My Country, Tears of Thee...

Yesterday, on Labor Day, Lawrence Ferlinghetti was on DemocracyNow to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of 'On the Road' by Jack Kerouac, and its significance to the Beat Generation.
He read a beautiful poem that hasn't been published yet because he just wrote it.

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.

Of course I love the political sentiment, but it is also just beautiful art in that it is timeless and placeless yet completely rooted in its time and place of our modern U.S.:

Also- He's 88 years old and still creating art that expresses his radical
ideals!
Which goes to show that one does not have to grow conservative with age, as all of us young(ish) lefties have been told numerous times. Don't believe it- keep fighting against injustice!