Children,

In the old days

It was different.

People made their own decisions.

They had to reach consensus.

(Please copy this word in your notebooks

Under “Words To Be Forgotten.”)

You can imagine how difficult it was.

Imagine you had to decide your lunch menus every day,

Which teachers you’d have,

What you would study, where you'd go --

And you constantly had to cooperate!

Well, don’t bother.

I can tell you, it would be excruciating.

That’s our "Word for the Day," by the way.

As in pain.  As in torture.

Since the Reign of George the Securer,

Life has become infinitely pleasant.

Who remembers infinite from last week?

Bobby, you didn’t raise your hand.

Go stand in the corner

And wear the Abu Ghraib dunce cap over your head!

Now, children, eyes forward, ignore that boy for now.

In the old days, I was saying,

We had this thing called Congress.

Have you seen termites chewing on a log?

You know how the log gets gooey-soft and rotten?

That’s how it was with Congress and with our Legal System --

Thousands of congressmen, lawyers and judges

Chewing, chewing, chewing, making slurpy noises,

Except, it wasn’t a log, it was the country,

Our beloved country,

And it went on, this chewing -- on and on and on,

Until one man said No! --

One man who had the courage to stand up and say

What no one had ever said: “I’m the Decider!”

Imagine!  Imagine the magnificence!             

Questions?

Yes, Jennifer, there used to be something called a Bill of Rights.

Where did you hear about it?

From your grandparents, you say?

I would like you to tell the principal after school today.

As for the rest of you, it will not be on the test.

This Bill of Rights became a Bill of Lefts -- leftovers, that is!

Everything that the Founders couldn’t fit in the Constitution

They put into this Bill of Rights.

And then other people came, adding their own two cents.

All kinds of people with all kinds of ideas.

You can imagine how unwieldy that got!

(Add the word unwieldy

To your “Words To Be Forgotten” list.)

You all know how selfish people can be.

Everyone was saying,

They have a right to this and a right to that,

And not a lick got done.

Our country was at risk. 

And then … then, The Decider said he would tell us

What was in the Constitution.

He would take that responsibility unto himself.

Imagine!  Imagine the magnificence!

Everyone knew their place again,

Everyone had their job to do.

If someone didn’t do their job, they could be swept up --

Like dead bugs in a dust pan.

That was a hard time, children;

There was much weeping in this land.

You do not want to know how terrible it was!

The sights we saw!

It is infinitely better now.                                                          

There hasn’t been a Raid for ever so long.

Everyone does what needs to be done.

If someone forgets their job,

The Raids will come again.

So, we must always be prepared.

We can't let down our guard!

If you hear some whispering,

If you see someone with suspicious eyes,

You must tell, you must call the NSA --

Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom!

Bobby, no slouching!  Stand up straight!

William, go punch Bobby in the face.

Now, Bobby, stop crying,

Or I will ask a girl to kick you

Where the sun don’t shine!

Children, I was saying, life is better now.

We used to have this thing -- what was it? --

Something called Democracy

Which made everybody batty.

(Add the word Democracy

To your “Words To Be Forgotten” list.)
 

Dr. Gary Corseri’s articles, fiction, poems and dramas have appeared at Dissident Voice, CounterPunch, CommonDreams, The New York Times, Village Voice, Redbook, City Lights Review, PBS-Atlanta, WorldProutAssembly and elsewhere.  He has published two novels and two collections of poems, edited the Manifestations anthology, taught in public schools and prisons in the U.S., and in universities in the U.S. and Japan.  He can be reached at: corseri@verizon.net.

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