Lowering Crime in New Orleans

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN POLITICS

 

Lowering Crime in New Orleans

 

The murder rate is down

Violent crime? The same

Crime is lower all around

There’s no one left to blame

 

How did this miracle happen?

Did they summon the National Guard?

It happened in the way back when

Katrina slammed N’Orleans hard

 

The poor folk of the Big Easy

Were scattered far and wide

Few returned to their poverty

Their old haunts were gentrified

 

The Guard was never needed

They spread the crime around

A new way of life was seeded

And planted on higher ground

 

So if you want to change your city

Let New Orleans show the way

Just reinvent it nice and pretty

Let the wealthy come to play

 

Round up all the poor folks

And scatter them around

Laugh like it’s a private joke

Reinvigorate your town

 

 

The Price of Freedom

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

 

The Price of Freedom

 

You never know the price of freedom

Until your freedom’s gone

Just when you think it could not come

There are soldiers on your lawn

 

The Guard is in the square

They’ll ask you for your name

The police are everywhere

They want someone to blame

 

They’re rounding up the workforce

To ship them to the border

With a vow to stay the course

In the name of law and order

 

They don’t need to show you cause

Their guns will tell you all

In defiance of the law

You’re up against the wall

 

You wonder how it came to this

How we let it slip away

One day they put you on a list

There is a price to pay

 

Now freedom’s just a memory

Of how it used to be

When we were a democracy

This land of liberty

 

Police State

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AUTHORITARIANISM

 

Police State

 

Crime in the district is down

Don’t let the facts get in the way

The Guard is coming to town

It’s law and order day

 

The district is not the first

They’ll be coming back to LA

From there it only gets worse

They’re coming to town to stay

 

There’ll be no more demonstrations

No more protests of any kind

Welcome to the police nation

Want a job? Get in line

 

They’ll have your number and your name

They’ll know exactly what you’re up to

The dirty immigrants are to blame

Put em all in an immigrant zoo

 

Your freedoms and your rights?

Just how much do they mean?

The dimming of the light

Among the worst we’ve ever seen

 

The Guard in LA

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CIVIL LIBERTIES

 

The Guard in LA

 

To brutalize the people

Is not the duty of the Guard

You’re leaving us no option

But to push back hard

 

The agents of the Homeland

Are completely out of place

Waging war against the people

An incredible disgrace

 

The people do not want you here

Throw your weapons to the ground

You’re marketing in hate and fear

To this course you are not bound

 

For this is not a war zone

No one summoned you for aid

The violence you’ve caused has grown

Tear down your damned blockades

 

Ask yourselves what you are serving

The cause of peace or war

The people here are not deserving

They’re just unfortunate and poor

 

 

 

The Killing of Lorenz

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POLICE VIOLENCE

 

The Killing of Lorenz

 

Maybe he lost his mind

No one really seems to know

Were the police color blind

Or did their bias show?

 

He sprayed gas into a crowd

What kind they didn’t know

He seemed mad and crazy loud

He absorbed five killing blows

 

He was dead right on the spot

And the people gathered round

Was this a terrorist plot?

Was the shooting sound?

 

We may never know the answers

Why this young black man is dead

Is this an incident or a cancer?

A day all Germans dread

 

He was victim number 22

For the year 2024

In the red, white and blue

There were 1,343 more

 

(A black man shot by police

in Oldenburg, Germany.)

 

Outside Agitators

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Outside Agitators

 

There are always rabblerousers

In every cause and every movement

There is always an element of chaos

Born of anger, rage, frustration

But when the words Outside Agitators

Are used by the authorities beware

What follows is an act of brutal violence

In the name of law and order

 

Outside Agitators was used to batter

The marchers for civil rights

On the Edmund Pettis Bridge

 

Outside Agitators was used to justify

The killing of student protestors at

Kent and Jackson State

 

Outside Agitators was employed in the

Tear gas and baton attacks on students

Of the free speech movement in Berkeley

 

So when you hear the words Outside

Agitators beware: We know what follows

 

Remember Kent State

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN HISTORY

Remember Kent State

 

Back in the year 1970

(most of you don’t remember)

The National Guard in the state of Ohio

Shot four students dead

They were not violent

They were not breaking the law

They were shot dead for being there

Shot dead for caring

Shot dead for the war machine

In Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam

 

We knew they hated us

We didn’t know they’d kill us

After Kent State we knew

We’d never forget the bloodstained path

The tears of innocence

The end of an era of hope

 

More than any other event of the decade

Kent State divided the nation

Kent State burned itself into our psyche

It spawned a generation of distrust

A distrust of government and authority

Passed down the years to today

 

If you love this nation

If you love its principles and ideals

If you want America to endure

Then remember Kent State

Remember Jackson State

Remember the age of protest

Remember the disenchantment

And make sure it never happens again

Peaceful Protest

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Peaceful Protest

 

The first amendment to the constitution

Our fundamental human rights

Is not just freedom of speech

Not just freedom of and from religion

The first amendment includes

The right to peaceful protest

The right to gather on the public square

To raise your collective voices

To challenge government authority

To express a dissenting view

 

To be free from police harassment

To be secure in your safety

To expect public servants to protect you

In the engagement of your rights

Is as fundamental to our republic

As the right to vote

 

A government that abhors protest

That suppresses public activism

That punishes those who march

That beats protestors with riot sticks

That demands passive obeyance

That regards protestors as mobs

That employs violent dispersal

Does not deserve the name

Of a republic

 

Let the students be

Let them engage their civil rights

Let them practice the art of politics

Let them demonstrate their involvement

As citizens of a democratic state

 

Mississippi Law

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN JUSTICE

Mississippi Law

 

Anything goes in Mississippi

The law is what they say it is

Whether you fall victim to abuse

Depends largely on what day it is

 

They taze you bro if they feel like it

They might beat you or abuse you

They don’t take you to the jailhouse

If they did they just might lose you

 

They’ve been doing it for decades

Getting away with it, too

If you think you’ve got your rights

You don’t know them like we do

 

This world can be an evil place

It doesn’t matter where you are

For evil thrives in evil hearts

But Mississippi sets the bar

 

These people who did the deeds

Should never be free again

What they did is beyond forgiving

They’ve become less than men