Wednesday, February 3, 2021

This Is How the Dread Begins: When Fascism Rears Its Head

U. S. Capitol Building (Getty Images)

If you look up to the tabs at the top of this blog page, you will see one titled, "Journalistic Poetry." I began writing those poems in January of 2016, in response to the new administration in the White House. There are currently 21 poems in that collection, most written during the first 100 days of the current administration. The following poem was first posted in September of 2017.  I re-post it today because even though the authoritarian fascist presidential candidate lost the election, the storming of the Capitol Building on January 6 and the subsequent kowtowing of Republicans to fascist elements demonstrates that we are in danger of forfeiting our democratic heritage. ~ CK

Fas-cism: a political system based on a very powerful leader, state control of social and economic life, and extreme pride in country and race, with no expression of political disagreement allowed.  (Cambridge Dictionary)



The Government We Get

This is how the dread begins –
                    too easily.     

Fascism is too easily
Spoken.
The word itself
Suddenly stops
                   all examination
And hinders
                 possibilities.

It makes us think
                   in graphic images –
Lets us picture the other
As mindless oppressors
                   whose foreign tongue
And jackboot heels
Set perimeters of conformity –
And the other
                    is always the other.    

Fascism is too easily
Held
In times of hate
When the world becomes
                 afraid and uncertain.
It has been
Our default mode
Of governing
Ourselves – as if
                   we would be governed.

What harm is it
                   to want to be
With people who look like us?
Where we can speak with ease
                   and without care?   

We gravitate toward a system
                   that helps us
Not think
Not struggle
                   when times are hard.

We then hand it over
                   to those in charge
To set the perimeters of conformity. 

Just let me have
                    my own couch
And kitchen table –
And people like me.

It all seems natural
And normal.
Therein lies the problem.

This is how the dread begins.
                                              
                                                  ~ CK 




Statuary Hall and the U.S. Capitol Building (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

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