“The year that they roared”

In the year of our sword

2008

Amid wars, ethnic violence and hate

Spears of justice are shattered, plowshares were scattered

Our Papers choose to ignore

death tolls and maimed soldiers

Instead leaning toward articles about

plastic surgeons and noses soldered —

How quickly everyone forgets issues like Guantanamo

when squeezed between

Iraq and economic hardplaces

In the year of our corporate board, 2008

No hope to coerce people into currents

The flash flood of American culture

led to a damning of anti-Americanism

A damning of our consumerism emanating

from contaminating corporations

Swooping down like vultures to prey on developing markets

In this new debate arena we cannot afford

To ignore whole sects of ideas

Cover our eyes and peekaboo them away

Or reject them with the rubber stamp of

Terrorism

Socialism

Or Patriotism

Those black and white pictures, just nameless faces

No longer registering governmental disgraces

Look to the future

start turning some pages.

We need something fresh, squeaky clean, untainted by years

Of cold thinking, old politics, old fears

Not sold out, wavering on his ideals

Backed by cranking gears of grass-roots machine

Calling out votes and uniting old folks

A hero with an ear low to the ground

Making sure our political and carbon footprints

Are sound

Ignoring the feeble rants

And mindless political banter

A visionary who won’t let the growing divide

between us and them

Change into a divide

between the U.S. and Them.

Dan Schechner is a junior in Morse College.