Need to Believe

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Need to Believe

 

“I want to believe.”  X Files

 

The key to understanding America

In the early twenty-first century

Is to realize our need to believe

That everything is fine

The march of progress is unstoppable

Our rights can never be taken

Our freedom is secure

The great warming is just a rumor

American greatness is beyond question

American democracy cannot die

And every generation will be greater

Than the last

 

We so need to believe the mythology

That we are willing to abandon reason

Eager to demonize science

Happy to discard medicine

Ever anxious to believe that a two-bit

Con man is our greatest hope

 

Americans have always been

Creatures of divine faith

Credulous to the ultimate extreme

Yet we have always shaken

The chains of gullibility

At times of historical need

 

Maybe this time is different

Maybe this time we’ll sleepwalk

Through the days of Armageddon

Or maybe we’ll awaken in time

To understand that only we

Can arrest the decree