Click here to read the accompanying essay.

They hate us, because we beat our chest like apes and call ourselves great.
They hate us, because what we call the greatness of our virtues is the enormity of our crimes.

They hate us, because we're a bible-thumping, gospel-quoting, Christian nation
of flag-flying warmongers.
They hate us, because we beseech God to bless and bless America,
while doggedly sicking the hounds of hell upon the world.

They hate us, because the corporate-lubed axles of evil, which never stop spinning, carry
Uncle Sam's monster load of despotism, war and corruption to all corners of the globe.
They hate us, because we invade and occupy sovereign nations at will,
while screaming freedom and democracy.
The hate us, because our hypocrisy and cynicism is so great,
language crumbles under the weight.

They hate us, because America is breeding ground for "Second Amendment solution"
white-trash terrorists imitating locally in spasms of retail slaughter
Uncle Sam's never-ending global military solution of crazed wholesale carnage.
They hate us, because our self-declared war against terrorism is the greatest terrorism in the world.
They hate us, because our foreign policy creates a legacy of wrack and ruin everywhere it goes.
They hate us, because we declare victory amid chaos, write a memoir and move on.
They hate us, because we destabilize real democratic governance all over the world,
while supporting dictators, warlords and repression.

They hate us, because a thousand foreign military bases
is an atrocity-producing empire grinding the world to pieces.
They hate us, because our Department of State is an extension of the Pentagon:
using diplomacy every day to practise war.

They hate us, because we torture.
They hate us, because we imprison without charges.
They hate us, because we call for the death of whistleblowers.
They hate us, because we assassinate, overthrow, disappear and abduct.

They hate us, because we drone-attack third-world countries from bunkers in Nevada.
They hate us, because we hamstring habeas corpus and cripple constitutional government.
They hate us, because we subvert the Universal Declaration of Human Rights every chance we get.

They hate us, because we annihilated the native cultures of the New World,
and seek now to annihilate the cultures of Old.
They hate us, because we traded diverse indigenous nations organically connected to the land
for a psychopathic corporate monoculture contemptuous of life and at war with the world.
They hate us, because we call this doing God's work.

They hate us, because US execs and military brass are kowtowing lackeys
who love to kill for the corporate state, and a fat paycheck.
They hate us, because the US Congress is chock-a-block full of imperial bootlicking sycophants.

They hate us, because we think corporations are people.
They hate us, because corporations pay for our elections and buy our politicians.
They hate us, because we think healthcare is a corporate right and not a human right.

They hate us, because we are the anti-Robin Hoods of history:
stealing, killing, cheating every day to enrich the rich and impoverish the poor.

They hate us, because economic austerity means billions in bonuses for the superrich,
and cancelling government services for the working poor.
They hate us, because our bankers celebrate to the clink of champagne,
instead of counting the links of prison chains.

They hate us, because the US is the greatest climate terrorist in the world:
consuming the most carbon, creating the most pollution,
killing Kyoto and much-needed reform...as global ice melts away.

They hate us, because leaks and revelations of great crime have no effect,
but to make us more unjust, savage and vengeful.
They hate us, because we aspire to rule the world,
but couldn't manage a vacant lot with all the Zen in history.

They hate us, because we hate ourselves because we must,
because hatred is a corporate value and a pillar of the corporate state -
the military's cash crop.
They hate us, because hatred is the invasive weed we so gleefully
spread and sow and reap throughout the world.

little big pine
january 2011

Click here to read the accompanying essay.

Little Big Pine: citizen, patriot, poet; may be reached at littlebigpine@gmail.com.