RESPECTING BELIEFS

by F.I. Goldhaber

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If your beliefs include marginalizing other people
because of their skin color, their religious faith, their gender,
their sexual orientation, their origin, their age;
If your beliefs allow justification for depriving
other people of their civil rights to life, liberty, and
happiness pursuits declared in seventeen seventy-six;
If your beliefs condone slaughter, rape, assault, subjugation,
imprisonment, execution of those you see as "others";
If your beliefs create stigmas to prevent those who appear,
think, love, or speak differently than you from making a living,
feeding their families, buying a home, earning retirement;
If your beliefs allow children to go to bed hungry, the
sick to go bankrupt, the disabled to struggle to survive,
the mentally ill to wander homeless, the store clerks to need
welfare benefits, the elderly to freeze through the winter;
If your beliefs prevent access to reproductive health care
while keeping young people ignorant about the facts of life
and the realities of sexual health, choices, and pleasure;
Then I'm under no obligation to respect your beliefs.
Keep your hate to yourself. Keep it out of our country, state, and
city laws, our schools, parks, stores workplaces, and public restrooms.

As a reporter, editor, business writer, and marketing communications consultant, F.I. Goldhaber produced news stories, feature articles, essays, editorial columns, and reviews for newspapers, corporations, governments, and non-profits in five states. Now, her poems, short stories, novelettes, essays, and reviews appear in paper, electronic, and audio magazines, ezines, newspapers, calendars, and anthologies.

LITTLE OLD WHITE LADY

by F.I. Goldhaber

I saw you limp into the cellphone store and
beg for help with a phone disconnected by
a rival's service.

Behind the counter teenagers rattled off
terms you obviously didn't understand.
I called you over.

I explained in words of simpler times -- before
the clerks were born. But, despite a balance, your
phone had been turned off.

T-Mobile demanded more money, which you
did not have, to turn it back on and wouldn't
refund your credit.

When you complained, they called the mall cops to throw
you out. Your story angered me, so I marched
down the street with you.

On the way to another T-Mobile store,
I learned you were a disabled Navy vet.
You told me stories.

When we arrived, I informed the clerk, "This man
needs his phone turned back on and I am here to
make sure you do that."

He looked in his computer. You showed him your
receipt. You stepped out to use my husband's phone
to ask for a ride.

He made a phone call and negotiated
with the person on line. You came back in to
hear your phone ringing.

I thanked the young man for his efforts. Thrilled, you
asked how I'd accomplished this miracle. I
whispered in your ear.

"Little old white lady," I said, much to your
amusement. For I can pass for white and took
advantage of that.

The clerks didn't see a man disabled in
service to the country they take for granted,
only dark brown skin.

As I left, I heard you gleefully shouting,
"Little old white lady." I'm glad I could help.
But, I'm not amused.


As a reporter, editor, business writer, and marketing communications consultant, F.I. Goldhaber produced news stories, feature articles, essays, editorial columns, and reviews for newspapers, corporations, governments, and non-profits in five states. Now, her poems, short stories, novelettes, essays, and reviews appear in paper, electronic, and audio magazines, ezines, newspapers, calendars, and anthologies.

HOME GROWN TERRORISM

by F.I. Goldhaber

In the years since the 9/11 attacks, the United States has suffered sixty-five assaults associated with right-wing ideologies—“sovereign citizens,” white supremacists, and anti-abortion extremists—and twenty-four by Muslim extremists, according to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, at the University of Maryland. You might think that this underrepresents the risk of a spectacular, high-casualty attack, but, as my colleague John Cassidy has written, the security officials who protect the public against both domestic and foreign terrorists say the domestic risk is greater. The terrorism experts Charles Kurzman, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and David Schanzer, of Duke, surveyed nearly four hundred state and local police agencies, and found that the “main terrorist threat in the United States is not from violent Muslim extremists but from right-wing extremists.” . . . It will take time to discover what mix of ideas and madness contributed to the attacks in Colorado Springs and San Bernardino. But it is a different kind of madness to pretend that we’ve learned nothing about why these types of events happen. In a study published this year in the journal American Behavioral Scientist, Mark Pitcavage, of the Anti-Defamation League, examined thirty-five “lone wolf” attackers—their tactics and ideas, and the consequences of their actions. He found that “ideology seems to have played a substantial role in the majority of the violent acts.” Nearly two-thirds of the attackers had a clear sense of what they were doing to their “perceived enemies,” and why. —Evan Osnos, The New Yorker, Dec. 2, 2015. CREDIT PHOTOGRAPH BY NICK COTE / THE NEW YORK TIMES VIA REDUX VIA THE NEW YORKER

The hypocrites rage on, refusing to accept responsibility
when one of their own slaughters police, doctors, and innocent bystanders.
The rhetoric that sends terrorists to attack women seeking health care
erupts anew as those fomenting hate spew vitriol across airwaves.

No one questions why medical facilities find it necessary
to have safe rooms and armored doors. Too many accept how easily those
with criminal records and mental instability acquire weapons.

Those who immediately condemned all Muslims after some radical
fundamentalists violated their own religious texts to bomb and
shoot Parisians, urge us to wait for all the facts when their protégés
splatter the blood of strangers and destroy buildings on American soil.

Violent extremists threaten the U.S., but they call themselves "Christians,"
use Bibles not Qurʾans to justify destruction and murder. We won't
eradicate terrorism if we ignore the ones we raise at home.


As a reporter, editor, business writer, and marketing communications consultant, F.I. Goldhaber produced news stories, feature articles, essays, editorial columns, and reviews for newspapers, corporations, governments, and non-profits in five states. Now, her poems, short stories, novelettes, essays, and reviews appear in paper, electronic, and audio magazines, ezines, newspapers, calendars, and anthologies.  Her newest book of poetry Subversive Verse collects poems about corporate cruelty, gender grievances, supreme shambles, political perversion, and race relations. 

SHARED GRIEVING

by F.I. Goldhaber

Haidar Mustafa, who was wounded in Thursday's twin suicide bombings, sleeps on a bed at the Rasoul Aazam Hospital in Burj al-Barajneh, southern Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 13, 2015. Haidar's parents Hussein and Leila were killed in the blast as they were parking their car when one of two suicide attackers blew himself up in a southern Beirut suburb near their vehicle. —BILAL HUSSEIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS, The WorldPost, Nov. 16, 2015

Every day people of color die.
Bombs in Yemen, shootings in Lebanon
Suicide explosions in Syria.
No one shouts out on Twitter, changes their
photo on Facebook, creates a hashtag.

But when terrorists kill white people in
European countries, you rally round
their flag, change your profile picture, add
a ribbon to show how you much care. But,
only if the victims look/believe like you.


As a reporter, editor, business writer, and marketing communications consultant, F.I. Goldhaber produced news stories, feature articles, essays, editorial columns, and reviews for newspapers, corporations, governments, and non-profits in five states. Now, her poems, short stories, novelettes, essays, and reviews appear in paper, electronic, and audio magazines, ezines, newspapers, calendars, and anthologies.  Her newest book of poetry Subversive Verse collects poems about corporate cruelty, gender grievances, supreme shambles, political perversion, and race relations. 

SUMMER'S HEAT

by F.I. Goldhaber

Pele. Image source: Dragons Faeries Elves & the Unseen

In the Pacific Northwest we've a
love-hate relationship with the sun.
While we treasure our short summer for
blue skies and joyous celebrations,
the natives sigh with relief when Fall's
first rain brings water to thirsty plants.

Though winter skies are ever dreary,
Spring's vibrant colors compensate for
months of precipitation. Here we
know the difference between drizzles
and sprinkles, cloudbursts and showers;
applaud brief sun break appearances.

But now summers last too long. Spring rains
refuse to fall. Winter's snow pack shrinks
every year, cutting skiing time short.
Fire season starts earlier and lasts
longer, kills more firefighters, burns more
acres, and destroys more homes each year.

Perhaps we should beg Lono to cross
the ocean and join Pele whose fire
rumbles under our feet, threatening
to burst from the peaks surrounding us,
and tear asunder the land on which
we build houses and cultivate food.

Maybe if we welcome the old gods,
eschew worshiping the trinity
of money, power, and oil,
we can avoid inclusion among
the species eliminated in
the planet's sixth wave of extinction.


As a reporter, editor, business writer, and marketing communications consultant, F.I. Goldhaber produced news stories, feature articles, essays, editorial columns, and reviews for newspapers, corporations, governments, and non-profits in five states. Now, her poems, short stories, novelettes, essays, and reviews appear in paper, electronic, and audio magazines, ezines, newspapers, calendars, and anthologies.  Her newest book of poetry Subversive Verse collects poems about corporate cruelty, gender grievances, supreme shambles, political perversion, and race relations. 

TRANS PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP

by F.I. Goldhaber

Image source: The Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness

First Abraham Lincoln let them live longer than people.
Then the U.S. Supremes gave them personhood and freedom.
Privileges of citizenship -- free speech and the pretense of religion
-- to gain tax reductions and eliminate workers' rights.

The president wants to allow their interests to supersede
sovereign nations' ability to serve their people.
Laws protecting safety, clean air, public health, will be waived
if it's possible they'll inhibit corporate profits.

Protection of corporate revenue will usurp all
individual rights to free expression, privacy,
due process, and the ability to afford housing,
food, medical care, education, transit, internet.

Forget about human rights. Only corporate power
carries any weight. They bought the U.S. government and
many of the world's leaders, jailing any who speak out.
They negotiate in secret to take away more rights.


As a reporter, editor, business writer, and marketing communications consultant, F.I. Goldhaber produced news stories, feature articles, essays, editorial columns, and reviews for newspapers, corporations, governments, and non-profits in five states. Now, her poems, short stories, novelettes, essays, and reviews appear in paper, electronic, and audio magazines, ezines, newspapers, calendars, and anthologies.  Her latest book of poetry, Subversive Verse, collects poems about corporate cruelty, gender grievances, supreme shambles, political perversion, and race relations.

FIVE OLD WHITE MEN

by F.I. Goldhaber

Image source: Donkey Hotey at Flickr

Five old white men in their black robes sit
in Washington eviscerating
the bill of rights: an Uncle Tom and
oreo, a corporate stooge and
his clone, a lech, and racist members
of the forced pregnancy proponents.
Religious pretenders ignorant
of science, adrift in a world of
technology they still can't seem to
comprehend. Wined and dined by special
interests, embracing infectious
scourges of partisan politics
that erode the little prestige left
to the court and American faith
in the law. They surround themselves with
like-minded law clerks, consume only
media reports that reinforce
their opinions, speak exclusively
to audiences predisposed to
be sympathetic to their viewpoints.
From October through July they hand
down decisions gutting laws that once
protected rights of women, voters,
workers, and minorities. For a
monetary gain, they handed the
country to a man who did not have
the votes, sending U.S. spiraling
into recession. They made Orwell's
vision come to life by allowing
the NSA free reign, turning our
government into Big Brother. Time
after time, these millionaires decide
business privilege trump people's
freedoms allowing corporations
to buy elections, deprive us of
health care, deny us the right to sue.
Now police invent more egregious
pretexts to arrest you because those
men give them carte blanche to search
every inch of  your body inside and out.


After more than three decades, poet and storyteller  F.I. Goldhaber continues writing professionally. Her poems, short stories, novelettes, news stories, feature articles, essays, editorial columns, and reviews appear in magazines, ezines, newspapers, calendars, and anthologies. Read more of her political poetry in her forthcoming volume Subversive Verse.

HATE

by  F.I. Goldhaber

Hands up, don't shoot. Outrage in Missouri over police shooting of black teen #MichaelBrown http://pic.twitter.com/ziXRNVgeUf http://youtu.be/NRaqVIcXIdk

Billy said we didn't start the fire
But the world burns.
Muslims slaughter Christians in Iraq.
Yazidi flee.
Israelis and Gaza break truce once more.
ISIS fights Kurds.
Indians gang rape women daily.
Exiles swarm Chad.
Russia marches on Ukraine again.
Pakistan riots.
Azerbaijans kill Armenians.
Al-Qaeda plots.
Boko Haram kidnaps young girls, boys.
Syria bleeds.

And in the land of the free cops kill.
Unarmed black men
executed by police daily.
Four black deaths in
one month capture the nation's concern.
But we don't learn
of so many more who die only
because their skin
color offended men of privilege.
Driving while black
in U.S., a capital offense.
Mothers teach sons
to raise hands, acquiesce ... but still
must bury them.


After more than three decades, poet and storyteller  F.I. Goldhaber continues writing professionally. As a reporter, editor, business writer, and marketing communications consultant, she produced words for newspapers, corporations, governments, and non-profits in five states.