September 11, time to buy new school clothes and books and roll out a new campaign to sell the same old product

This is the day that commemorates the venality and criminality of politicians and religious leaders, made manifest.
Wake up. Six years later, wake up.

Or, better yet, lighten up, America.

Dwelling on your injuries make you sound all whiny and maudlin, and you ruin the party! Your makeup starts running with all those tears! You're ruining your botox treatment! Here's an idea from a great leader... Go SHOPPING!

Be your selfish self and get on with it.
You've had electricity and clean water for the past six years, right?
Have you been tortured or ethnically cleansed?
Are the kids insurgents, yet?
Grow up, America.

The boogey men, OBL and Dubya are two peas from the same pod. Front men for the perpetual war machine, propagandists, chosen by the real movers for their supposed religiosity and their stage presence. Both of them are rich sons of richie riches, playing with blocks and dress up costumes like they were buildings and uniforms. What do they know of anything?

But they scared you out of your wits, didn't they.
They're pretty certain of themselves, aren't they.
Their product has been tested on focus groups.

But I think they are both losing their appeal, and I think their planners are thinking of retiring their dog and pony shows to move on to bigger and brighter shiny new products...
like Iran, and then on to the Road to Damascus.
Fall is the time to roll out the new shows, Andy!

Isn't it interesting how predictably Madison Avenue their productions have become?
It's like watching the summer reruns, only they're 6 years along now. More like watching Gilligan's Island reruns.

Dubya's speeches are worse than bad. He can barely deliver them. (or more correctly, catapult them.) And OBL has lost all credibility, showing up in a funny beard and asking us to embrace Islam, indeed. He really doesn't know us, does he.

Both of them need another speech writer, another makeup man, stand-ins, props and better costumes.
Another terrorist attack, another election, and the seasons, they go round and round and the painted ponies go up and down...

Lucky for their sponsors, they have Congress to pick our pockets and post date their checks...

bang the pots and pans

ECFS Received your Submission/Request at Mon Jul 9 14:54:42 EDT 2007
Eastern Time.

Your filing will be available for viewing online one (1) business day after the receipt of this confirmation. Filers are encouraged to retrieve and view their filing by going to http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs and clicking on the "Search for Filed Comments" link.
My Comment:

the final frontier for full information supression
Net Neutrality is essential to free speech, equal opportunity and economic innovation in America. Since the FCC removed this basic protection in 2005, the top executives of phone and cable companies have stated their intention to become the Internet's gatekeepers and to discriminate against Web sites that don't pay their added tolls.

This fundamental change would end the open Internet as we know it. It would damage my ability to connect with others, share information and participate in our 21st century democracy and economy. The FCC must ensure that broadband providers do not block, interfere with or discriminate against any lawful Internet traffic based on its ownership, source or destination.

Now it's your turn...

guaranteeing crooked elections by law

Paranoid or Prophet?

So... why DID the FBI have a file-full of his mail?
Project Artichoke?

And it all begs the big question of our day... if they can spy on American citizens, then why can't American citizens read their e-mails, read their mail, listen to their phone calls?

A "handful" of staff in Karl Rove's office destroyed 5,000 pieces of e-mail, thereby breaking the law (don't make me look it up, it's something like the Whitehouse Communications Act)and our representatives still have to wait around for subpenas?

Hey, Senator Pat Leahy, how about dashing off a National Security letter?

It's long, but worth every minute...

dear gang

"If your baby has a fever you take her to the doctor.
When the doctor says 'You need to intervene here', you don't say 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that tells me its not a problem.'
If the baby's crib is on fire, you don't stand around speculating that the baby is fire retardant.
You take action.
The planet has a fever."
Vice President Albert Gore, testifying before Congress, 3-21-07

I want to mention here the thing I was trying to tell my little gang the other night, but folks were still wrapped up in last year's movie.

The global warming denyers are gathering strength, they have the airwaves (I heard Rush Limberger poohpoohing global warming on WJR, the strongest radio signal in Michigan, and remember, the most solid block of Bush supporters (deluded voters) are regular viewers of FOX News), and they are churning out skepticism about the seriousness of the global warming crisis.Much like the tobacco industry did when they were faced with facts.

The global warming denyers in the right wingnut Christian fundie movement, and the GOP are spreading around an English movie that counters 'An Inconvenient Truth'.
I've seen it, you can too. It's easy to find online.
It is very convincing if you aren't a serious thinker and are happy to be reassured that whatever you do is 'just fine, dear'.
But if you want to hear a fact by fact rebuttal to the GOP movie, Thom Hartmann had an EXCELLENT interview with Ross Gelbspan on March 20.

If you want to talk to global warming skeptics and be prepared for answering their points, factually, then find the clip and listen to it. Get it on White Rose in the archives, or maybe Itunes still has it.

Sheryl Crow

The military and the monetary

by Gil Scott Heron


GSH wrote and performs The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

Dear Representative Kildee

Dear Representative,

I’m writing you today as your constituent, to urge you to cosponsor the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007 and the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007 , both of which were introduced on Thursday by Representative Jerrod Nadler. These bills would restore the right of habeas corpus to the almost 400 detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and other noncitizens held in U.S. custody without trial. The Restoring the Constitution Act would also undo much of the damage done by the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA).

The passage of the MCA was a dark moment in our nation’s history, and some of it most egregious effects are that it:

• Strips detainees of the right to challenge their indefinite detention through a writ of habeas corpus;
• Limits the ability of citizens and noncitizens to rely on the Geneva Conventions to challenge abuses committed by U.S. government officials;
• Allows for evidence obtained through torture and coercion to be used in military commission prosecutions in some instances; and
• Drastically widens the definition of “unlawful enemy combatant,” and, denies noncitizens who are or might be classified as unlawful enemy combatants from having a fair hearing.

These provisions blatantly violate our obligations under domestic and international law and need to be repealed. Please show your support for the rule of law and human rights by co-sponsoring or supporting the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007 and the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007.

Your support is critical to ensure that justice is served for the Guantánamo detainees and, as importantly, for the American public and our respect for the rule of law.

(text from: Center for Constitutional Rights, you can send an e-mail to your Congressional Representative too...
http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/home.asp

Bush Punishes Frilly Michigan

State winces with Bush budget plan
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
By Sarah Kellogg
WASHINGTON -- Michigan's budget woes may be getting worse.
We Didn't elect DeVos!
President Bush's proposed 2008 federal budget, which was released Monday, would siphon hundreds of millions of dollars from key state-federal programs, ranging from Medicaid to the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).
KILL the POOR!
That leaves Michigan officials scrambling, trying to figure out where to plug holes in the state budget and hoping that a Democratic Congress won't adopt the Republican president's $2.9 trillion spending plan for 2008 without major changes.
And the Flint Journal STILL publishes those damn Flushing rightwingnut opinions that this is all the fault of the Dems~
"Michigan's got a lot of critical issues we're facing, especially in the coming weeks," said Dan Beattie, a spokesman for Gov. Jennifer Granholm. "The federal budget is clearly not going to advance state citizens' interests in a whole variety of programs."
Gotta get us some LOCKHEED-MARTIN Factories!
Michigan faces a $1 billion state budget shortfall this year, and it could be looking at even more in 2008. The governor will release her 2008 budget on Thursday. The state and federal budget years start Oct. 1.
Why oh why would anyone want to govern Michigan?
Bush administration officials were quick to point out that efforts to balance the budget by 2012 while paying for the war in Iraq leave little room for frills.
Michigan = A Frill
"Getting balanced requires keeping the economy strong, and sensible and realistic spending restraint," said Rob Portman, director of the Office of Management and Budget. "The president's budget is able to achieve both of these goals while funding critical priorities."
Fact: Historically Michigan Is A DONOR State. We are not the Entitlement Pigs, the WELFARE QUEENS of these 50 states, Oh, no, we pay more to the Federal system and get less back.
Bush's budget would eliminate or reduce 141 government programs, saving about $12 billion over five years. It also would reduce farm subsidies by $18 billion over five years. The biggest savings -- $100 billion over five years -- would come in Medicare.
KILL The POOR!
Tell me, my Fundie Friends, what was it your Lord and Savior said about the sick and suffering?
"We owe it to the American taxpayer to balance our books," said Michigan U.S. Rep. Dave Camp, R-Midland. "The president's budget would provide surpluses in 2012 without raising taxes. Clearly Congress needs to closely examine the details of this budget and make our own policy, but Congress should balance the budget without raising taxes."
A Faith Based Budget. All the poor, homeless, and sick should be dead by then?
Keeping spending in check comes at a cost, though.
But not to Richie Rich guys. Thanks to Bush, The Middle Class Worker pays a higher rate of income tax than a Lazy Capitalist who lives off of investment income.
The president's budget would reduce Michigan funding in 2008 by $100 million for Medicaid, $40 million for Community Development Block Grants, $17 million for Social Services Block Grants and $27 million for LIHEAP.
KILL the POOR!
"The budget should be a reflection of our national priorities, (KILL the POOR!) but once again President Bush has shown he is out of step with the majority of Americans," said Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat, in a written statement. "The president's budget sends billions of dollars in new reconstruction funds to Iraq while cutting vital domestic programs."
KILL the POOR, BLAME the WAR, but don't STOP the WAR, Debbie!
More than 78,000 of Michigan's poor seniors and some mothers and their children would lose access to the federal Commodity Supplemental Food Program, under the Bush budget. The program, which provides monthly food packets to eligible participants, would lose its entire $108 million national budget.
Bombs not food.
Advocates for the poor say proposals to freeze funding at 2007 levels can be just as devastating as cutting spending, since the cost of doing business continues to grow.
The middle class who run programs won't give up the annual raise.
The Bush administration has proposed flat funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides health care for poor children, along with Headstart and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
LET THEM EAT CAKE!
"The essential flat-funding of child health care and Medicaid is really a big concern," said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, a spokeswoman for the Michigan League for Human Services, a research and advocacy group based in Lansing. "We're already losing (health care) providers because we pay such low rates....These freezes are being absorbed financially by providers and parents, and in a real way by kids."
KILL THE POOR'S KIDS! Hey It's Their Fault they were born to poor parents! JEBSUS WILL LOVE 'EM.
A bright spot in the budget was funding for Great Lakes programs. The Great Lakes Legacy Act would receive $35 million to fund toxic sediment cleanups and another $7.65 million would be made available to construct a barrier across the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to block Asian carp from coming into Lake Michigan.
OOOH a Bright Spot.
Who dumped the toxics?
Are they living la vida loca somewhere, sending their kid to Yale?
Why do taxpayers get the bill?
Why is sludge in landfill better than sludge in riverbottoms?
Who got the contract to dredge and store?
Who got the contract for the fish fence?
A program to keep ALIEN fish from invading EL NORTE Lake Michigan.
Scientists don't even agree it'll work!
And maybe we should have a program phamphleting Chinese restaurants to educate the folk that it really ain't lucky to dump any ole good luck fish into bodies of water.
But the president's budget would eliminate nearly $200 million for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which helps finance improvements in city sewer systems. The 2008 budget recommendation is $687.5 million.
Faith Based Sanitation.
"The president's budget is a mixed bag (A flaming bag-o-shit on the front porch) for the Great Lakes," said Jordan Lubetkin, a spokesman for the Great Lakes office of the National Wildlife Federation, an environmental group. "Playing seesaw with Great Lakes programs, some going up and some going down, is not going to comprehensively restore the Great Lakes."
Hey Global Warming and Global Ballast and "Ice Mountain" Nestle and those aforementioned sewers and the soon to be re-proposed drilling are going to kill the the Great Lakes just fine. We got Armegeddon coming soon (the bible and George W.tells me so) and who cares anyway?
Several federal programs that have helped Michigan manufacturers and their employers are slated for cuts, although there are no exact numbers on how Michigan would be impacted. The Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which helps train small manufacturers, would lose almost $60 million, and the Advanced Technology Program, which helps manufacturers develop new technologies, would lose $67 million.
KILL the MIDDLE CLASS, TOO! After all, we got a WAR MACHINE in the Backyard that WANTS Feedin'!
Original unmarked-up copy from Booth Newspapers.

on the other hand

I'm wondering who gets custody of all the limbs?
Maybe collect them for a tasteful display for the Bush Library?

Dear Representative Conyers

You have the gavel.
That's what you told us at the Progressive Town Hall two years ago in Flint, Michigan.
We just needed to work for anti-war candidates, and when the Democrats gained power, you'd have the gavel.
It was a nice reassurance: we met, we marched, we volunteered, we hoped.

We were schmucks.

You have the gavel, you are the prosecutor.
We can't do it.
It's why we elected you.
We followed the law and the custom, now you should enforce the Constitution, or else it is all only a puppet show.

I don't care if it is your last political act, if the DLC told you to run out the clock... live to fight another day... keep your powder dry.

George W. Bush is a serial killer.
Stop him before he kills again.

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"Never separate the words you speak from the life you live."
-- Paul Wellstone

"A time comes when silence is betrayal. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought, within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world."
-- Martin Luther King Jr.

average Americans

Good Luck to All the Fine Demonstrators this weekend

"A time comes when silence is betrayal. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought, within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world."
-- Martin Luther King Jr.

the good old days are gone, when Rights were Sacred and Due Process was Law

Mayberry Patriots

Rude, but Punditiness

I read the writings of the Rude Pundit for some humor, some relief, and some very good points.

1/15/2007
Why Martin Luther King Would Fuck Bush's Shit Up (2007 Edition):

Because of this, from the New York Times, December 2, 1965, on the House Un-American Activities Committee:

"If they continue to investigate the civil rights movement, it can mobilize the kind of opposition to the committee which can well mean the end of it."

And because of this, from a March 1967 interview with that paper, on the Vietnam War:

"First, I feel this war is playing havoc with our domestic destinies. As long as the war in Vietnam goes on, the more difficult it will be to implement the programs that will deal with the economic and social programs that Negro people confront in our country and poor people generally.
"So in a real sense, the Great Society has been shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam...

"There is another reason why I feel compelled at this time to take a stand against the war and that is that the constant escalation of the war in Vietnam can lead to a grand war with China and to a kind of full world war that could mean the annihilation of the human race...

"We are the greatest military power and we don't need to prove our military power. I think we are superbly well-placed, equipped to take the initiative in this and create the atmosphere for negotiations by ceasing bombings and some of the other things we are doing. Now if our nation insists on escalating the war and if we don't see any changes, it may be necessary to engage in civil disobedience to further arouse the conscience of the nation and make it clear we feel this is hurting our country.

"And I might say this is another basic reason why I am involved and concerned. It is because I love America. I am not engaged in a hate America campaign. I would hope that the people of this country standing up against the war are standing up against it because they love America and because they want to see our great nation really stand up as the moral example of the world.

"The fact is we have alienated ourselves from so much of the world and have become morally and politically isolated as the result of our involvement in the war in Vietnam."

Martin Luther King would fuck Bush's shit up because he reverses Bush's notion of what the moral equation is in war. Morality avoiding war. Morality is ending war. Moral authority can never be gained by the gun or the bomb or the electric shock.
And because he knew that truly loving your nation means being able to say it is wrong.

history repeats itself

If corporations have personhood, then ideas are gods.

The Mask of Anarchy
Written on the occasion of the massacre at Manchester
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

As I lay asleep in Italy
There came a voice from over the Sea,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.

I met Murder on the way—
He had a mask like Castlereagh—
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him:

All were fat; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed them human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew.

Next came Fraud, and he had on,
Like Lord Eldon, an ermined gown;
His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to mill-stones as they fell.

And the little children, who
Round his feet played to and fro,
Thinking every tear a gem,
Had their brains knocked out by them.

Clothed with the Bible, as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile rode by.

And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, and spies.

Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.

And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw -
"I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!"

With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.

And with a mighty troop around
With their trampling shook the ground,
Waving each a bloody sword,
For the service of their Lord.

And with glorious triumph they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of the wine of desolation.

O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea,
Passed the Pageant swift and free,
Tearing up, and trampling down;
Till they came to London town.

And each dweller, panic-stricken,
Felt his heart with terror sicken
Hearing the tempestuous cry
Of the triumph of Anarchy.

For from pomp to meet him came,
Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
The hired murderers, who did sing
'Thou art God, and Law, and King.

'We have waited weak and lone
For thy coming, Mighty One!
Our purses are empty, our swords are cold,
Give us glory, and blood, and gold.’

Lawyers and priests a motley crowd,
To the earth their pale brows bowed;
Like a bad prayer not over loud,
Whispering—‘Thou art Law and God.’—

Then all cried with one accord,
‘Thou art King, and God, and Lord;
Anarchy, to thee we bow,
Be thy name made holy now!’

And Anarchy, the Skeleton,
Bowed and grinned to every one,
As well as if his education
Had cost ten millions to the nation.

For he knew the Palaces
Of our Kings were rightly his;
His the sceptre, crown, and globe,
And the gold-inwoven robe.

So he sent his slaves before
To seize upon the Bank and Tower,
And was proceeding with intent
To meet his pensioned Parliament

When one fled past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said:
But she looked more like Despair,
And she cried out in the air:

'My father Time is weak and gray
With waiting for a better day;
See how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands!

'He has had child after child,
And the dust of death is piled
Over every one but me—
Misery, oh, Misery!'

Then she lay down in the street,
Right before the horses feet,
Expecting, with a patient eye,
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.

When between her and her foes
A mist, a light, an image rose.
Small at first, and weak, and frail
Like the vapour of a vale:

Till as clouds grow on the blast,
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,
And glare with lightnings as they fly,
And speak in thunder to the sky.

It grew—a Shape arrayed in mail
Brighter than the viper’s scale,
And upborne on wings whose grain
Was as the light of sunny rain.

On its helm, seen far away,
A planet, like the Morning's, lay;
And those plumes its light rained through
Like a shower of crimson dew.

With step as soft as wind it passed
O'er the heads of men - so fast
That they knew the presence there,
And looked, - but all was empty air.

As flowers beneath May's footstep waken,
As stars from Night's loose hair are shaken,
As waves arise when loud winds call,
Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall.

And the prostrate multitude
Looked - and ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
Was walking with a quiet mien:

And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,
Lay dead earth upon the earth;
The Horse of Death tameless as wind
Fled, and with his hoofs did grind
To dust the murderers thronged behind.

A rushing light of clouds and splendour,
A sense awakening and yet tender
Was heard and felt - and at its close
These words of joy and fear arose

As if their own indignant Earth
Which gave the sons of England birth
Had felt their blood upon her brow,
And shuddering with a mother's throe

Had turned every drop of blood
By which her face had been bedewed
To an accent unwithstood,-
As if her heart cried out aloud:

'Men of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another;

'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number.
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.

'What is Freedom? ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well—
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.

''Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants' use to dwell,

'So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.

''Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak, -
They are dying whilst I speak.

''Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye;

''Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More than e'er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old.

'Paper coin - that forgery
Of the title-deeds, which ye
Hold to something from the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.

''Tis to be a slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.

'And at length when ye complain
With a murmur weak and vain
'Tis to see the Tyrant's crew
Ride over your wives and you -
Blood is on the grass like dew.

'Then it is to feel revenge
Fiercely thirsting to exchange
Blood for blood - and wrong for wrong -
Do not thus when ye are strong.

'Birds find rest, in narrow nest
When weary of their winged quest;
Beasts find fare, in woody lair
When storm and snow are in the air.

'Horses, oxen, have a home,
When from daily toil they come;
Household dogs, when the wind roars,
Find a home within warm doors.
Asses, swine, have litter spread
And with fitting food are fed;
All things have a home but one -
Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none!'

'This is Slavery - savage men,
Or wild beasts within a den
Would endure not as ye do -
But such ills they never knew.

'What art thou, Freedom? O! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand - tyrants would flee
Like a dream's imagery:
'Thou are not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.

'For the labourer thou art bread,
And a comely table spread
From his daily labour come
In a neat and happy home.
Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude -
No - in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see.

'To the rich thou art a check,
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim, thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.

'Thou art Justice - ne’er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England—thou
Shield’st alike both high and low.

‘Thou art Wisdom—Freemen never
Dream that God will damn for ever
All who think those things untrue
Of which Priests make such ado.

‘Thou art Peace—never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be
As tyrants wasted them, when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.

'What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood ?
It availed, Oh, Liberty.
To dim, but not extinguish thee.

'Thou art Love—the rich have kissed
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Give their substance to the free
And through the rough world follow thee,
Or turn their wealth to arms, and make
War for thy beloved sake
On wealth, and war, and fraud - whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.

'Science, Poetry, and Thought
Are thy lamps; they make the lot
Of the dwellers in a cot
So serene, they curse it not.

'Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,
All that can adorn and bless
Art thou - let deeds, not words, express
Thine exceeding loveliness.

'Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of English ground
Where the plains stretch wide around.

'Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity.

'From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast;
From every hut, village, and town
Where those who live and suffer moan
For others' misery or their own,

'From the workhouse and the prison
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old
Groan for pain, and weep for cold -

'From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares
Which sows the human heart with tares -

'Lastly from the palaces
Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound
Of a wind alive around
Those prison halls of wealth and fashion.
Where some few feel such compassion
For those who groan, and toil, and wail
As must make their brethren pale -

'Ye who suffer woes untold,
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold—
'Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free -

'Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.

'Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.

'Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses' heels.

'Let the fixed bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen as one for food.

'Let the horsemen's scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.

'Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,

'And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armed steeds
Pass, a disregarded shade
Through your phalanx undismayed.

'Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute,
'The old laws of England—they
Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
Children of a wiser day;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo - Liberty !

'On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state
Rest the blood that must ensue,
And it will not rest on you.

'And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, -
What they like, that let them do.

'With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.'

'Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.

'Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand—
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.

'And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.

'And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.

'And these words shall then become
Like Oppression’s thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain.
Heard again - again - again -

'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'