a smattering of last-minute changes tucked into the nearly 500-page bill, but the core of it is quite simple: a permanent tax cut for corporations combined with much smaller, and temporary, benefits for everyone else. Over the next decade, the $1.4 trillion tax cut would disproportionately reward the wealthiest Americans while piling on the national debt—which in turn will likely be used by Republicans as a justification for cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
The House, which already passed its own tax bill last month, and the Senate are expected to work out the differences between their bills in conference meetings. Then each chamber would vote again, and send the final product to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature. Trump hopes to sign what he has called his “big, beautiful Christmas present” to the American people by the end of the year.
Before the individual cuts expire in 2026—ending the bill’s most charitable years—the top 1 percent would receive slightly more of the tax cut than the bottom 60 percent of Americans combined. Without the individual tax cut, the top 1 percent would get start getting 61 percent of the benefits. And at that point, the vast majority of middle-class taxpayers would receive essentially nothing, or end up paying higher taxes.
Republicans say they’ll eventually extend those individual cuts. But there is good reason to doubt that. The United States will be facing unprecedented debt levels when it comes time to renew the cuts. The annual deficit would be $1.4 trillion in 2025, up from about $700 billion today. The Senate bill asks Americans to trust that a future Congress, comprised of different members, will continue to ignore deficits.
While the Republicans have waffled in their concern for the national debt, the bill shows that they have steadfastly committed to trickle-down economics. Focusing on the corporate tax cuts, the White House Council of Economic Advisers has said the average family would see their income jump by up to $7,000 per year as businesses pass on their windfall. Tax experts have called this forecasting “absolutely crazy,” “absurd,” and “deeply flawed.” On Thursday, Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation found that the bill would add $1 trillion in deficit-spending over 10 years even after taking into account economic growth. But Republican leaders continue to maintain that the bill would pay for itself—despite there being almost no economists who agree with that assessment.
This all begs the question of why Republicans are pushing a trillion dollar corporate tax cut at this particular moment. Corporate profits are near record highs, the rich are richer than they’ve been since the Great Depression, and the incomes of average Americans are in a four-decade slump. Tax reform could have eased that hardship by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit or making working-class families eligible for Republicans’ expanded Child Tax Credit.
Adding to congressional Republicans’ dubious claims about the fantastical benefits of the bill is the president himself. Trump has regularly claimed that he will not personally benefit from the tax plan. That is almost certainly false. The president, and his children, likely stand to gain tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars. But, conveniently for Trump, it is impossible to know for sure without seeing his tax returns.
So why are Republicans are in such a rush to pass a bill that just 25 percent of Americans approve of? For one, there seems to be fear that the bill will only get more unpopular if subjected to further scrutiny. And then there are the donors. “My donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again,’” Rep. Chris Collins said earlier this month. Many have already closed their checkbooks, and Republicans are keen to see them reopened.
Along with restructuring the tax code, the final bill is also likely to advance a broader culture war. Both bills at least partially block the parents of undocumented children from claiming the Child Tax Credit for their kids. And the House bill would let churches and nonprofits endorse political candidates for the first time since 1954. Mega-donors like the Koch Brothers would get a taxpayer subsidy for campaign spending if the provision makes it into the final bill. Campaign finance groups warn that it is another Citizens United in the making.
None of these provisions fit neatly with Republicans’ stated goal of making the tax code postcard-simple. Nor have the bills’ inclusion of carveouts for everything from citrus trees in Florida to tuna canneries in Pago Pago, American Samoa. (On Friday afternoon, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) tweeted out a list of about 30 forthcoming amendments that had been passed from Republicans to a lobbyist to Democrats.)
Speaking on the Senate floor earlier in the night, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Friday was one of the “darkest, black-letter days in the long history of this Senate.” He held up an amendment, which went on to be defeated just before the bill passed, that was added “under the cover of darkness” by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) that exempts a college connected to Education Secretary and billionaire Republican donor Betsy DeVos from a new tax on university endowments. Schumer said the last-minute move was the “metaphor for this bill and how high the stench is rising in this chamber.”
Schumer moved to adjourn the Senate until Monday so that his colleagues had time to review the “monstrosity.” He argued no one could possibly know what they were being asked to vote on. McConnell, well aware that he had the votes to knock down the motion and pass the bill, listened and smirked.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
This free political poster is inspired by the pathetic and horrific tax cuts for the rich that congressional Republicans are pushing like crack for the wealthy this Christmas season. The Senate Republican bill even includes a repeal of the individual health insurance mandate which would result in a projected 13 million Americans joining the ranks of the uninsured and fracturing our health care system into even more tiers or classes of citizens. Most poignantly for the Republican grinches, this lures many modest income people off subsidized health insurance plans to bet their health against whatever their cash contribution may be; this recoups hundreds of billions of dollars in insurance assistance available to modest income Americans which Republicans can use to fund tax cuts for wealthy Americans. Repealing the individual health insurance mandate is a foolhardy accounting gimmick which will, in essence, “tax” all remaining insured Americans with an estimated 10% increase in premium contributions while nominally “saving” tax dollars, shifting costs, even greater costs, from the public to the private sector. HEADLINE: Republicans Rob Peter to Pay Paul So Overall Americans Can Pay Slightly More For Slightly Less. Merry Christmas from congressional Republicans. Never fear, the good news, not to be mistaken for The Good News of Christmas, is that the richest corporations and Americans will get a disproportionately large tax cut.
The poster design below is yet another in my “Parity or Parody” series targeting Sen. ROB Portman (R-OH) an alleged moderate who supports the repeal of the individual health insurance mandate to fund tax cuts for the rich. Please feel free to distribute this free political poster: “Senator ROB Portman “The GRINCH” Putting The ROB in Christmas.”
I designed this Grinch poster to be used in conjunction with a satirical Christmas caroling protest outside Sen. Rob Portman’s Toledo office. To savor the flavor of this Republican hijacked holy season, please relish these parody lyrics to classic Christmas tunes:
1. Here We Go A-Caroling (to the tune of “Here We Go A-Wassailing”)
Here we go a-caroling against this bad tax bill,
Here we go a-caroling so Amer-ricans can still
See physicians when they’re sick,
Avoid vampiric politics,
And protect our economy from gre-edy ill will,
And protect us from gre-edy ill will
2. We Wish for a Better Tax Bill (to the tune of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”)
Good counsel we bring
To you and your friends
And if you don’t listen,
We’ll sing it again!
We wish for a bet-ter tax bill
We wish for a bet-ter tax bill
We wish for a bet-ter tax bill
And protected healthcare.
We won’t quit until we get it
We won’t quit until we get it
We won’t quit until we get it
And remember, we VOTE!
3. I’m Dreaming of a Good Tax Plan
I’m dreaming of a good tax plan,
One that doesn’t kill our healthcare
Where the poor are respected
Income equality is perfected,
And everyone prospers, thrives, and grows.
I’m dreaming of a good tax plan
With every “She Persisted” card I send
I’m hoping you will hear me, my friend,
And this greed-y, money-grab will end.
I’m dreaming of a good tax plan,
One that doesn’t kill our healthcare
Where the poor are respected
Income equality is perfected,
And everyone prospers, thrives, and grows.
I’m dreaming of a good tax plan
With every “She Persisted” card I send
I’m hoping you will hear me, my friend,
And this greedy, money-grab will end.
4. Be Mindful Shameful Gentlemen (to the tune of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”)
Be mindful, shameful gentlemen,
stop robbing from the poor.
Remember revolution starts
and ends on your front door.
God save us from your greedy plan
To kill ObamaCare,
Wi-ith tidings of vo-ter outrage,
Voter outrage,
Oh ti-ding of voter outrage.
In cities and in country sides
The damage will be clear,
How will the people live their lives–
high taxes, no healthcare?
Republicans will damn themselves
For hurting people’s lives,
Oh ti-dings of vo-ter outrage
voter outrage
Oh ti-dings of vo-ter outrage…
5. Hark, The Senate Hear Us Sing
Hark the Sen-ate hear us sing,
This tax bill won’t fix a thing.
A tril-lion in added debt,
Isn’t right and you know it!
Let’s let go of party di-vides,
And improve the people’s lives
By tax codes – more in line
With – our founders’ – Democratic design
Hark the Senate, lest you ere,
We love our Obama-care!
Let’s make – our nation – a better place
A coun-try of hope and grace!
6. Jingle Bells
Oh, jingle bells, Paul Ryan smells,
McConnell laid an egg
Their tax plot will hurt a lot,
And shoot them in the leg.
Oh, dashing through Senate
In an ill-considered bill,
The Republicans are plotting
Their greedy, reckless shill
And, taking all of us
captive for the ride
we can’t believe they’d do this to us,
They’re not on our side!
Oh, jingle bells, Paul Ryan smells,
McConnell laid an egg
Their tax plot will hurt a lot,
And shoot them in the leg, Hey!
7. You’re a Mean One Mr. Portman (to the tune of “You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch”)
You’re a mean one, Mr. Portman,
It really is un-fair
Don’t vote – against the people or take aw-ay Obamacare Mr.
Port-man
All the while they pay your health bills, and you just don’t – seem to ca-re!
Don’t be callous, Mr. Portman
Is profit – the only – goal?
Raising taxes on your voters, giving loopholes to corporate ogres Mr.
Port-man
I wouldn’t vote for this tax bill with a nine and a half foot pole!
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
Some things are very predictable, like a big turkey looming before Christmas. And so it goes with the biggest turkey of all, Donald Trump. In cahoots with congressional Republicans, more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and wealthiest corporations are in store. In honor of this boondoggle, I give you my latest free poster: Trump’s Tax Plan Will Be A Huge Christmas Gift Because Everyone Knows That Tax Cuts For The Rich Is Practically The Incarnation of Jesus. Creating this poster helps assuage my penchant for satirizing the alleged Christian patriots who gorge themselves on government power and the public trough. Who will pay the unfathomable trillions of debt apparently owed to the rich? Perhaps they will just send the bill to Jesus…and his sheep…
Check out more free posters.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
Sow culpable Too due nothing President Trump pulls out What little hand He had in Mother Earth’s Safe guarding His oily and gassy mates Coal for everyone! It’s like Christmas!! And stocks sore In the after math Of this unbelievable savior As he Really nailed this won Portending every faux In ascension into heavin’ His big short His wee altitude toward clime Single digit approval Or not As what gives Chump change In loo of climate change
This poem is in response to President (sic) Donald Trump’s pulling out of the Paris climate change accord. For badder or worse, this clear signal of climate insanity may provide the best united front yet for international resistance to American hegemony; plus, American abdication of global leadership offers opportunities to forge more sane efforts at worldwide solidarity.
“To the dismay of our allies, the White House could any day announce the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. But as a patriot and climate activist, I’m not dismayed. I actually want to pull out.
The value of the Paris Agreement is in its aspirational goal of limiting temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, not in its implementation mechanisms, which are voluntary, insufficient, and impossible to monitor. But that modest goal will be breached shortly, which makes the agreement a kind of fig leaf, offering political cover to those who would soft-pedal the runaway climate crisis a while longer.
The U.N. Conference of the Parties is certainly not the organization to constrain powerful, retrenched fossil fuel interests and other bad climate actors and rogue climate states. The Paris agreement affords oil, gas and coal companies a globally visible platform through which to peddle influence and appear engaged on climate change while lobbying for business as usual. That won’t save the climate. At what point do we give up wishful, incremental thinking — that reason will prevail, the free market will adjust, the president’s daughter and son-in-law will dissuade him from the worst climaticide, the Democratic Party will do something, or prior policies which tinker on the margins like the Clean Power Plan won’t be totally obliterated?
I’d argue we’ve reached that point. If Trump withdraws from the Paris Agreement, at least we will have clarity instead of false hope.
Who wanted to keep the U.S. in the Paris agreement anyway? People around the world, a majority of Americans, environmentalists and other coastal elites — constituencies for which Trump has shown indifference and/or contempt. Staying in was also favored by Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, Peabody coal, eBay, HP, General Mills, Kellogg, Tesla and other multinationals the Trump administration would have preferred to keep happy. But let’s face it, they won’t be all that mad the U.S. is pulling out, and the political impact won’t be all that great.
Neither will the environmental impact. In fact, since the agreement lacks teeth, breaking it won’t have any effect on the climate in the short term. But in the longer term, the shock and rethinking it will cause in some circles just might precipitate political and cultural changes we need to stave off climate cataclysm.
Pulling out of Paris will also give the president a political boost. It gives Breitbart and Fox something to crow about and The New York Times, Washington Post and CNN something that’s not Russia-gate to fret over.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to justify or abet Trump and his supporters in climate denial, and I’m not thinking climate activists and the Trump administration will end up in some the kind of strange-bedfellows embrace. Personally, I loathe this administration and find the president’s actions mean, maleficent, and mendacious, though it’s nothing personal. On my very best days I can eke out a couple minutes of meta loving-kindness meditation for the president as a person, but it’s a struggle.
I welcome pulling out of the Paris agreement because it will disrupt our complacency and strengthen the most vigorous avenues of climate action left to us, which are through the courts and direct citizen action. It lends much more credence to the Our Children’s Trust legal argument that the federal government has utterly failed in its responsibility to consider the long-term impact of carbon emissions. It advances the arguments of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund in their federal lawsuit for the right to a livable climate. And it strengthens the case for climate activists attempting to raise the “necessity defense” as a justification for citizen climate action, as I and my fellow “valve turners” are doing as we face criminal charges for shutting off emergency valves on oil sands pipelines.
It’s also true that withdrawal from Paris deprives mainstream environmental organizations and the foundations and funders that guide them of a key deliverable, and that could risk eroding support for them. Perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. Many of them have pursued an utterly bankrupt strategy of understating the climate problem, negotiating with the fossil fuel industry, and cherry-picking small victories to showcase organizational accomplishments at the expense of a functional movement strategy.
Pulling out of Paris takes false hopes off the table, and opens the way for building an effective climate movement. So as committed climate activist who knows we’re running out of time, I say, let’s get on with it.”
The false propriety of incremental change is being smashed. Let’s join together as one planet, one humanity, to build a lasting consensus that Mother Earth deserves our love and undying respect.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
I am delighted to announce a new service for Toledo area poets and authors to publish their work. I now offer inexpensive, short-run printing of bound books. If you are a Toledo area poet or author looking for an inexpensive way to get your poetry or writing published, this new service might work for you. With a minimum run of only 10 books, you can get started without a big investment, and order only how many you need when you need them.
For years, I have self-published very small runs of my annual poetry collections for family Christmas gifts. Now, I would like to take advantage of my businesses printing and binding capabilities to help out local poets and authors. As my publishing mission states, this service is “A lot local, a little loco.” To serve local authors and save on shipping costs, I only offer pick-up. While I run an international e-commerce business, shipping everywhere and anywhere, I am increasingly working on living and working local. The loco part is longstanding and holding steady. Since I’ve been car-less for the last couple years, my experiment in living local has been kicked into high gear — that would be a bike gear by the way. I look forward to partnering with Toledo area poets and authors to get their work out there. Live local! Live loco!
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
More reliable than a GPS If surrounded by plenty And struck by want You are in a shop As goaled to led Buy that invisible hand Only wanting Too pick Your pockets
You can’t buy happiness — but not for want of trying! Chasing wealth is a perennial favorite for robbing us of our deepest human potential. This poem employs the allusion of alchemists pursuing changing lead to gold; or, in this case, irony, as the reverse is procured (As goaled to led). Money changers gruelingly posit the more-difficult-than-need-be question: you’re money or you’re life? Money changers yen for that pen ultimate exchange rate wile yielding nothing, a part from their life. Money is perhaps the least accurate representation of life, which is given and taken so freely. What a barren prospect that our human evolution is chiefly picking pockets that are madder-of-fact productive or beguilingly reproductive.
This poem is timely amidst the heavily commercialized Christmas season where the human spirit seems entrapped within mass produced stuff rather than flesh and blood. May you find yourself, in good company, wear that most precious, is given freely as received.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…with all of those homeless Middle Eastern families. This free poster offers my take on the hypocrisy of Christians in a co-called “Christian” nation worshiping xenophobia and fear rather than the radical hospitality and unconditional love that Jesus modeled from his birth. The widespread and sniveling calls to limit refugee immigration and brand all Muslims as a threat to national security is a national shame and a profound shrinking of our humanity.
Please feel free to download and/or share widely this Christmas poster to help launch conversations about what it truly means to have love and compassion for all of our neighbors around the world. We might want to stop arming and bombing the Middle East for a start…
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
I have attended Toledo’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Unity celebration for many years. Today, I decided to pass on this year’s “show” (yes, the organizers used the term “show” to describe the festivities). In recent years, I have seen this ceremony devolve largely into a whitewashed view of Dr. King and his difficult, unpopular work. Not surprisingly, dead prophets are much more popular than living prophets. From these “shows” in recent years, you’d think that MLK was the leading purveyor of generic volunteerism, charity detached from justice, flying a banner of “why can’t we all just get along” rather than “put some skin in the game for justice.” These reinventions of Dr. King are dangerous since they transmute his hard fought battles and crucifixion by gunfire into a cheerleader for the status quo, the powers that be. The image that comes to my mind is the rich and powerful atop their fortress of money, status and power looking down upon the masses calling for smiling faces and “positive” attitudes in the face of their unjust privilege and recalcitrance. Instead, we should be calling out institutional classism and racism, perpetual wars (even the failed so-called war on poverty), wage slavery, income inequality, and reigning plutocracy.
In celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2014, I am issuing a reprise of my epic MLK poem which I wrote two years:
Owed to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Rekindle the story Of Martin Luther King, Jr. An unequaled story of two halves Those who halve And those who halve not As far apart as North is from South A Protest-ant leading a Reformation To not have a preyer What kind Of moral fiber In a sea of White To pick A fight Bringing Not even A knife To a gunfight At the OKKK corral Taking a beating All that they can give To the man A hymn Of racial harmony Effacing off With ballads Against the elect Impervious to ballots Votes cast Both sides agree to only won thing Nobody wants even one King Let alone a King, Jr. And resistance is feudal Incredible odds must be faced At least Hate to won How to right a bout A fray sew Epic Verses Governors, mayors, and sheriffs Wee the people Wile police do the bidding of property owners That would be U.S. versus “them” Nationwide there would be no holiday For aegis to come With their eye halve a dream speech Portending Something between a White Christmas And some Valentines Day massacre Like anyone could be that cupid Fêted That somebody will eat Jim Crow The too haves Called out “Be patient” “Change takes time” Like a sentry Long asleep at his post For a bad check 100 years overdue…
One day I had a dream God came to me and said Meet me tomorrow at 4:32 pm On the bench In the small park At the corner of Ashland and Collingwood Near your home You have something I want My first reaction was Doesn’t God consider all of the riches of the world As but a penny?! Doesn’t God consider a thousand years As but a second?! What could God possibly Want from me?! My second reaction was Isn’t that time and place Awefully specific? I closed shop a little early that next day And I sat there In the park Lots of traffic But not a soul It seemed somewhat foolish Know one there Accept the neighborhood homeless guy And, of course, me So with perpetually bad timing The homeless man blurts out Yes, all of the riches of the world are as but a penny! Yes, a thousand years is as but a second! So be aware! Now A well dressed passerby Shakes his head Without breaking his gait I was stunned Buy the time I could Muster a thought He was walking away So I Blurted out So, if all of the riches of the world are as but a penny And a thousand years is as but a second Can you spare a dime!? Without turning He lightly raised his hand Giving a somewhat dismissive gesture Just Saying Sure In a sec
This short poem is an elaboration of a joke I once heard. I liked the juxtaposition of the sense of wealth and time from a divine and a human perspective. The “better off” human(s) in this poem find themselves ironically betwixt the divine and “worse off” humans. The joke exposes the gap between God and humans, as well as the gap between “better off” and “worse off” humans. To someone with an immediate need, like the homeless, putting them off temporarily is essentially putting their need off essentially forever. If not now, when? The sad rationale that “better off” persons use regularly is that “the poor will always be with us” (to bastardize Jesus’ words), so we can help them occasionally when it is convenient for us — thanks homeless people for presenting that ongoing opportunity! Unfortunately, this typically falls far short of meeting the need of many persons at any given time.
It is no accident that I wrote and published this poem during the Christmas season. Jesus was a homeless man without worldly riches. If we were to look to Jesus as a model manifestation of humanity and divinity, then celebrating Christmas would look little like modern Christmas, with its commercialization and focus on getting and consumption. For at least centuries, humans have had the resources to meet every basic human need. Yet, a painfully huge proportion of “present day” humans go without basic needs. This fact of abundance stands as an indictment on the scarce and barren worldview that carries the day for most of us much of the time. This is a worthy reality to reflect upon this “present day.”
Martin Luther King Day is coming up on January 20, 2014. MLK Day is celebrated in the U.S. on the third Monday of every January. The first official celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, as a federal holiday in the U.S., was 1986. This upcoming MLK Day will be the 29th annual celebration. Many younger folk will not remember a time without a MLK Day holiday. However, much like Dr. King’s long-haul struggles, getting an official King holiday met with strong resistance for a long time.
“Congressman John Conyers, an African-American Democrat from Michigan, spearheaded the movement to establish a MLK day. Representative Conyers worked in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and was elected to Congress in 1964, where he championed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Four days after King’s assassination in 1968, Conyers introduced a bill that would make January 15 a federal holiday in King’s honor. But Congress was unmoved by Conyers’ entreaties, and though he kept reviving the bill, it kept failing in Congress.
In 1970, Conyers convinced New York’s governor and New York City’s mayor to commemorate King’s birthday, a move that the city of St. Louis emulated in 1971. Other localities followed, but it was not until the 1980s that Congress acted on Conyers’ bill. By this time, the congressman had enlisted the help of popular singer Stevie Wonder, who released the song “Happy Birthday” for King in 1981, and Conyers had organized marches in support of the holiday-in 1982 and 1983, respectively.
Conyers was finally successful when he reintroduced the bill in 1983. But even in 1983 support was not unanimous. In the House of Representatives, William Dannemeyer, a Republican from California, led the opposition to the bill, arguing that it was too expensive to create a federal holiday and estimating that it would cost the federal government $225 million annually in lost productivity. Reagan’s administration concurred with Dannemeyer’s arguments, but the House passed the bill with a vote of 338 for and 90 against.
When the bill reached the Senate, the arguments opposing the bill were less grounded in economics and more reliant on outright racism. Senator Jesse Helms, a Democrat from North Carolina, held a filibuster against the bill and demanded the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) make public its files on King, asserting that King was a Communist who did not deserve the honor of a holiday. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had investigated King throughout the late 1950s and 1960s at the behest of its chief, J. Edgar Hoover, and had even tried intimidation tactics against King, sending the civil rights leader a note in 1965 that suggested he kill himself to avoid embarrassing personal revelations hitting the media.
King, of course, was not a Communist and had broken no federal laws, but by challenging the status quo, King and the Civil Rights Movement discomfited the Washington establishment. Charges of Communism were a popular way to discredit people who dared speak truth to power during the 50s and 60s, and King’s opponents made liberal use of that tactic.
When Helms tried to revive that tactic, Reagan defended him. A reporter asked Reagan about the charge of Communist against King, and Reagan said that Americans would find out in around 35 years, referring to the length of time before any material the FBI gathers on a subject could be released. Reagan later apologized, and a federal judge blocked the release of King’s FBI files.
Conservatives in the Senate tried to change the name of the bill to “National Civil Rights Day” as well, but they failed to do so. The bill passed the Senate with a vote of 78 for and 22 against. Reagan capitulated, signing the bill into law.”
It wasn’t until November 2, 1983, that President Reagan signed the bill that made Martin Luther King Day an official federal holiday, to be first celebrated on January 20, 1986.
I have a tradition of attending our local community-wide annual MLK celebration. In Toledo this event is called a “unity” celebration. I find the theme of unity somewhat incongruous with the divisive issues that Dr. King boldly and controversially confronted and persistently pursued. These celebrations seem much closer to “have a nice day” than “get jailed for justice.” While I consider it a victory to have won official recognition of Dr. King’s life and life’s work in the form of a governmental and nationwide celebration, the institutionalization of Dr. King’s institution-challenging message and life’s work is problematic. Of course, hard-fought victories can never be permanently institutionalized, but must be fought and re-fought by spirited and compassionate folks across generations. Institutions tend to be guardians of the past and the status quo. Fully alive people need to secure the day and the future. Like they say: activism is the rent you must pay for living on this planet. Otherwise our lives will face foreclosure.
Of course, MLK Day cannot expect to be immune from the inane, monetizing, unjust powers that be — just like every other holiday (formerly holy day). You can expect way more people to get excited about businesses selling discounted merchandise of MLK Day, or most any other holiday, than righteous and indignant people overturning the moneychangers’ stranglehold of debt on working people or their insistence to monetize every ideal or spiritual venture. Every celebration is met with a tsunami of merchandising. Buy your sweetie something expensive, commensurate with your love — which can’t be bought, but may be sold. Celebrate dead presidents by spending dead presidents. Buy some munitions for Independence Day. Honor veterans by living out the consumers’ creed: Live, Work, Buy, Die. Thanksgiving has been overrun by the commercialization of Christmas. Perhaps this is not surprising, since the Christmas season now reaches before Halloween. Martin Luther King, Jr., quite aptly, is in good company with Jesus. Yet the eternal question remains: Is MLK Day just a day off?
The eleventh update of the Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology now includes Top Pun’s epic poem: Christmas on Wall Street – Occupying Humanity. Top Pun made the cut, thanks to the rule that all poetry is accepted! You have to love such a movement, the people’s movement. You can download this mammoth anthology here: Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology (WARNING: this is a large file, 12.59 Mb). You don’t necessarily have to read the first 795 pages before you read my poem, although you are welcome too! Would like to submit an Occupy Wall Street related poem? Poets of the world unite!
In honor of my 50th birthday, I have decided to devote more time to writing. I hope to concentrate on pun-filled political satire, including epic poems. To get you started, here is my first major epic poem, in honor of Occupy Wall Street protesters and Jesus, both known for putting some skin in the game. The title of this epic poem, not surprisingly, is Christmas on Wall Street. Please be warned, this poem is very punny and very epic, meaning long and sweeping (mostly Wall Street Bull): Christmas on Wall Street – Occupying Humanity. Enjoy at Christmas and beyond!
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