Where Power Lies

3. Offence and Consequence

Not In My Name: Stateless

Back before PMs were famed for their dicks

when the language of Straw was hard as bricks

Cool Britannia thawed, just dropped off its stick;

Tracey and Damien didn’t seem so sick.

Transparency veiled the ultimate trick

when the stooge coalition followed the hick

and the Press Office spread its newsless slick:

“There’s an enemy within that’s stained us:

if you’re not with us, you’re against us.”

The old draft dodger seemed less angelic

when Baghdad Museum became a relic.

Civilisations came and went before

American tanks stirred the streets of Ur

and household utensils that survived five

millennia were used to pave the drive.

The message too was privileged and brainless:

“The love of Jesus Christ sustained us:

if you’re not with us, you’re against us.”

Public statements groped for portentous

as our leader’s fellow condescenders

manipulated signs the bombers sent us:

“They’re Enemies of Freedom, not dissenters.

You can’t explain pure Evil this horrendous:

those who understand them can’t avenge us,

if you look for motives, you’re offenders.”

They want to add a question to the census:

Tell us, are you with us or against us?

Governments are run by traders who deal

in lies with countries they would like to steal;

democracy works since it serves the need

of those who want to rule, and they succeed

fantasising enemies to fool us.

So we’ve most to fear from our own rulers

when free citizens are told by censors,

“Opposition never has constrained us;

if you’re not with us, you’re against us.”

The young see parliament to be sad old

hypocrites whose virgin sisters they sold

to win their seats; the old think we’re skewered

by the young, and sibling traders feel secure

in power just as long as they obscure

the truth. The powerless dream too: they live

to crush the young with shock and awe belief:

 “Our intelligence is what convinced us

if you’re not with us you’re against us.”

If it takes madness to defeat mad terror,

if my freedom causes envy, error,

if the answer’s ancient rage and foreign war

while I grow rich and fearful, fat and strained –

if Life and Right can simply be exchanged,

if Truth and Justice oil our mass distractions,

then we pay too much for this abstraction:

“Right is ours, though half the world defamed us;

if you’re not with us, you’re against us.”

Honest leaders don’t need revenge or prayer;

they fly with new ideas, give chaos sight,

and join with Dylans railing at the night.

So if I didn’t cry I’d have to laugh,

when failed magicians saw the world in half,

use terror to distract us from despair.

It’s clear when liberties enchain us

and our savage watchdogs turn against us

that those charlatans have left us stateless.

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