Some Hot Button Issues
Some Hot Button Issues
I. A Disclaimer
The following poems discuss my thoughts on topics considered by some to be Hot Button Issues. Merriam-Webster defines Hot Button Issues as “emotionally and unusually controversial issues or concerns that trigger immediate intense reaction.” These issues are rally points during political conventions and can either create or destroy a candidate for office.
First of all, these Hot Button Issues were primarily used to sway votes throughout the states. Therefore these issues stayed in the parties rhetoric but hardly ever took the form of policy. Somehow the public knew this and took sides with whomever they agreed. Once our Representatives made it to office issues that truly needed to be tackled would find time on the floor and these Hot Button Issues would disappear until the next voting cycle.
Second, I am open to conversation concerning my opinions and I love to parlay with political rhetoric but politics should stay in a certain arena away from friendship and community. There is an elephant in the room that I must address by just coming out and saying it. I am a card carrying Democrat who has read Karl Marx, was raised during Jimmy Carter, and served my country
during the Clinton administration.
We should try to remember the first Lincoln/Douglas debate and how an organized argument can lead to more balanced decision making. Enough rambling on with the poetry:
II. ON KILLING OUR CLEAN POWER POLICY
On killing our clean power policy,
this shall be known as the endangerment,
an agency of our destructive rent.
This rut, American Economy.
This administration must explain why
by time we save enough to see our land,
a strict and balanced vacation as planned,
the weather, smoke filled skies, will bring a sigh.
On smaller scale we’ve seen the carnage work.
We see the barren land, infertile waste,
to repeat behavior as we see fit.
Too late, the wine has spoiled without the cork.
The rich will feel they are in their place
in offices artificially lit.
III. IMMIGRATION
These generations of families we call
illegal immigrants have plowed our land,
have knelt down to pick our crops, move our sand,
to create our foundation, building up tall.
They have landscaped our yards, constructed homes,
have waited at street corners for a job
at wages so low, these jobs that rob
their dignity, lost in laborious groans.
These families created community
who move the cogs, wheels of our daily lives,
to bring new culture into narrow times.
These unknown names erased from history,
a silent immigrant family survives
to make a home above national crimes.
IV. TO TRUMP THE SHOWMAN
To trump the showman in a game of cards.
To hold your hand steady through awful rants
in hopes to win each hand with quite chance,
to make him lose his footing near his guards.
To redistribute winnings to the room
and for a moment everyone is rich.
A time when everyone stands up to stretch
to break from threat of losing that still looms.
Or break the man with common street knowledge,
the know-how keeping our storefronts alive,
the get up and go makes resolutions.
To school this mad herd as if in college,
To take our place, to help our nation thrive,
to offer my one-sided solutions.
All the poems above are located in “The Rhyme of Ancient Middle Class” written by Jamie Lee Hamann, advertised on The Creative Exiles, and sold on Amazon.
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