Another Political Poem.

Perhaps there was a time when democracy

Meant something more than a free-market shake down,

When people with an eye to the future planned

In the service of the common good and their fellow man.

I hear the ideals of the Declaration of Independence

And at once know those noble thoughts are strangled.

Politics is no longer 'the art of the possible';

It is the art of making the impossible seem possible

While working to ensure the possible is mangled.

Maintaining power, no matter what the cost,

Is the focus of today's politicians,

And if this means any vision is lost

To appeal to the lowest common denominator,

Such as prejudice, fear, economic uncertainty,

Then, like the whores they are, they will do it.

To fail your constituency is acceptable

But to fail your party is a hanging crime,

The punishment being Death By Media.

If politics has become the entertainment arm of big business

Then we are watching the dreariest reality TV show of all time,

Where the participants are dull and unattractive,

Who speak in clichés and show no nous

So that in the end we don't even care

Who gets kicked out of the house.

© shaun patrick green 2011