WHAT VALUES HAVE OUR SOLDIERS RISKED THEIR LIVES FOR?
For those who have not yet voted in this election, let us ask ourselves: What did hundreds of thousands of American soldiers throughout our history risk their lives for as they headed into battle, with many never to return?
Was it to install an egotistical despot who propelled an angry mob of his followers to violently lay siege to the Capitol, leaving bodies strewn on the ground, in execution of a fraudulent plot to prop him back onto his throne?
Was it to enable a snake-oil salesman, with a list of felony convictions, sexual molestations, and business frauds to lie and cheat his way back into office?
Was it to promote the imposition of white supremacy and a white male Christian dominated theocracy that would defeat the aspirations of our founding fathers?
Was it to reduce the status of women to second class citizens devoid of the right to control their own bodies?
Was it to insure that our President could exercise total immunity for the commission of crimes. including crimes against his political enemies and anyone else who stands in his way?
Was it to enable our egotistical leader to stuff his cabinet with cranks, crackpots, sycophants, ex-cons, misfits and scoundrels as pay-back for their election support?
Was it to install as President a man who has consistently demonstrated his contempt for soldiers who went into battle to defend our values but who were either wounded or captured?
If you were in a landing craft in the early morning hours of D-Day headed for the Normandy beachheads, how would you answer these questions?
At the risk of being repetitive to some and verbose to all, I would like to offer the following poem, which is a riff on Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", to encourage everyone to vote. Please vote.
AN ELECTION DAY CAROL
By L.D. Michaels (With No Little Help From Charles Dickens)
It should be noted
That I've rarely ever voted.
What difference does one vote make?
Is it really worth my time to take?
I'll devise a lie
Why I passed it by.
So tonight, I'll start a book to say
It mesmerized me right through Election Day.
What better book to read than Dickens
In which each page the plot thickens.
It will divert me till the polls close.
It's the best excuse to interpose.
To get me past November 5th
"A Christmas Carol" is the ideal myth.
As the sunset fades,
I lower my shades
And settle into bed
With this book I've never read
With a faint bedside light
That dims my sight
I begin the first page,
Immortalized by age:
"Marley was dead; to begin with."
This will last past November 5th.
I read on that Scrooge was to await 3 Spirits
That Marley’s ghost told him would visit.
As I read through the pages,
The Spirits emerged from the ages
At the tolling of Scrooge's bell
To lead him to Heaven or to Hell.
Each night as the bell tolled
Scrooge's past and present did unfold
On each visitation, the Spirit let him see
How morally bankrupt his life has come to be.
Over many days of reading,
I cringed at Scrooge's pleadings
To the Ghosts of Christmas Present and Past
Having lived a greedy life in which the die was cast.
Awaiting the Spirit of Christmas Future to appear,
It was the future that Scrooge had the most to fear
When judgment for his sins he would hear.
I continue to read at a faster pace
To learn what sins Scrooge will face.
But I begin to wonder if I were in Scrooge's place
What sins would the Spirit of the Future call upon me to face?
Could Heaven possibly punish me for avoiding to vote?
It's such a minor sin the Lord would never take note.
I tremble with fright awaiting Scrooge's fate
As I strive to stay awake in my half-sleep state.
My reading slows down to a snail's pace,
As I begin to drift off to the sleep I'll embrace.
My mind drifts as I begin to envision
The potential consequences of my own decision.
I continue to read and imagine the worst
Would the Spirit address Scrooge or possibly me first?
THE BELL TOLLS
Did I just read "The bell tolls" on the next page?
Or was it a figment of my old age?
Or did I hear the bell with my own ears,
Or did I dream it from my rising fears?
Am I awake or asleep?
A hooded black-draped vision now appears without a peep.
An unearthly apparition appears before me,
Whether friend or foe I am unable to see.
My blood turns cold.
I must be bold.
Is this ghost as real as he seems?
Or is he a figment of my heat-oppressed dreams?
He offered an outstretched hand,
Which I took as a gesture to stand
To get ready to see the future land.
"I beg thee Spirit to speak to me
So that I can believe what I hear and see.
If you are here for me,
Then tell me my fate
And if I can change it
Before it's too late."
"I've come " said the Spirit "to reveal the future to you
Because without your vote and that of others too
You'll see that what lies ahead
Will be four years of misery and dire dread".
"Touch my robe" to me he then said.
As my left hand clutched the Spirit's black robe
I expected to see the future unfold.
The Spirit took my arm with a cold tight fist,
And off we flew into a thick dark mist.
And when we emerged, it was now the 4th of July,
With Trump at the helm having barely squeaked by
With 1 Electoral College vote more than Harris could supply
Because of low voter turnout no one could deny.
Trump returned to the Capitol his mob had stormed
But this time to be sworn in with a government to form.
He had proven that lies, hatred and bigotry
Were a winning formula for election glee.
Justice Alito gave the inaugural prayer
For which Trump took credit with an egotistical air.
Trump, he said, was to serve as an Apostle of Jesus
Banning all abortions (though with his usual distortions)..
The Gospel of Jesus Trump would spread from sea to sea
To convert our country into a Christian theocracy.
And if successful, Alito agreed to propose
That this con man be deified after he rose.
His inaugural speech went over an hour.
It rambled and rambled and quickly turned sour.
The only real theme was self congratulation
And the size of the crowd admiring his oration.
The rest was babel that revealed his mental deterioration
Which progressively worsened as he promised mass deportation.
All eyes were then on Vance whom everyone believed
Was calculating his chance that Trump would be relieved.
The takeaway on Trump was that he was out on a limb
And would make a deal with Vance to pardon him.
The House and Senate also went red
By only a couple of votes that caused this dread.
The narrowest of margins across the land
Gave Trump and Congress the right to command.
Together they passed the most oppressive laws
Aimed at freedoms to which they now closed the doors.
Trump quickly appointed his lackey AG
Who dismissed all his indictments with alacrity.
He also declared that Trump could do no wrong
Now armed with full immunity and a hit-list 10 yards long.
Having warned the country he would be a dictator
Trump's first six months was a reign of terror.
With revenge against his opponents at the fore,
He rained down arrests, lawsuits and prosecutions galore.
White Male Christian Supremacy was the platform advanced
And implementing Project 2025 was given to JD Vance.
With Vance as Trump's Goebbels and Himmler rolled into one,
Reducing non-whites to second-class citizens he had deftly done
As he denounced all women who produced neither daughters nor sons.
Dripping with smoothness, polish and ooze,
Vance is being groomed to step into Trump's shoes.
Hidden behind a beard and feigned suavity,
He's a rabid champion of White Supremacy.
To enforce the new laws of the land
Trump looks to his faithful January 6 clan.
He sprung and pardoned the entire lot
And recognized over 700 of them to be America's Patriots
(Including those who assaulted or killed Capitol cops.)
To memorialize their heroism on that glorious day
Trump declared January 6 a federal holiday.
Uniformed, armed and reporting only to him
The Proud Boys and others are to serve his every whim.
"Be there. Will be wild!" is again Trump's call
To report to duty and give Trump their all.
Trump's first order was to round up migrants and "vermin"
Which the Proud Boys had the discretion to determine.
Trump's "Day of Violence" lasted 10 weeks.
Doors were busted down as they lay in their sleep
Like the Jews in Paris seized by the Nazi elite.
Bloodied families and children were herded into box car lots,
And when the country was outraged, all Trump would say was "So what!"
The unstable huckster showed no end to his iniquities
From filling his Cabinet with sycophants and misfit employees.
To purging civil servants who couldn't prove their MAGA loyalties
To cutting down Medicare, Social Security and other benefits,
To granting tax breaks to the rich that causes huge deficits.
To the elimination of the Department of Education
To enable red state far-right indoctrination.
Finally, to the Spirit of the Future, I quoted Dickens: :
"Spirit - Show me no more. Take me back"
"These things you have shown me - Must they come to pass
or could the future be different?"
"Why show me this if these are the shadows of things that must be
or are they the shadows of things that may be?”
'Why show me this if I am beyond all hope?"
"Spirit. I am not the man I was ! "
That was the last I saw of the ghost.
He vanished into thin air as I awoke.
My eyes opened from a very deep sleep
With Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" at my feet.
I was shivering in a cold sweat
I must have dreamt it all, I would bet.
But the dream was so real
That it made my feel
So cheap that I would sacrifice my vote
To enable a con-man to gloat.
But it was the dream I needed
To show me what I should have heeded
That the right to vote
Carries a duty to vote
If not for my sake
But because our democracy is at stake.
"I am not the man I was ." I kept mumbling
"I am not the man I was !" I started to shout.
"I am not the man I was!!" I shouted even louder
I don't know if I have cause to hope
That I have not missed my chance to vote.
I ran to the window and shouted to a boy:
"What's today, my fine fellow?"
"Why today? It's Election Day" he bellowed.
Then I haven't missed it and replied:
"Ask when the polls close of any driver
And come back in 20 minutes and I'll give you a dollar.
Come back in ten and I'll give you a fiver."
The polls are still open, and vote I will
Freedom loving Americans have a duty to fulfill.
"Never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." (John Donne, 1572-1631)
EPILOGUE
As I think back upon last night's drama,
It was likely an hallucination that produced my trauma.
WHAT VALUES HAVE OUR SOLDIERS RISKED THEIR LIVES FOR?
For those who have not yet voted in this election, let us ask ourselves: What did hundreds of thousands of American soldiers throughout our history risk their lives for as they headed into battle, with many never to return?
Was it to install an egotistical despot who propelled an angry mob of his followers to violently lay siege to the Capitol, leaving bodies strewn on the ground, in execution of a fraudulent plot to prop him back onto his throne?
Was it to enable a snake-oil salesman, with a list of felony convictions, sexual molestations, and business frauds to lie and cheat his way back into office?
Was it to promote the imposition of white supremacy and a white male Christian dominated theocracy that would defeat the aspirations of our founding fathers?
Was it to reduce the status of women to second class citizens devoid of the right to control their own bodies?
Was it to insure that our President could exercise total immunity for the commission of crimes. including crimes against his political enemies and anyone else who stands in his way?
Was it to enable our egotistical leader to stuff his cabinet with cranks, crackpots, sycophants, ex-cons, misfits and scoundrels as pay-back for their election support?
Was it to install as President a man who has consistently demonstrated his contempt for soldiers who went into battle to defend our values but who were either wounded or captured?
If you were in a landing craft in the early morning hours of D-Day headed for the Normandy beachheads, how would you answer these questions?
At the risk of being repetitive to some and verbose to all, I would like to offer the following poem, which is a riff on Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", to encourage everyone to vote. Please vote.
AN ELECTION DAY CAROL
By L.D. Michaels (With No Little Help From Charles Dickens)
It should be noted
That I've rarely ever voted.
What difference does one vote make?
Is it really worth my time to take?
I'll devise a lie
Why I passed it by.
So tonight, I'll start a book to say
It mesmerized me right through Election Day.
What better book to read than Dickens
In which each page the plot thickens.
It will divert me till the polls close.
It's the best excuse to interpose.
To get me past November 5th
"A Christmas Carol" is the ideal myth.
As the sunset fades,
I lower my shades
And settle into bed
With this book I've never read
With a faint bedside light
That dims my sight
I begin the first page,
Immortalized by age:
"Marley was dead; to begin with."
This will last past November 5th.
I read on that Scrooge was to await 3 Spirits
That Marley’s ghost told him would visit.
As I read through the pages,
The Spirits emerged from the ages
At the tolling of Scrooge's bell
To lead him to Heaven or to Hell.
Each night as the bell tolled
Scrooge's past and present did unfold
On each visitation, the Spirit let him see
How morally bankrupt his life has come to be.
Over many days of reading,
I cringed at Scrooge's pleadings
To the Ghosts of Christmas Present and Past
Having lived a greedy life in which the die was cast.
Awaiting the Spirit of Christmas Future to appear,
It was the future that Scrooge had the most to fear
When judgment for his sins he would hear.
I continue to read at a faster pace
To learn what sins Scrooge will face.
But I begin to wonder if I were in Scrooge's place
What sins would the Spirit of the Future call upon me to face?
Could Heaven possibly punish me for avoiding to vote?
It's such a minor sin the Lord would never take note.
I tremble with fright awaiting Scrooge's fate
As I strive to stay awake in my half-sleep state.
My reading slows down to a snail's pace,
As I begin to drift off to the sleep I'll embrace.
My mind drifts as I begin to envision
The potential consequences of my own decision.
I continue to read and imagine the worst
Would the Spirit address Scrooge or possibly me first?
THE BELL TOLLS
Did I just read "The bell tolls" on the next page?
Or was it a figment of my old age?
Or did I hear the bell with my own ears,
Or did I dream it from my rising fears?
Am I awake or asleep?
A hooded black-draped vision now appears without a peep.
An unearthly apparition appears before me,
Whether friend or foe I am unable to see.
My blood turns cold.
I must be bold.
Is this ghost as real as he seems?
Or is he a figment of my heat-oppressed dreams?
He offered an outstretched hand,
Which I took as a gesture to stand
To get ready to see the future land.
"I beg thee Spirit to speak to me
So that I can believe what I hear and see.
If you are here for me,
Then tell me my fate
And if I can change it
Before it's too late."
"I've come " said the Spirit "to reveal the future to you
Because without your vote and that of others too
You'll see that what lies ahead
Will be four years of misery and dire dread".
"Touch my robe" to me he then said.
As my left hand clutched the Spirit's black robe
I expected to see the future unfold.
The Spirit took my arm with a cold tight fist,
And off we flew into a thick dark mist.
And when we emerged, it was now the 4th of July,
With Trump at the helm having barely squeaked by
With 1 Electoral College vote more than Harris could supply
Because of low voter turnout no one could deny.
Trump returned to the Capitol his mob had stormed
But this time to be sworn in with a government to form.
He had proven that lies, hatred and bigotry
Were a winning formula for election glee.
Justice Alito gave the inaugural prayer
For which Trump took credit with an egotistical air.
Trump, he said, was to serve as an Apostle of Jesus
Banning all abortions (though with his usual distortions)..
The Gospel of Jesus Trump would spread from sea to sea
To convert our country into a Christian theocracy.
And if successful, Alito agreed to propose
That this con man be deified after he rose.
His inaugural speech went over an hour.
It rambled and rambled and quickly turned sour.
The only real theme was self congratulation
And the size of the crowd admiring his oration.
The rest was babel that revealed his mental deterioration
Which progressively worsened as he promised mass deportation.
All eyes were then on Vance whom everyone believed
Was calculating his chance that Trump would be relieved.
The takeaway on Trump was that he was out on a limb
And would make a deal with Vance to pardon him.
The House and Senate also went red
By only a couple of votes that caused this dread.
The narrowest of margins across the land
Gave Trump and Congress the right to command.
Together they passed the most oppressive laws
Aimed at freedoms to which they now closed the doors.
Trump quickly appointed his lackey AG
Who dismissed all his indictments with alacrity.
He also declared that Trump could do no wrong
Now armed with full immunity and a hit-list 10 yards long.
Having warned the country he would be a dictator
Trump's first six months was a reign of terror.
With revenge against his opponents at the fore,
He rained down arrests, lawsuits and prosecutions galore.
White Male Christian Supremacy was the platform advanced
And implementing Project 2025 was given to JD Vance.
With Vance as Trump's Goebbels and Himmler rolled into one,
Reducing non-whites to second-class citizens he had deftly done
As he denounced all women who produced neither daughters nor sons.
Dripping with smoothness, polish and ooze,
Vance is being groomed to step into Trump's shoes.
Hidden behind a beard and feigned suavity,
He's a rabid champion of White Supremacy.
To enforce the new laws of the land
Trump looks to his faithful January 6 clan.
He sprung and pardoned the entire lot
And recognized over 700 of them to be America's Patriots
(Including those who assaulted or killed Capitol cops.)
To memorialize their heroism on that glorious day
Trump declared January 6 a federal holiday.
Uniformed, armed and reporting only to him
The Proud Boys and others are to serve his every whim.
"Be there. Will be wild!" is again Trump's call
To report to duty and give Trump their all.
Trump's first order was to round up migrants and "vermin"
Which the Proud Boys had the discretion to determine.
Trump's "Day of Violence" lasted 10 weeks.
Doors were busted down as they lay in their sleep
Like the Jews in Paris seized by the Nazi elite.
Bloodied families and children were herded into box car lots,
And when the country was outraged, all Trump would say was "So what!"
The unstable huckster showed no end to his iniquities
From filling his Cabinet with sycophants and misfit employees.
To purging civil servants who couldn't prove their MAGA loyalties
To cutting down Medicare, Social Security and other benefits,
To granting tax breaks to the rich that causes huge deficits.
To the elimination of the Department of Education
To enable red state far-right indoctrination.
Finally, to the Spirit of the Future, I quoted Dickens: :
"Spirit - Show me no more. Take me back"
"These things you have shown me - Must they come to pass
or could the future be different?"
"Why show me this if these are the shadows of things that must be
or are they the shadows of things that may be?”
'Why show me this if I am beyond all hope?"
"Spirit. I am not the man I was ! "
That was the last I saw of the ghost.
He vanished into thin air as I awoke.
My eyes opened from a very deep sleep
With Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" at my feet.
I was shivering in a cold sweat
I must have dreamt it all, I would bet.
But the dream was so real
That it made my feel
So cheap that I would sacrifice my vote
To enable a con-man to gloat.
But it was the dream I needed
To show me what I should have heeded
That the right to vote
Carries a duty to vote
If not for my sake
But because our democracy is at stake.
"I am not the man I was ." I kept mumbling
"I am not the man I was !" I started to shout.
"I am not the man I was!!" I shouted even louder
I don't know if I have cause to hope
That I have not missed my chance to vote.
I ran to the window and shouted to a boy:
"What's today, my fine fellow?"
"Why today? It's Election Day" he bellowed.
Then I haven't missed it and replied:
"Ask when the polls close of any driver
And come back in 20 minutes and I'll give you a dollar.
Come back in ten and I'll give you a fiver."
The polls are still open, and vote I will
Freedom loving Americans have a duty to fulfill.
"Never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." (John Donne, 1572-1631)
EPILOGUE
As I think back upon last night's drama,
It was likely an hallucination that produced my trauma.
But I still churned round and round my dream
As to why it felt as real as it seemed.
Round and round I twisted my ring
As I tried to sort out this curious thing.
As I kept turning my ring back and forth
Appearing under it were threads of black cloth
How curious it was that the hand with this ring
Was the same one I used to help me cling
To the hooded Spirit's black robe
When he transported me into the Future to probe.