Sunday, December 21, 2008

Easy Targets

The Nazis
Did not leave
Did not die
The Nazis
Were normal
And what is normal
Never dies
They were only doing
What everyone else did
As you and I
Only do
What everyone else does
Their economy was bad
Their hate was not hidden
There was never a question
Of them not killing
The question was
Which of their own
Would they disown?
The Jews
Were easy targets
The Germans were
A hateful people
As we are
A hateful people
They had built
Their own violent culture
As we have built
Ours
They could not solve their problems
So they renamed them
Called humans animals
We cage ours
In ghettos
And hope they kill
Each other
But in case they don’t
We’ve made our homes
Into cages
And we’ve bought machines
To entertain us
So we rarely have to go outside
And for those
Times when we do
We teach our children
Not to talk to strangers
We teach them to be safe
We teach them to be frightened
Or frightening
It’s necessary
In our society
And we can’t do anything about it
We may not like it but
This is as normal
As our lives
get.

1 comment:

Sean Craven said...

One per cent of the US population is being held in what are, effectively, rape camps -- and this is regarded as a source of humor.

We've managed to turn our elected government into a spigot delivering public funds into corporate pockets -- the bailout is being used to fund executive privileges.

Our (blessedly) current administration are as serious proponents of the big lie as the world has ever seen.

And so on. And so on.

I remember when I'd hear someone comparing the US to Nazi Germany and I'd feel that it said more about the person making the statement than it did about the US.

I miss those innocent days.