The Civil War
Is certainly
The most peculiar episode
In U.S. history.
Like all wars
Americans have fought
It was an unpopular one.
Try to remember that.
The idea of what it was fought for
Has actually been debated.
But there is no debate.
It was fought
Because of the institution
Of slavery.
Period.
The Union believed
Because of the rising Republican Party
That slavery no longer had a place
In legitimate society,
That its spread
Should be curtailed.
The South believed
It should continue
Across new state lines.
Many lies have been told
And believed
Since the war was fought
And most of them
By those who are now
Claiming to be
The proponents
Of moral superiority.
Strangely,
They obsess over the details
They don’t understand,
That the slavery
They abhor,
That subjugated
A race
And warped
And defined
History
Is now
A thing of the past.
They can’t understand
Disparities
They accept as everyday life
As having anything to do
With the peculiar institution,
That exploiting others
Under gross terms,
Because they term it
Giving the next generation
A better future
Somehow means
It’s okay
If the prior one
Suffers.
Put in the hard work!
…Somehow only really
Required
And is a reality
When someone else
Has to do it
All day
Every day
Of their lives,
Not behind a desk,
Not on paper,
Not networking
But being trapped in a job
With no chance of leaving it
Just for the idea
Of giving your children
Opportunities
You never had.
When we look at immigration now,
How many of those we pity
Are going to live
Better lives only insofar
As they are escaping worse conditions
Back home?
How many are destined
To live
In their generation,
The lowest levels
Of our society?
Does that make you proud?
Does that sound
Like a system that is working?
That you should argue
Is worth fighting for?
Does it really sound
So much better
So different
From slavery?
Slavery,
In which a person
Had no other choice?
If an immigrant
Must work in a field
In order to work at all,
That is slavery.
If an immigrant
Will only find work
By cleaning up
After someone else,
That is slavery.
You don’t need chains
You don’t need a whip
To call it peculiar.
You don’t need politicians
Calling it a way of life,
You don’t need a state
To exist
To affirm its existence,
You don’t need to breech
The sacred tenets
Of a constitution
In order to fight
To preserve
Tyranny.
Reality
Isn’t a set of words.
It is the functioning world around you,
It doesn’t exist
Out of the good will
And good intentions
Of those who want to believe
They’re right.
It exists as all society
Experiences it,
Not as you would hope,
Not as you believe,
But in the real world.
If you believe
You are fighting
For a better world,
Reflect the better world
You want to see.
Don’t preach
And then wallow
In your comforts.
Don’t complain
And then relish
Your easy delights.
Don’t chastise
And then lazily reflect
On meaningless indulgences.
If the better world you seek
Exists in small pockets
And you erode the greater good
In order to fill them,
Then you are hollowing out
In your hollow virtue,
The wholeness
Of the world,
You are emptying it out.
You are not the inheritors
Of Lincoln,
You are the critics
Who hounded him
In the North
In the Union.
Because that was where
He was most hated.
That is what they call
A martyr.
That is what they call a hero.
Anything less
Is everything freedom
Opposes.
