I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
— Marine General Smedley Butler at his retirement, 1933
I.
No Ohlone or Navajo National Anthem,
No Iroquois or Seminole National Anthem,
No Hawaiian or Mexican National Anthem,
Before bombers fly over stadiums schools and
social services were sacrificed for on altars of austerity;
No Ohlone or Navajo National Anthem,
No Iroquois or Seminole National Anthem,
No Hawaiian or Mexican National Anthem,
Before rockets red glare/bombs bursting in air
Over Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Bosnia, Libya,
Panama, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen…and
Others, soon to be announced…
II.
The bleeding baby with blown off arms and stumps for legs
Dies in a ‘surgically struck’ hospital while you drain kegs?
Commander’s quarterback, bloody band wrapping his wrist,
Running red zone plays for war-profiteers from his kill list?
Are other peoples’ children ‘collateral damage’ expendable—
Like leftovers lost when your fridge became undependable?
Why’s fighting for ‘our freedom’ always where there’s oil?
Where there’s mineral wealth buried beneath foreign soil?
How ‘bout some freedom fighting—no tanks, planes, boats—
Freeing: Fitzgerald, Peltier, Gilbert, Bell, Jamal, Shoatz…?
Ain’t ‘Incarceration Nation’ Slave State, by its other name—
Like the darker side of a barbaric, brain-damaging game?
Black players: a pick, sack, fumble, loss from: the N-word—
Inches from lynching by intoxicated mobs, the racist herd
Of Hitler-loving, hair-trigger thugs, masquerading as fans—
Just split seconds away from true team colors: their klan’s!