Kick butt duet political poem "The Protester and The Patriot"

[TheReligiousLeft]

So here is the deal. A good friend and I are going to this open mic poetry reading thing here in Cheyenne, and we're going to bust thing thing out. I'm the protester (I have the hair for it) and she will be the patriot (she's got the voice for it). It should be a blast. I'll post the final draft and how it all went once things are all said and done.

The Protester and The Patriot (draft 1)
By Rosemary Powers and Chris Halverson
Patriot
Protester

BOTH:
I pledge allegiance (Like all true Americans) to the flag (Which we can burn) of the United Divided states of America, and to the Republic(cans) for which it stands. One nation (Under God?) indivisible

PATRIOT:
Ol’ Glory. Battle tested, red stripes, blood of the blessed soldiers who died, to keep us free, for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. White, for the purity of soul, an untwinkling, unwavering star, standing for the morality of our cause. Blue, from the tears of the widows of this great land, planted to grow a nation, spreading from the chill of the Atlantic, to the warm waters of the Hawaiian islands.

PROTESTER:
So you have some symbol… that makes your heart quiver. You think that’s what makes this place a great land? You have the blood of the red man, given a rag, like that flag of yours, full of smallpox. You have white, the color of cotton, the color of the slaver, whose chains have only now begun to slip. You have blue, like the eyes of an Aryan child, filled with neo-conservitive ideals akin to the mind of Hitler.

PATRIOT:
Before liberty was replaced by liberalism it was okay to raise America’s celebrated colors up with joy, for it has flown over Cuba, liberated from the terror of Spain, over the grungy foxholes of the first world war, over the beachheads which we stormed to free from…

PROTESTER:
A flag flown for the sake of yellow journalism, nothing more. A flag that placed Pinoche in power. A brutal emblem that swallowed South America. A piece of cloth, covered in persecution, that propping up dictators. A flag that makes deals with the Taliban for oil. It gives and takes Weapons of Mass Destruction to and from tyrants at will.

BOTH:
With liberty and justice for all.

PROTESTER:
Just because we’re under attack uncle Ashcroft thinks he can make people disappear. Check out Anarchists cookbook at your local library and I promise that you hear an insidious knock at your door. You know the patriot act allowed them to tap your phone and email right? They can even send G-men to spy on you in your church on Christmas night!

PATRIOT:
Don’t you love America enough to put up with all of that? Taking your shoes off at the airport is not much of an inconvenience. 9-11 changed us forever, the terrorists are the enemy, we must not show them any lenience… Or wait, are you a terrorist too?

PROTESTER:
I love this land of ours. Specifically I love the freedoms it holds, and I’ll continue to practice them; the freedoms we cherish are what the administration is abridging. Things like association, speech, right to council and a fair trial, none of those tribunals for me thanks. I’m not part of the terrorist’s ranks.

PATRIOT:
You don’t understand freedom, you just use it as an excuse. If you want your freedoms protected you need to sacrifice a few. You say you love America, but we don’t need Americans like you.

BOTH:
With liberty and justice for all…
It bothers me how other people feel about the war.

PROTESTER:
So I went to a friend’s funeral the other day.
PATRIOT:
Aren’t you SO proud of our boys over there?
PROTESTER:
Just a kid in a coffin, covered by a flag.
PATRIOT:
They fight and die for our freedoms!
PROTESTER:
He was killed by friendly fire.
PATRIOT:
We liberated Iraq, made the world a safer place.
PROTESTER:
And HELL now they tell us there was no uranium after all!
PATRIOT:
I support our troops.
PROTESTER:
He shouldn’t have had to die.
PATRIOT:
I prayed for our troops that they would come out okay.
PROTESTER:
I marched for our troops, that they might come home again. They… They say the war is over, but kids are still dying, didn’t we learn this lesson before?
PATRIOT:
I didn’t want to see them die, but there is only one way to win a war.

[alphafemale]

1. Wow! Very Good!

[TheReligiousLeft]

3. Under God?

Rose and I have been discussing if Under God should be only used by the Patriot or if both sides should say it at the start of this thing. As a good Lutheran and a good Democrat I don't see why the Protester would not be down with the under God thing, but at the same time I can see with the whole issue the Patriot would be very anal about keeping the Under God phrase in the pledge.
What do you people think, keep it in or no?

[LibInternationalist]

7. re: Under God

I would have the patriot be very emphatic, and the protester questioning, FWIW

[Catch22Dem]

2. NICE!!!!

That was so very well written. You kinda left me hangin' there. I really wanted it to go on.

[Syn_Dem]

4. ...Beautiful...

Simply LOVED it. :loveya:

[TheReligiousLeft]

5. Zens in Cheyenne

I got to thinking, maybe there are some other Wyomingites here at DU. Tuesday night, 7pm Zens, Rose and I will tear this thing up. We both competed in Speech and Debate in highschool, now we will bring all our individual event coolness to this poetry duet piece. Check us out if you can.

[leftist_rebel1569]

6. oh...wow

beautiful poem. You say that's not the final draft? That's really good as is...

[TheReligiousLeft]

8. Final

The idea is we got together and got the general idea of what each line would say, then went home and I spruced up the protester's lines, and Rose spruced up the patriots lines. So the final draft will look like this except the patriot will sound a bit different. I'll post this thing tonight after we perform this thing.

[Kamika]

9. Thats pretty cool

wil there be some bacround beat or anything?

[TheReligiousLeft]

10. Beats

Not tonight, but we are thinking of performing this multiple times, so I may try and find a sound person and figure something out. It would be cool wouldn't it!