“Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.”
― Lawrence Ferlinghetti
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.”
― Lawrence Ferlinghetti
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Hey Darvish – my brother just wrote me this email after I sent him your posting. Did you know Ferlinghetti originally wrote it in 2007? … and about the annotation: ‘after Kahlil Gibran?’ It’s funny but when I read it I somehow assumed that he’d written it before Trump. Looks like he did. fascinating no? best in Baba jim MY BROTHER WROTE ferlinghetti wrote this in 2007 when he would have been 88; this was toward the end of bush’s reign before trump was even on the radar; an annotation under the title in the original says, “after kahlil gibran”… Read more »