Chauvin

Kentucky blames the victim every time
and jurors must pretend this makes some sense.
Your shattered skull is witness to your crime
when officers resort to violence.
'Til Rodney King, such video was rare;
we're told cops' testimony'd earned our trust.

White voters just assumed police must care,
and had good motives when then made a bust.
When ev'ry murder's broadcast to our 'phones

it takes an effort staunchly to not see
the crimes are ours, not officers' alone.
Our fundamental right must be to be.
Keith Ellison assures us laws can hold
if our Executive is staunch, and bold.

Pinochist

Chad Wolf deploys a mercenary force
who won't ID themselves, but let drop hints
...armed to the teeth...emotionally coarse...
the latest Enterprise of Erik Prince.
The Pentagon enriched him in Iraq,
an ill-got fortune grafted on his own.
This year, he'd brought his buccaneer boys back
to break some citizens' skulls here at home.

Wolf's jackboot thugs are taking Oregon

they spurn insignia or names in sight

Like Deng Xiao Peng deployed in Tiananmen

without regard for basic civil rights.
If Trump wants citizens to just comply
he'd have sent agents of our FBI.

projecting

Max Weber taught: without monopoly
on violence, what you've got's not a "State".
Miskinis gave Brownshirts impunity
He wears the badge of what he'd abdicate.
Kenosha's cops demurred to play their role
to keep the peace, as contracts said they should.
So brownshirts flooded in to take control
in camos, where--before--they'd worn white hoods.
Steve Bannon's betting voters rush to blame
Joe Biden for the chaos Trump foments.
A president who weekly stokes the flames,
denies the buck stops with his government.
The "law-and-order" guy who eggs on mobs
egregiously unfit to do his job.

Kenosha

Kenosha terrorists don't hesitate;
they know Wisconsin cops have got their back.

And even if they drove from out-of-state,

the courts won't prosecute when victim's Black.

A racist cop see allies in their ranks
assuming color correlates with threat.

He safeguards capitalists, and their banks

aware his livelihood is in their debt.

The DoJ's equipped to prosecute
when States deprive their citizens of rights.
But Barr's on the wrong side of this dispute;

he doesn't see a crime, when the perp's white.

Trump's brownshirts think they're right because they're strong
and Biden's not been quick to prove them wrong.

incitement

A Wall of veterans, 

                                  a Wall of dads
A Wall of moms

                                 drawn up in serried ranks
defend us from a government gone bad,
beholden not to citizens, but Banks.
To rally votes behind the richest few,
Trump wages urban warfare on his own.
His Brownshirts do what mercenaries do;
Fallujah gets reprised, this time at home.
He slanders moderates like Thomas Ridge,
who warned this isn't what that force is for.
When agents get strung up beneath a bridge,
he'll smirk and escalate the civil war.
"He's no conservative!" Krauthammer said;
no one of us is safe, 'til Trump lies dead.

Inciting imminent lawless action

Inspectors General are on the case

assessing how our resources get spent.
Steve Bannon's terrified; November's race
forebodes the end for his pet president.
Inspiring panic in suburbanites

--as autocrats have long been wont to do--
won't work if citizens demur to fight

or if what they're in terror of, is you.
The Wall of Moms makes poignant video;
their yellow shirts show every spot of gore.
Americans turned off by Trumpty's show;
won't rush to underwrite a season more.

Fake 'war-time president' goes it alone;

Americans don't want a war at home.

Reichstag fire

On Tiananmen Square, tankman stood alone
we never learned his name, nor knew his fate.
America now brings oppression home

as citizens get shanghaied by "our" state.

A generation later, that fight's here

as Trump's loosed armed battalions on the crowd.

Americans ain't used to disappear

for criticising Trumpty-Dump aloud.
The "insurrection" Trump hopes to provoke

so martial law'd be somehow justified

increasingly's attractive to the folk

who see police reports get falsified.

political dissent is jailed and gagged

when fascism comes home, wrapped in our flag.

rent-a-cop

Chad Wolf deploys a mercenary force

who won't ID themselves, but let fall hints
...armed to the teeth...emotionally coarse...
the latest enterprise of Erik Prince.
The Pentagon enriched him in Iraq
an ill-got fortune grafted on his own.
But now he's brought his buccaneer boys back

to break some citizens' skulls here at home.
Wolf's jackboot thugs are taking Oregon

without insignia or names in sight.

Like Deng Xiao Peng deployed in Tiananmen

without regard for sacred legal rights.
If Trump wants citizens to just comply

he'd have sent agents of our FBI.

Blessed is the Match

This latest outrage won't go unremarked
although Chauvin behaved like it's routine.
In giving up his soul, Floyd cast the spark
that may burn down the whole corrupt machine.
The prosecutor might have let this slide
like Klobuchar had many deaths before.
Each piled the kindling up both deep, and wide
when this bonfire goes off, it's gonna roar.
If history tells aught, it tells us this:
that tyranny must be faced down on sight.
But those whose consciences have been remiss,
need someone else to set the world alight.
So desperate to show he's in control,
Trump feeds the conflagration vitriol.

setting the low tone

The neoNazis marched in Charlottesville
not Whitefish, where they'd just made empty noise
Their packmates were emboldened to the kill
who, each alone, are pewling frightened boys.
The local cops demurred to do their job
and shut their eyes in studied innocence
complicit with the scum who formed the mob.
Let others leave their 'prints on violence.
The Trumpanzeees with tiki torches strut,
rhetorically inflated by their man.
As intellects, they'd never made the cut
but bars are lower in the Ku Klux Klan.
Six months! Trump's minions set a record low
regressing to the dark years of JimCrow.

semaphore

to pardon Joe Arpaio'd post a clue
Trump isn't going soft, won't tolerate
non-violence, or anything we'd do
that's out of step with Bannon's code of hate.
Arch-xenophobe who'd nail an immigrant
for fictive code infractions on the road
and dumb enough to think his president
wants more than photo-ops with his pet toad.
If Manafort and Flynn would just defy
subpoenas, they'll get pardons in their turn.
But should they sing, he'll hang them out to dry;
betrayers gotta know they're gonna burn.
Dog-whistles from the artist of the deal
this Prisoners' Dilemma's played for real.

Charlottesville

Five senators told Trump he must look strong
denouncing violence in Charlottesville.
if he won't say a Nazi murder's wrong,
he'll lose knee-jerk supporters on the Hill.
Ken Frazier quit Trump's council in a huff
he wouldn't tolerate such crap at Merck.
That "many sides" dismissal's not enough
unless it's "terror" this ain't gonna work.
But still, there's Bannon, underneath the throne
to advocate for violence and hate.
Repackaging these thoughts as Donald's own
as if mobocracy would make us "great".
It's merely "road-rage" by der Stürmer's light
few dare cry "terror" when the perp's so White.

unbalanced

Trump's cabinet cants sharply to the Right
as Europeans take that term to mean
the citizen can't make much of a fight
confronted with the State's Police Machine
the libertarians should be aghast
as Pompeo surveils them in their beds
dystopic visions of the fascist past
dance uninvited in their sleepless heads
Karl Rove's alliance suffered more than dents
it needs to be rebuilt from the drive-train
impeachment looms from those who think Mike Pence
if not the man they want, at least is sane
foundations must be planned and leveled well
if our republic's not to slip toward Hell

Lady Justice

Loretta Lynch enforces Civil Rights
that Eric Holder studied in Law School
a real Attorney General who fights
instead of sermonizing on the rule
of law but never prosecuting crime
'though murderers skate free on acts of hate
the gears of Justice have engaged this time
the feds must fix the failings of the State
no races left to run; Obama's free
to hoist the scales of Justice high and blind
to give no quarter to Blue bigotry
or ingrained prejudice of any kind
to slay such dragons and allay our fears
Loretta's gonna need eight more hard years

promises unfulfilled

Louisiana cops don't mess around
with niceties of evidence or law
unhesitating to gun a man down
until the video half the world saw
due process is a privilege of Whites
while Blacks get executed in the streets
for stuff as trivial as cracked taillights
lives lived under oppression by the heat
Loretta Lynch may act where Holder talked
to guarantee that rights apply to all
in Sanford as in Furguson he balked
as prosecutor, he just dropped the ball
the moral universe's arc can bend
if we press for real justice 'til the end

White Privilege

consider if Brock Turner were less White
caught in the act of raping a coed
instead of Persky letting him off light
before he got to court, he might be dead
a hundred ugly fates befall accuseds
if they're so uppity to drive while Black
unless it's videoed, its just not news
the cop pleads self-defense; he'd been attacked
but Stanford athletes rarely suffer harm
the cops and courts presume they're ruling class
the criminal code's waived down on the Farm
and if there's blame, it's on the drunken lass
White Privilege means more than housing perks
it dooms us to a culture run by jerks

Justice, Justice shall you pursue

the Bundys went to prison 'cause they're White
humiliated but withal unharmed
for doing what would get them shot on sight
if they'd been Black and went so boldly armed
the Rule of Law weighs neither class nor race
but prosecutors pick and choose their course
and officers confronting a dark face
too often will resort to lethal force
disseminated Press keeps us apprised
of violence that long had gone unseen
there'll be no change until the burghers' eyes
are flayed by shootings on their smartphone screen
White Privilege corrupts a nation's root
where cops ask questions second but first shoot

Justice, Justice shall you pursue

the Bundys went to prison 'cause they're White
humiliated but withal unharmed
for doing what would get them shot on sight
if they'd been Black and went so boldly armed
the Rule of Law weighs neither class nor race
but prosecutors pick and choose their course
and officers confronting a dark face
too often will resort to lethal force
disseminated Press keeps us apprised
of violence that long had gone unseen
there'll be no change until the burghers' eyes
are flayed by shootings on their smartphone screen
White Privilege corrupts a nation's root
where cops ask questions second but first shoot

insecure

the FBI dismissed Omar Mateen
convinced that he was no Islamicist
no cog in al-Baghdadi's war machine
an angry gay man cruising for a tryst
his workmates testified this guy's a threat
his ex divorced him 'cause he's violent
and yet he swam unhindered through their net
their interviewers deaf to what he meant
a murder plot's a matter for the States
their squad was charged with bigger fish to fry
the Bureau's not concerned with bigots' hates
until the news shows dozens bleed and die
'til they make better use of what they've got
they'll want more ways to spy--but I think not

policism

the private sphere's not for our FBI
nor cops--without a warrant--to inspect
Due Process circumscribes the eyes that pry
subordinate to judges we elect
political opinions are our own
to publicize or privately discuss
no wire-tap camera or microphone
--without probable cause--should rat on us
legitimacy's built on public will
and never from the barrel of a gun
'though Mammon's altar's on Capitol Hill
we'd known what "honor" is when we'd begun
as County Sheriffs militarize ops
our Liberty's imperiled by our cops