Julian Assange, What is with You?

Julian Assange, Aussie, we arraign you

for taking our First Amendment to heart:

“Congress shall make no law. . .abridging

the freedom of speech” we have writ;

but that was when we were the “land of the free

and the home of the brave.”

That starry-eyed time is long past;

since then, as befits an imperial power,

we set ourselves the goal to enslave

regions and regimes that would not

play the part that would befit

vassals to our military-christian destiny.



You thought that since we laud

your over-zealous counterparts

in a China or a Mynamar,

jailed by authoritarian juntas,

and facilitate for them the Nobel prize,

you could do the same in democratic disguise,

allowing no room for hypocrisy,

and, playing god,

use our hidden truths to tar

our resplendent diplomacy.

More fool you; our posse

will pursue and hunt you down.

Hide where you will, you clown,

we will get you still.



Free is free till you play our tune;

step out of line, and you will soon

find we are the same

as those in Beijing or Rangoon.

And if the Russians want the Nobel

for you, as we did for the other two,

we will raise a merry hell

far more fatal

than anything they could do.



You mistake much when you think

that our Constitutional forefathers

would shamefacedly blink

at our procedures.

Look up the Philadelphia papers

and you will know that from the first

our professions were wisely studded with capers.

We allowed to ourselves as Protestant whites

privileges that puissant kites

alone have from Nature

over every lesser, crawling creature.

Such is meant to be the presiding feature

of our place on the hill;

those that pull us down we kill.


*****


badri raina,

December, 13,2010