{"id":1849,"date":"2015-08-20T05:21:58","date_gmt":"2015-08-20T10:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/?p=1849"},"modified":"2016-04-22T15:07:44","modified_gmt":"2016-04-22T20:07:44","slug":"poem-attorney-general-edwin-meese-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/20\/poem-attorney-general-edwin-meese-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"POEM: Attorney General Edwin Meese III"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know of a man I never met<\/strong>
\nA foe of mine, I can only bet<\/strong>
\nA very close impersonal friend<\/strong>
\nTo my unknown needs he’s supposed to tend<\/strong>
\nTo rehabilitate me from what to what<\/strong>
\nMaybe he’s a pure-bred and I’m only a mutt<\/strong>
\nWe make quite a pair<\/strong>
\n‘cept it’s me in the pound<\/strong>
\nYet he’s always around<\/strong>
\nA thousand miles away<\/strong>
\nYet I can hear his voice<\/strong>
\n“If charged you are guilty”<\/strong>
\n“If hungry it’s your choice”<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wrote this poem in 1987 while imprisoned for my epic failure to register for the military draft.\u00a0 Below is a copy of the actual handwritten poem.\u00a0 I had the original taped on my office wall near my desk for years.<\/p>\n

Draft registration was reinstated by President Jimmy Carter as a response to the Russians invading Afghanistan.\u00a0 Seems to me that invading Afghanistan would have been punishment enough.\u00a0 We had the opportunity to learn such as lesson later — or not.\u00a0 President Ronald Reagan, after breaking a campaign promise to abolish draft registration, continued it.\u00a0 I was in the first batch of young men subject to this new law in 1980.\u00a0 I spent the entire decade sparring with the world’s greatest military superpower, with a couple of years of probation and community service ending in 1989 — like I need the federal government to sentence me to community service!\u00a0 Out of the millions of young men in violation of this Military Selective Service Act, less than a dozen were convicted of such flagrancy; all were public in their opposition.\u00a0 Seems pretty pathetic for a so-called superpower.\u00a0 I didn’t learn my lessen.<\/p>\n

I feel no need for vindication, but I do feel like I have now lived through a full cycle of history, and history is on my side, if you believe in sides, that is.\u00a0 While assuring my incarceration to make sure that I wasn’t around to not defend our homeland, the U.S. was training and equipping their version of freedom fighters, the likes of Osama bin Laden and the lesser known Frank N. Stein.<\/p>\n

This poem is about President Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General, Edwin Meese III.\u00a0 Though there was a lot of competition, Ed Meese was only clearly beat out as the most pathetic administration crony by James Watt, Secretary of the Department of Interior, which Mr. Watt, in his signature suicidal hatred of government, wanted to abolish; though it’s still not entirely clear whether it was the department or the environment he wanted to destroy.\u00a0 Ed Meese was infamous for the two sayings recounted in the last two lines of my poem.\u00a0 In an astounding disavowal of the U.S. Constitution, Mr. Meese, claimed that most suspects can be rightly assumed to be guilty.\u00a0 Well, it’s not like he was the overseer of federal and constitutional law — sheesh!\u00a0 The other statement, out of the jurisdiction of even his ignorance, was that if people are\u00a0 hungry in America, it’s their choice.\u00a0 When I heard this, I could have swore that his little round belly shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly.\u00a0 Well, OK, it wasn’t his belly full of jelly.<\/p>\n

I’ve made my choice, and 28 years later I’m still hungry for justice…<\/p>\n

\"Attorney<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know of a man I never met A foe of mine, I can only bet A very close impersonal friend To my unknown needs he’s supposed to tend To rehabilitate me from what to what Maybe he’s a pure-bred … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,101,57,9,38,15],"tags":[563,331,533,726,762,481,469,115,148,559,620,402,157,187,658,530,27,615],"class_list":["post-1849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-top-pun","category-anti-war","category-peace","category-poems","category-political-action","category-political-and-philosophical-musings","tag-america","tag-community","tag-competition","tag-constitution","tag-draft-registration","tag-environment","tag-failure","tag-freedom","tag-government","tag-history","tag-impersonal","tag-justice","tag-law","tag-military","tag-poems","tag-president","tag-protest-poetry","tag-punishment"],"yoast_head":"\nPOEM: Attorney General Edwin Meese III | About Top Pun, Anti-War, Peace, Poems, Political Action, Political and Philosophical Musings | Top Pun's Poetry, Funny Puns, Free Posters, Public Health Radio Show! 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