[Newspoetry] Undemocracy in America continues unabated

[DL Emerick]

Undemocracy in America
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/18/AR200712180
2332.html> 

The US Senate has always been undemocratic.

With uneven growth of population,
or a natural lack of uniform density,
The Senate was destined to be undemocratic,
To balance small States against big States -
And Direct Elections, a so-called Progressive move,
Only helped obscure this most undemocratic fact.

The Senate is a club against democracy,
Founded upon the idea that the people are dangerous,
That their own democratic tendencies are chaotic and erratic,
Never to be trusted, not by any wise man in a republic.

The club has its rules, too,
Most of them aimed at stopping democracy dead in its tracks -
Notorious among which is the old filibuster:
You must have a super-majority in the Senate,
A concert of powers, to do anything much.

It takes 40 votes, presently, to block democracy.
This is, apparently, an easy number to obtain.

Besides that, only 25 Senators voted to end war funding,
23 Democrats,1 Republican and 1 Independent said "End the war",
But 21 Democrats, 48 Republicans and 1 Independent said "No" -
A handful of Democratic Senators were absent without leave,
out campaigning, variously posturing on Iraq, here and there.

So, if only 23 Democrats oppose the war,
What should they do, when their party votes for violence,
When their party votes to continue an unjust war?

The time has come for them to become a minority in fact.
They need to tell the party, "Go to hell - I will not be a Democrat,
I will not pretend that you and I agree in principle on democracy -
For you support that bastardly butcher of Baghdad,
Bush and his war criminals and their unjust war."

That's what courage and conviction demands:
To be "in the right with two or three",
To create great moments in history
<http://www.speakerscorner.net/docs/hunger.html> ,
Moments that are worthy monuments of us,
Because we stand erect against indifference,
Against subservience to evil ever in power.
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