"Sometimes We're Wrong" by Giovanni Dania

Sometimes We're Wrong

And we laugh, and we drink after the cubicle sentence.
We don't concern ourselves with the outside world too much.
We sit in our flag-infested SUV's on congested highways, and listen to corporate radio.
Insular.

We tell you to brush three times a day,
We tell you what to wear, what to eat, what to watch on the set,
We tell you what to do.
We ship you off to die in faraway lands we have no intention of letting you understand.
And we sleep easily tonight, feeling safer because you're there.
Comfy.

And we dance pagan dances around the burning hedge,
We protect it in a ring of willful ignorance, and attack any who question it.
We accept the commandments it writes on stone with fire
Without taking a moment to think for ourselves.
Oh, and we expect the same from you.

We tell you not to jump from the roof,
We tell you to scrub behind your ears,
We tell you not to trust those who look different than you,
Or who call God by another name.
We tell you to eat your broccoli,
Even as you choke.

And we laugh, we speak in easy tones
While people half a world away begrudge our laughter and easy speech.
We don't try to understand, to bridge the gap:
We try to make the gap bigger,
We make you do it for us.
We send you crates of canned goods, office supplies and chilled plastic bags of plasma.
And we sleep easily tonight.

June 25, 2003