Assessing The Damage Poem by Diane Elayne Dees

It doesn't seem like seven years have passed
since we first saw the smoke and heard the blast.
When traumatized, a slowing down is needed,
but these chaotic months have blown by fast.

With every year, a few more rights are ceded,
and each attempt at reasoned speech impeded
by those who seek to govern by cabal.
So far, their frenzied efforts have succeeded;

with rhetoric both wicked and banal,
and plenty of unmitigated gall,
they've frightened most of us into submission.
Yet few appear to have the wherewithal,

not anchorwoman, priest nor politician,
to dare confront the neocons' position.
And should a patriot rise up to dissent,
his words are quickly labeled as sedition.

Car flags and catchy slogans won't prevent
the hatred we've invited to ferment;
it will manifest itself in rage and fire.
And then we will no longer be content

to grant our own extremists, whose desire
does not include our welfare, their empire.
This reign of greed and madness cannot last;
this pile of rubble cannot get much higher.