by Tom Bauer
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| Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) announcement that he will vote against the Build Back Better Act rocked the political world on Sunday, with Democrats slamming their fellow colleague and Republicans celebrating the centrist senator’s decision, which effectively kills the party’s chances of passing the behemoth legislation. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said [Joe Manchin], the West Virginia Democrat is “gonna have a lot of explaining to do to the people of West Virginia” because he “doesn’t have the guts to stand up to powerful special interests.” —The Hill, December 19, 2021 |
Dooms the final plan with a nail, like Christ
was doomed, cross-wise, in plain view of all,
and also for the greater good of all.
There’s always a bad guy, the one to blame.
Is he the leader? He’s the visible one
making decisions for the ruling class,
the plant, the guy on the working-class team
who plays for the money team, the real team,
the ruling team with access to the rules.
Majority must mean majority of those
who rule the majority, because there’s no
majority of those who own the law.
We pray and bend our knees, but it is doomed,
and those few in control keep hammering.
Tom Bauer grew up playing violin and listening to spoken word recordings. When he was ten, he rashly announced he was going to be a poet. He did a bunch of university and stuff. He's had some poems published. He lives in Montreal and plays board games.