Steve Bates, The Yellow Doggerel Democrat®

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Doggerel for December 2001...

12/12/2001 (LINK) A year later, I am still almost too angry, bitter and aggrieved to write this. But I must... I must... WE must never forget!

December 12, 2000:
A Date That Will Live...

We mark 11th of September,
Wretched day, so all agree.
Yet I recall last 12 December:
THAT date lives in infamy.

When SCOTUS stained its institution,
Ruled a bunch of God-damned lies:
No basis in the Constitution,
They, untroubled, improvise.

O'Connor, Kennedy and Rehnquist,
Thomas, and Scalia heard,
But to their purposes they then twist
Every phrase and every word.

Remember Jeb and Rove and Baker,
Katherine Harris' hatchet job,
Each liar, cheater, thief and faker...
Oh, and don't forget the mob!

And last, not least, remember Cheney,
Sinister beyond them all;
Likewise Dub Bush: though less than brainy,
Full of spite, and mean and small.

I am uncertain any heard her
When Democracy cried out,
She, screaming foul and bloody murder...
Silenced, incomplete her shout.

Still fresh, our wounds of this September,
Evil day, so all agree...
Still worse the deeds of 12 December:
THAT date lives in infamy.

Steve Bates

12/1/2001 (LINK) My late father was in the Navy in W.W. II, and saw more combat than George W. Bush ever imagined in his worst waking nightmare of being drafted to go to Vietnam as a common soldier. My father went in with a clear notion of what he was fighting for, and emerged with no reluctance to challenge others, even war heroes, who later cavalierly advocated dispensing with fundamental civil liberties expressed in the Bill of Rights. Dad would look Marines straight in the eye and say, "Did you ever really read that Constitution you swore to uphold and defend?" By their crack-brained statements, a lot of them (not just Marines, you understand) proved they had not. Now along come George W. Bush and John Ashcroft, ready to dispense with just about every liberty in exchange for "a little temporary Safety," as old Ben put it. I have no war record like my late father, but if the opportunity presented itself, I know I would look those two straight in the eye and, on behalf of my dear departed Dad, hiss, "Mr. Bush and Mr. Ashcroft... did you ever really read that Constitution you swore to uphold and defend?"

The Good Ride

For more than two centuries, one institution
Supported our nation: its strong Constitution,
With lists of our rights that could not be denied:
We've had a good ride;
We've had a good ride.

Now, thanks to the acts of two vile public "servants,"
Those rights are now honored in breach, not observance,
Each check and each balance despised and decried...
No more the good ride;
No more the good ride.

At liberties wrenched from our grasp, one by one,
We marvel... are Ashcroft and Dubya quite done?
We've opened the papers each morning, and cried...
They stole our good ride!
They stole our good ride!

Our National Archives hold, deep in a vault,
The compact of which Dub is now in default;
Its ink fading quickly, its parchment all dried...
Here ends our good ride?
Here ends our good ride?

On top, as the Bill of Rights crumbles to dust, is
John Ashcroft, directing what's wrongly called Justice.
We're searched and we're monitored, wiretapped and spied...
A new kind of ride,
A new kind of ride.

Each foreigner born 'neath misfortunate moon 'll
Be betting his life on Dub's secret tribunal;
A drumhead's no place for a soul to be tried...
So much for his ride,
So much for his ride.

It seems we now speed down a slippery slope,
Yet even this late, I hold onto the hope
We'll halt if the brakes are adeptly applied...
We'll have a good ride;
We'll have a good ride.

One act above others oppression prevents:
Unstintingly voicing our strident dissents.
It's "use it... or lose it," and liberty's died:
Demand the good ride!
Demand the good ride!

Steve Bates


	Steve Bates, The Yellow Doggerel Democrat^®