Cloth Diapers...

 

© September 11, 2023, the Griot Poet

Twin Towers image source: ABC Australia

Twenty-two years ago today,
The world was propelled unwillingly into the arms of blowback:
A Saudi Sheik, Osama Bin Laden,
Trained by the CIA in the Mujahadeen,
Convinced 19 men, 15 from his nation,
To willingly plunge top-fueled planes into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon,
Some "let's roll" Flight 93 passengers thwarted a fourth meant for the US Capitol.

Sixty years ago this week,
I was one year, one month and one day old,
On my mother's thirty-eighth birthday,
I was potty trained.
I was reminded of this,
Not that I would remember it after
I bragged to my big sister that my granddaughter was two and potty trained.

"We had cloth diapers back then. No one was playing with you, Reggie,"
Meaning: Changing cloth diapers, flushing the load, and WASHING them probably wasn't pleasant!
And the observation that disposable diapers might have delayed development.

On our mother's birthday,

I was one year, one month and one day old.
On that day,
Four girls were killed by white supremacists in the notorious 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, sixty years ago.

Growing old in my community is a privilege not afforded to many.
To this day, in 2023,
We rightly describe Al Qaeda as a terrorist organization,
Yet, the Department of Justice has no such designation for Nathan Bedford Forest's KKK,
Whose whole existence centered on terrorizing the newly freed and formerly enslaved into not voting in the best interests of their communities.

Two medical professionals,
Dr. Elizabeth H. Blackburn and Dr. Carol W. Greider,
Shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine with Dr. Jack W. Szostak in 2009 "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase."

Let me translate:

The long, thread-like DNA molecules that carry our genes are packed into chromosomes, the telomeres being the caps on their ends. Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak discovered that a unique DNA sequence in the telomeres protects the chromosomes from degradation. Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn identified telomerase, the enzyme that makes telomere DNA. These discoveries explained how the ends of the chromosomes are protected by the telomeres and that they are built by telomerase.

If the telomeres are shortened, cells age. Conversely, if telomerase activity is high, telomere length is maintained, and cellular senescence is delayed.

Source: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2009/

The National Institute of Health found telomeres profoundly shortened in African Americans, corresponding to shorter lifespans of existence.

September 11, 2001, was on a Tuesday.
September 15, 1963, my mother's birthday, was on a Sunday.
Four little girls, who should be grandmothers, were practicing for a performance that day when domestic terrorists bombed their church.

Their reaction to the March on Washington on the anniversary of Emmitt Till's lynching.

And my mother and father, the day after, had to go to work on Monday.
(For them, "Father Knows Best," "Ozzie and Harriet," and Ward and June Cleaver in "Leave It to Beaver" did not exist as an option.)
After the news, they had to drop me off at the sitter and hope that they would see me again.
Attending church services (I was told) was understandably limited.
Living in fear of being killed for being black shortens your telomeres.
There is cause and effect, not "Curses of Ham" or divined magic.

Growing old in my community is a privilege.
We are 400 years tired of this terrorism.
For the "sin" of being brought here in chains for forced servitude.

It isn't "woke": It's history.
It isn't "book banning": It's psychopathy.

You CANNOT ban the book that is seared in my soul.

What's insanity is that the Department of Justice still refuses to designate Christian nationalists, the KKK, white nationalists, and white supremacist groups as domestic terrorist organizations, like Al Qaeda.

As Americans finally experienced,
On September 11, 2001,
The psychological effects of the horrific fear of not knowing what calamity would end your existence.

Living in fear of being killed for the "sin" of being alive shortens your telomeres.

As my big sister observed:
This country needs more cloth diapers for our development.

Collective Psychosis...

 

© August 20, 2023, the Griot Poet

Inmate number: P01135809, Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia, or,

If “fucked around and found out” got a mugshot!

 

“4 indictments, 91 felony charges, 2 impeachments, 1 act of sedition, and threatening civil war, 26 women alleging sexual assault. 1.13 million Americans dead from COVID. And he IS the frontrunner of the Republican Party. This is why I call it a collective psychosis.”

 

Quoting Forensic Psychiatrist Dr. Bandy Lee,

Formerly of Yale University, warned us.

She gave her expertise in what used to be a tweet,

She, and 26 other psychological professionals broke the “Goldwater Rule” and published “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.”

 

The cost was her tenured position, that’s supposed to be beyond reproach.

 

Collective, or shared psychosis “can also happen in groups of people who are closely involved with a person who has a psychotic disorder (called folie à plusiers, or "the madness of many"). For instance, this could happen in a cult if the leader is psychotic and their followers take on their delusions.”

 

Source: https://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/shared-psychotic-disorder

 

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-shared-psychosis-of-donald-trump-and-his-loyalists/

 

What does tenure mean?

It used to mean that academics were free to speak “truth to power” without fear of retribution.

I guess in Dr. Lee’s case, being Asian and female, there was an exception made, but not for her 26 other coauthors and colleagues.

 

What is the “rule of law,” if a scion who lucked out in the “Sperm Lotto” can wriggle out of felony charges that would put any ONE of us under [the] jail?

 

Justice HAS to prevail!

 

“But: He didn’t participate in the insurrection,” you say?

Well, Bin Laden didn’t fly any planes!

Charles Manson didn’t murder anyone!

Your point?

 

Stochastic terrorists don’t “do the deed.”

They just plant the seeds so that some numbskulls carry out their bidding.

 

For Osama, it was 19 hijackers, 15 from Saudi Arabia.

Charles Manson had his twisted “family” do it.

“Hold my beer” said he “loves the poorly educated.”

(Because they can be easily manipulated.)

 

This is not a cartoon on Saturday mornings,

Where the tension is scripted,

Where Wile E. Coyote falls off a cliff with an anvil from Acme, Inc. into a ditch,

Crumbled in the denouement of the scene,

And reconstituted without a scratch in the next.

 

Real life has consequences!

Real life has monumental decisions that will result in whether our planet is hospitable to human existence,

Or having thousand-year mega-storms every week.

Try maintaining a high Dow Jones Industrial Average on THAT recipe!

 

By the way:

The Dow isn’t a measure of the economy.

It’s an indicator of stock trades on Wall Street,

89% of which is owned by the 1%.

So, the Dow is more accurately, a mood ring for rich people, or an oligarch Rorschach test!

 

They’re not banning books to spare white kids’ feelings:

They’re banning books so they won’t learn empathy!

Because “walking in someone else’s shoes” means learning what you didn’t know about them.

Knowledge breeds empathy; ignorance breeds violence.

 

George Santayana said that “those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”

The book banners want us to be ignorant so they can easily repeat it!

 

71% believe that what “Big Lier” says is true.

63% believes their family and friends.

56% believe conservative media.

42% believe religious leaders.

 

Source: https://www.axios.com/2023/08/21/trump-republican-2024-voters-poll

 

Now, out of 46 presidents, he’s the ONLY one who has a mugshot!

 

It’s. A. Cult!

Conservative Judge J. Michael Luddig said “there IS no Republican Party” as he previously understood it.

He, and liberal Harvard emeritus professor, Lawrence Tribe, Grok to it.

This is what a constitutional crisis looks like!

When one major party is marginally democratic,

And the other major political party exists in Zones beyond Twilight.

Both are shouting as loud as they can:

This “man of sin,” this “son of perdition” is a “clear and present danger to American democracy.”

 

A cult leader has risen to godlike status.

A warning:

All cults, from,

Jim Jones in Guyana, South America,

David Koresh Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas,

Marshall Applewhite of Heaven’s Gate Cult in San Diego, California,

 

All dead.

Poisoned Flavor-Aid. Fire and shootouts. Cyanide to “beam up to the mothership.”

All because they gave godlike status to a FLAWED human.

 

And eventually, it all comes to an end.

The survivors will comprise three camps:

The sane among us, like Dr. Lee, who tried to warn us,

The same people who will be responsible for repairing what’s left,

The embarrassed, waking up that they were duped by a conman,

Pretending that they were never on “team crazy,”

And the “true believers” who will deify his remains on Mount Olympus.

(They’ve already constructed a graven image in Florida, not a desert)

 

Hopefully, they will be in small enough numbers, and self-identify so that we can ignore them!

 

My hope is this: history illustrates that after every dark age, there is a renaissance.

 

Let’s vote for our future and get to it!

Insurrection Insurgency...

"The January 6 Insurrectionists Aren't Who You Think They Are," Robert A. Pape, Foreign Policy

© April 8, 2023, the Griot Poet

The second insurrection post-secession and Civil War was not on January 6, 2021.

 

On March 16, 2016,

President Barack Obama,

Nominated Merrick Garland,

Then, the Chief Justice of the United States Court of Appeals,

As his pick for Supreme Court Justice,

 

To replace conservative Justice Antonin Scalia,

Who had unexpectedly perished,

The court, for the first time, would have been a liberal-leaning 5 to 4 majority,

Garland was seen as a moderate,

Mitch McConnell denied it.

“Moscow” wouldn’t even give him a hearing,

That aberration of The Constitution was the first salvo in the modern insurrection.

Article II, section 2:

“He shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States”

 

The Senate utterly ignored it.

 

“Evil Turtle,” said the next President should have the duty to appoint the next Associate Justice.

 

Unless, of course, that person was Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

 

The Republican Senate was willing to keep the seat open, in perpetuity, until the election of a Republican president!

 

If not 2016, then 2020.

If not 2020, then 2024.

“On, and on till the break of dawn,”

Until The Constitution is in tatters,

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat in this alternate reality would also be absent.

 

The political punditry has blown off this fact,

By blocking the appointment of Merrick Garland,

The GOP had already staged an unprecedented attack on The Constitution,

An insurrection and insurgency,

 

It was a bloodless coup in 2016, then,

“Moscow Mitch” blocked any attempt to mention outside Russian interference,

Facebook, Twitter, Social Media manipulated by the GRU in the Kremlin,

Now: TikTok is a gaslight distraction tinged by Asian racism.

Putin pumping out propaganda and spreading lies,

Chief purveyor:

His compromised “Manchurian Candidate.”

Before “The Big Lie,” a free and fair election was stolen.

And, we’re worried about the “useful idiot’s” collusion?

 

Stoking the fears of “great replacement,”

By demographics and immigration,

On Fox “Not” News,

Railing about,

Groomers as LGBT and drag queens who don’t exist,

But missing priests and ministers posing as "profits,"

 

Fascism is like a slow-boiling crab or lobster,

Each thrown in a bubbling cauldron,

Whether creature or republic, the changes in temperature are slow and subtle,

Lobsters and crabs, in this metaphor,

When one of the creatures tries to escape the death trap,

 

The one is pulled back,

Probably hearing, in crustacean language:

 

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Everything’s fine.”

“All is well!”

 

When the crustaceans or society realizes the danger,

They’re already in hell!

 

Joy Reid, on her TikTok, sounded alarm bells.

Paraphrased:

Don’t get complacent if you’re not black, Hispanic,

Or, you are, and are affluent,

Or white women,

Or LGBTQ in the majority,

They are coming for you next!

 

Overturning Roe vs. Wade makes sense to force women to have babies,

They want to stop all immigration except [from] Scandinavian nations,

 

North Carolina, with a turncoat Democrat switching parties,

Now has a veto-proof Republican majority,

It just repealed the need to get a permit to buy a weapon.

Meaning: any lunatic with the money can get them.

Right after the Tennessee shooting,

Right before Louisville, Kentucky,

Florida did the same thing.

Look for the next gun massacre in my home state.

 

Their goal is to terrorize citizens,

Their goal is to make us constantly fearful,

 

At school, at the mall, at the movie theater, at work, at the bank, at libraries, at worship, at parks, at clubs, at book signings,

Breonna Taylor died while sleeping!

 

Because when you’re afraid, you’re not rational,

It’s why they oppose history and education,

So we won’t have a framework or information to fight them,

 

George Carlin: “Governments don’t want a population capable of critical thinking. They want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.”

 

They are reconstituting slavery in the 21st century.

The first forced births of this nation were my African ancestors,

This time, they’re applying diversity, equity, and inclusion!

 

Congresswoman Michelle “crazy eyes” Bachmann,

Wanted to eliminate the minimum wage.

Because why would you pay wages to re-enslaved people?

Her party has been on a rampage since 1981,

When Reagan said, “Government isn’t the solution: government is the problem.”

This snag is the reason why they oppose reparations.

The only gods they worship are Mammon (greed and avarice) and Moloch (sacrifice children on “cremations of care,” or in the modern, gun massacres).

 

Octavia Butler’s prophecies in “Parable of the Sower” and “Parable of the Talents” are coming to pass.

Democracy, however, doesn’t have to be on its last gasp.

We used to skip the off years and vote in the general,

Don’t sit out voting for [dog] catcher!

 

Humans have spent most of our existence under the rule of kings, sheiks, emperors, potentates, authoritarians, psychopaths, despots, and demagogues.

 

Democracy matters!

It’s not “self-evident” or automatic!

Bring Moscow Mitch and these insurgent insurrectionists to their political Appomattox.

 

The only way they come to their senses is by losing winnable elections.

The only way they diversify their party is to see racism isn’t profiting.

The only way we stop this dystopian nightmare is to vote them into irrelevance!

Not News...

 

Image Source: https://br.ifunny.co/picture/OyR3UJ6m7

© March 1, 2023, the Griot Poet

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” George Orwell, 1984

 

Dominion voting’s lawsuit,

Has pulled back a Bizarro land of Oz curtain,

Led by an Aussie who I can’t Grok with,

Rupert doesn’t write poetry to start with,

Emperor Murdoch has no clothes,

And has utter disdain for his viewers/victims,

 

Rupert,

Consciously let his anchors,

Lie to their viewers about the election,

Telling them the truth about an accurate result in Arizona,

Drove them over the deep end into a conspiratorial abyss,

Letting Mike Lindell, Sydney Powell, and Rudy Giuliani spew their filth,

Confessing under oath: “It’s all about [the] Benjamin’s, baby!”

 

Roger Ailes created this hellish network,

After Richard Nixon flamed himself out with Watergate,

Rupert was all in on it,

Funded by him and a Saudi Sheikh,

To pump out gaslighting to its viewers,

On a nightly, daily, and weekly basis,

 

Rupert and Roger wanted,

Not just a conservative-friendly “news” outlet,

They wanted to bend the laws of physics, reality, science, and facts themselves,

 

The first razor-thin election was in the year 2000,

The public [was] prepped by fear of the Y2K virus,

To condition them for a faux apocalypse,

After stealing the election with Clarence Thomas,

Junior ignored the August 6 presidential daily briefing,

“Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US,”

“Well, you’ve covered your ass now,” he said in Crawford, Texas,

Caught flat-footed in a Florida classroom on September 11,

 

He turned a disaster into a political advantage,

His party turned it into Münchausen syndrome by proxy,

Continually ruining the patient - the federal republic - to reclaim 9/11’s “glory.”

 

Fox is not a news outlet,

It’s a propaganda arm for weirdos and fascists,

Their own lawyers’ defense of Tucker Carlson in court was:

“The ‘general tenor’ of the show should then inform a viewer that [Carlson] is not ‘stating actual facts about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘non-literal commentary.’” [1]

In other words, he's lying.

 

Rush Limbaugh called his followers “Ditto Heads.”

Alex Jones should call his "Prepper Pigeons."

How about: “Tucker Suckers?”

The shoe fits.

 

Brian Welch,

In a 2010 HuffPost article,

Made the point succinct and district:

Fox is a cult. [2]

This observation was nine years after 9/11 and eleven years before January 6,

Their objective is to take over their viewers’ minds,

Making them susceptible to autosuggestion,

Facts for them are irrelevant,

 

Murdoch,

Shared election ads and debate notes,

From the Joe Biden campaign,

With Jared Kushner,

The son-in-law of Orange Satan,

This act is a violation of Federal Election Commission laws,

Defined as “an illegal in-kind donation,”

This act is a violation of the Security and Exchange Commission,

And the fiduciary Board of Directors in the corporation,

Emperor Murdoch only controls thirty-nine percent,

Which does not give him a controlling majority,

After the Dominion lawsuit concludes,

Likely with a massive settlement,

It opens people like Former House Speaker Paul Ryan,

On the Board of Directors, to personal liability and lawsuits!

He had a fiduciary responsibility,

On learning about the deception,

To resign his position and go PUBLIC,

News flash: he didn’t.

 

Fox was the first to align its reporting desk with its entertainment business.

Boycott 20th Century Fox movies.

Instead of ignoring this fascist propaganda ignorance,

We must eliminate it to save our republic.

 

Since they license under their entertainment division,

I offer a new name to label this distinction:

 

“Not” News.

A simple change,

From a noun to an adverb, it will tell anyone who dares to watch it,

Their best bet for accuracy is with “The Onion.”

 

The First Amendment protects freedom of speech and the press,

That freedom does not mean,

Colluding with political campaigns,

Or spouting Russian propaganda nonsense nightly in prime time,

 

They’re following the Russian propaganda technique: “Firehose of falsehoods,”

 

An avalanche from atop Jon Stewart’s “bullshit mountain.”

American citizens will stop caring about the truth!

Their audience has had twenty-seven years of this Pavlovian conditioning.

 

Rupert Murdoch, Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo, Laura Ingrate, and Sean Insanity,

All were lying,

During the 2020 election,

Leading up to the January 6 insurrection,

They panicked when upstarts News Min and QAN copied,

Their propaganda model,

Taking a measly 10,000 viewers,

The latter: AT&T dropped them.

The former barely registers as a pixel blip.

“The stock price is down: not a joke!”

Spouted by the guy too weird for the CIA,

Spouted by the guy fired from CNN, MSNBC,

On his third try,

He was taken in by Sith Lord Murdoch because instead of journalism, all he had to do was lie.

 

Ailes, Limbaugh, and Murdoch,

The “vast, right-wing conspiracy” Axis of Evil,

They were the “original gangsters” who monetized crazy,

“Loofah” O’Reilly brought us the made-up “war on Christmas,”

While committing stochastic terrorism until Dr. George Tiller was murdered.

Alex Jones grifted [much] later on the parents of Sandy Hook,

They will continue this until monetary legal accountability hurts them.

It’s why conservatives attack public education.

Democracy requires an “informed citizenry,”

Ignorance is the foundation of tyranny.

A propaganda machine cannot defend the First Amendment,

While simultaneously hinting at “Second Amendment” remedies,

 

I hope this lawsuit finishes this sponsor of domestic terrorism.

 

Give Vulpes Canis, the Fox, its grace and dignity,

Disassociate it from your alternative reality,

And call American Pravda what it is [really]: “Not” News.

 

1. You Literally Can’t Believe The Facts Tucker Carlson Tells You. So Say Fox’s Lawyers, David Folkenflik, September 29, 20204:34, PM ET, NPR.
2. Fox News is Not Just Biased - It’s a Cult, Bryant Welch, Contributor, Mar 18, 2010, 05:12 AM EDT | Updated May 25, 2011, HuffPost

Invention Inventory...

 

Image Source: What ‘arms’ looked like when the 2nd Amendment was written, Analysis by Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post

© July 7, 2022, the Griot Poet

 

In 1791,

Travel unless by maritime,

Was by horses and buggies,

Or hiking,

 

Communication,

Centered on newspapers,

And letter writing,

 

Delivered by courier,

Or carrier pigeon,

 

Unfortunately,

A lot of medical advances,

We made by the anti-Hippocratic,

Surgeries on enslaved African women,

Without bothering to use anesthesia,

 

Plantation oligarchs

Allowing abortion for their wives and mistresses,

They were motivated against abortion for their property,

Because babies that were born into slavery,

Increased their exchequers and political viabilities,

The same goes for their progeny

In the 21st Century,

The 13th Amendment has an exception,

African Americans are thirteen percent of the population, and the majority are in for-profit prisons,

Seventy percent of farm laborers are undocumented,

So are the builders of suburban homes and white picket fences,

 

Don’t get it twisted:

 

In 1791,

The 2nd Amendment was written before the invention of the bullet.

 

Let me say that again:

 

The 2nd Amendment was written before the invention of the bullet.

 

The colonists had gunpowder and muskets.

 

How to load a musket:

 

1.       Pour powder from a powder horn into a measure holding a predetermined amount.

2.      Pour the powder charge down the barrel of the gun.

3.      A patched lead ball at the muzzle is shoved down the barrel until it rests on the powder charge.

4.      Pour a finer grade of powder into the rifle pan.

5.      Hammer pulled back and frizzing closed, the weapon is ready to fire - ONE lead ball.

 

The mechanical engineering

That could Auto CAD design,

Kalashnikov, Ruger, Sig Sauer and

AR15s did not exist,

 

Every bloody step of Manifest Destiny,

Improved the technology of death-dealing,

As colonizers cleared the prairie,

Of its indigenous inhabitants,

Who must be “othered” as savages,

Over three hundred treaties with the US were not honored by it,

So the eventual genocide can be conveniently swept under the rug of contrived history,

Easier to stomach in municipalities,

Populated by the descendants of plantation oligarchs,

Not wanting the responsibility of paying reparations to US citizenry,

 

Imagine:

Rules for carrier pigeons govern the Internet,

 

Imagine:

The mathematics of traffic flow before differential equations, or Garrett Morris,

The black inventor who gave us the traffic light and the gas mask,

 

Imagine,

C-sections,

Episiotomies or ectopic pregnancies

Withholding anesthesia before such surgeries,

 

You can’t.

 

But you can imagine:

Unfettered access to weapons of mass destruction,

Make an electorate fearful of its [own] “we the people” government,

The “great experiment” in constitutional or parliamentary democratic republics,

Overturned by foppish hacks,

In Great Britain and the US,

Malignant Narcissists with bad combovers,

 

For the sake of the next quarter,

For the sake of shareholders’ stocks,

Forsaking self-government for short-term profits!

We Can't...

 

Robb Elementary School, Uvalde, Texas, David Frum, The Atlantic

© May 24, 2022, the Griot Poet

 

“Schools scared to death.

The truth is, one education under desks,

Stooped low from bullets;

That plunge when we ask

Where our children

Shall live

& how

& if”

Amanda Gorman, Inaugural Poet’s tweet

 

I just got back from my granddaughter’s dance recital,

She did what looked like the funky chicken to “Here Comes the Sun,”

In Austin, Texas,

It was innocent, uplifting, and precious.

 

Eighty-five miles outside of San Antonio,

Nineteen kids and two teachers were murdered in Uvalde, Texas,

 

Senator Chris Murphy is full of PTSD from Sandy Hook,

“Cancun Cruz” tweets “thoughts and prayers” and arm more teachers,

Uvalde has the greeting “Bienevidos”: welcome,

On the entry sign, the shooter saw,

 

Cancun: how do I protect my granddaughter?

 

Do you [REALLY] want me in your office?

 

Does it have to hit your exclusive Cul de Sac,

Until you [actually] give a shit?

 

Your NAME is Theodore Raphael Cruz, Junior,

You are the child of a Cuban immigrant,

Fleeing Fidel Castro,

Born in Canada,

Qualified to run for office,

Because your mother was a citizen,

(Just like President Obama's),

You’re just as brown as those babies in Uvalde, Texas,

Stop fronting; you brown Anglo-Saxon!

 

They have guns in Canada,

But no mass shootings ten days apart,

Seventy percent of licensed gun owners,

Are a-okay with stricter background checks,

 

You’re a sadomasochist,

If your instinctive reaction,

Is to quote gun industry talking points,

Shrug, and go to your next fundraiser,

 

This ghoul-ism should have stopped with Columbine,

 

America is a death cult,

The only thing exceptional is its willingness,

To stomach a high body count,

 

My grandbaby was born into a pandemic,

She has masks fashion-coordinated,

When she gets to elementary school,

She’s going to be introduced

To active shooter drills,

 

Like Chris Murphy,

Spare me your bullshit,

About mental illness,

 

Like Coach Steve Kerr,

HR8 for background checks was passed by the House TWO YEARS ago,

Held up by Moscow Mitch and the antebellum filibuster,

 

We’re eleven people from universal background checks,

The only checks Republicans care about are from Smith and Wesson,

We have liability insurance to drive automobiles,

Why not for the idiots who need an arsenal of semiautomatics?

 

This shooting is the WORST In Texas history.

The NRA: not responsible anytime - are having a meeting,

May 27, Friday in Houston, Texas,

Cancer Cruz will probably give a keynote address,

Cornyn has a “scheduling conflict.”

 

We are the antithesis of John Donne’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls,”

We’re not “a piece of the harbor,”

“A part of the main,”

We’re an island among similar industrialized nations,

The number one way for a child to die in America is by gunfire,

We’re utterly alone.

 

El Paso, Waco, the UT sniper,

Twenty-six angels in Sandy Hook,

Now, angels have taken flight in Uvalde, Texas,

Texas passed a bill so that ANYONE can walk around with a gun,

Without training or licensure,

You need training wheels to ride a bike,

A learner’s permit to get behind a steering wheel,

Texas LAW enforcement was against this,

31,000 that would have been caught with a background check,

Freeing psychopaths to arm themselves,

Gregg Abbott still passed it.

You can’t pass up a chance to “own the libs,”

A fresh check from the NRA hot in his pocket,

No chance of duck and cover at the Governor’s mansion,

Or Cancun Cruz’s Cul de Sac,

 

We can’t keep doing this!

 

I don’t need your throwaway “thoughts and prayers” bullshit,

We’re not going to be a functional society,

When there are NO safe places for humans to be in,

See how “free market capitalism” works then!

The Assault Weapons ban from 1995 to 2005,

It was allowed to EXPIRE

By George W. Bush,

Bloodbath payback to the gun lobby,

Australia solved the issue in Port Arthur in 1996,

And haven’t had a mass shooting since,

 

Other countries were on lockdown during the pandemic,

Other countries have mental health issues,

Other countries were in Zoom classroom meetings,

Other countries have young, impressionable men,

Other countries don’t have this amount of slaughtering,

 

Roe vs. Wade and “right to privacy” is on the chopping block,

 

We have an election in November,

We need a bigger share of sanity in the Senate and Congress,

 

Nancy Pelosi needs a supermajority,

Chuck Schumer needs a 62-38 Senate,

So Manchin, Sinema, and the archaic filibuster are rendered irrelevant,

And we can investigate Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh,

 

We need useless lawmakers, unemployed, and insignificant,

We can’t trust these psychopaths with total power again:

VOTE!