"I didn't get my ideas from Mao, Lenin or Ho Chi Minh;
I got my ideas from the Lone Ranger."
--Jerry Rubin, Do It (1970)
The class war is over, the verdict is in:
Working people and the middle class have lost.
The world's superpower
Is ruled by the Wolves of Wall Street,
Who are served by the Sheep of Main Street.
No Lone Ranger from Brahmin Harvard
Rode to their rescue this time to
Become a traitor to his class.
The best and brightest shine on
As entrepreneurs of the self.
A Lone Ranger couldn't cut muster
In their world of resumes and networking.
But this I know:
Our nation no longer turns its eyes to you,
Lone Ranger, you who have left and gone away.
With Joltin' Joe DiMaggio you still bat away
In the reruns of our mind.
George Salamon taught German at Harvard, Haverford and Smith colleges, served as reporter for the St. Louis Business Journal and senior editor at Defense Systems Review. He contributes to the Gateway Journalism Review, Jewish Currents and The New Verse News from St. Louis, MO.