Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Let America Be America Again

I posted the poem by Langston Hughes "Let American Be America Again" back in June and was ready to post it again next Wednesday but MandT at Adgitadiaries have done the deed already.

As we prepare for what may be the most important election of our lives it is worth reading once or even twice more. This election represents, most probably, the last chance we have as a country to return to the progressive and positive course that represents the true intent of our founding fathers. The Republicans can rant all they want about socialism and 'spreading the wealth' and all the other phrases they hope will rekindle the fear that re-elected George Bush in 2004 but the real America is that represented in the poem...

O, let America be America again-- The land that never has been yet-- And yet must be--the land where every man is free. The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-- Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-- The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back our land again, America!

O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath-- America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain-- All, all the stretch of these great green states-- And make America again!

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