We had our hopes raised up
Listening to the young Black man speaking eloquently
Against the backdrop of centuries of racism
At long last the country would take a progressive turn.
We got no such thing when he got in
We got passive acquiescence to legislative obstruction
We got no help to stop rampant police murders of innocents
We got endless imperialist wars and mass surveillance.
When no one wants more of the same
Now we are going to get something different
With the screen of democratic pretensions dropped
With the billionaires and their generals dictating terms.
Their plan is to bring back the bad old days and call it
good
No minimum wage, no environmental safeguards
No social safety net for the poor and unemployed
No regulations against unbridled capitalism.
Every gain for equality won through the struggle now under
attack
The civil rights equal opportunity laws
The reproductive rights of women
The gender identity and sexual orientation rights.
Heedless of the damage their greed does to the future of the
earth
Denying the incontrovertible truth of climate change
All this in a desperate effort to maximize their profits
Taken unjustly from the people of the world.
Their wealth matters not at all to any thinking person
Who sees that they inextricably create poverty and pollution
When there could be abundance and sustainability
If government served all the people all the time.
May that thought be the idea whose time has come
Rising up in the inevitable struggle forced upon us
The change that will change everything
The hope of all the years past for a better world.
