Protest
by Ella Wheeler
Wilcox
To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men. The human race
Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance, and lust,
The inquisition yet would serve the law,
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God,
No vested power in this great day and land
Can gag or throttle. Press and voice may cry
Loud disapproval of existing ills;
May criticize oppression and condemn
The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws
That let the children and child bearers toil
To purchase ease for idle millionaires.
Therefore I do protest...
Call no chain strong, which holds one rusted link.
Call no land free that holds one fettered slave.
Until the manacled slim wrists of babes
Are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee,
Until the mother bears no burden, save
The precious one beneath her heart, until
God’s soil is rescued from the clutch of greed
And given back to labor, let no man
Call this the land of freedom.
(1914)
“…‘The process of election affords a moral certainty,’ Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 68, ‘that the office of president will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single state; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of president of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue.’
ReplyDelete“But the moral certainty of the Enlightenment broke down with the election of something more medieval. When Sen. Angus King, the Maine independent, asked Comey whether he took as a directive Trump’s expressed ‘hope’ that Comey drop the FBI’s probe of ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn, Comey reached back to the words of 12th-century autocrat Henry II that led to the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket. ‘Yes,’ Comey said, ‘it rings in my ear as kind of ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’”-Dana Milbank […]
One bad guy versus another guy is no guarantee that the other guy is a good guy. Two bad guys professing to love their country are still two bad guys. God bless America?
ReplyDelete"Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer