A certain degree of outrage may be the only way to change the path
Sometimes the words of a simple poem are more powerful than those contained in a news article or TV broadcast. It speaks to the heart, lingers longer in the mind, and hopefully sparks reflection in a way not prompted by provincial sources of commentary.
The following poem from David Kregers book, Today is Not a Good Day for War, is particularly poignant and befitting the current political climate . In an environment of lack of accountability, corruption scandals, civil liberty abuses, torture allegations, and mounting deaths of soldiers and Iraqi civilians, this poem conveys its message more effectively than
any five-hundred word editorial could.
Worse Than The War
Worse than the war, the endless, senseless war
Worse than the lies leading to the war
Worse than the countless deaths and injuries
Worse than hiding the coffins and not attending funerals
Worse than the flouting of international law
Worse than the torture of Abu Ghraib prison
Worse than the corruption of young soldiers
Worse than underming our collective sense of deceny
Worse than the arrogance, smugness and swagger
Worse than our loss of credibility in the world
Worse than the loss of our liberties
Worse than learning nothing from the past
Worse than destroying the future
Worse than the incredible stupidity of it all
Worse than all of these,
As if they were not enough for one war or country or
lifetime,
Is the silence, the resounding silence, of good Americans.
Posted by
Kirsten Waerstad on Wed, Dec 07, 2005 @ 15:12 PM