Send Money your Donation is Tax Deductible

Image from Arlington Cemetary (taken by me)

The quarrelsome men promise victory in the end.

"There will be victory and prosperity again!"

We will defeat the evil enemy bye and bye

And those who have harmed us will surely die!

 

The men on the stage have a certain charm.

We will make our enemies build our walls

...and fund our wars.

And we will snatch all the glory.

Send money, your donation is tax deductible.

 

It's always the other folks who are corrupt!

Have you noticed the one finger pointed outward?

The leaders of my side always deserve all our money.

"The one percent are too rich!"

("Never mind that I'm a member"), he didn't say.

"I'm exempt because I'm leading the fight."

Apparently rules are for the enemy to break.

Send money, your donation is tax deductible.

 

The enemy! They are corrupt!

"The Oil barons want to blow us up."

"These person here shills for Wall Street"

"That person there is evil and must go down to defeat."

The trumpets blast the trash talk.

As former friends face off in hate.

The generals say "pay the accusations of that other fellow no mind"

"They are liars! March in step with us"

"You must follow ME. I'm your fearless leader!"

And "Send money, your donation is tax deductible."

"It is paying for my Vacation"

 

Meanwhile us common folks try to pay our rents

and our other bills

Whether or not we are bedazzled by magical claims

We pray that all will soon be fine.

We pay for all the magic with our blood, sweat and tears.

And when they can't deliver on promises, we are the bottom line.

Even when we start to feel like we've turned into a turnip.

the letters keep coming:

"Send money, your donation is tax deductible."

 

We have no objection to paying.

We will pay the costs for what we need.

Blood, sweat and tears? We bleed.

We know that burden dates to Adam and Eve.

We toil by our sweaty tears.

to try to make it better.

We sacrifice to help our fellow Human.

If only our fearless leaders would deliver on their promises.

But the letters keep coming:

"Send money, your donation is tax deductible."

 

I can buy a vision of peace

And march in step with the fearless leader.

I see a vision;

Great peace, and rows and rows of returning volunteers,

marching home again.

But that transforms in my imagination to rows and rows of uniform graves,

Each decorated with little flags

And mouldering in the rain.

My vision of joy transformed;

Into one of tragedy

children and their moms...

Weeping besides graves.

They aren't sharing a vision of peace when they say:

"Send money, your donation is tax deductible."

 

If it were only just my people and our scoundrels doing this.

I could blame my cons, carry a gun and securely fight on.

But the scoundrels are the same all over.

They talk so pretty, in the languages of the world.

It all sounds so romantic when they tell their people how great they are.

But when the children die it's because the fearless leaders lie,

Meanwhile they send their children to the same schools in Switzerland.

Where they learn to beg:

"Send money, your donation is tax deductible."

Christopher H. Holte 5/27/2016

This is a rewrite of what I wrote in 2013:

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/05/victory.html