Recently an illegally made audio of a “smoke filled” back room horse-trading session involving hispanic politicians and a labor leader surfaced in Los Angeles. The participants were scheming to not let the process of redistricting weaken their hold on power (gerrymandering).  Obscenities against almost every group were used liberally.  This piece is a response to this event.  A sampling of comments made: Martinez mocked Oaxacans as “little short dark people” and “so ugly” and compared a white councilmember’s young Black son to a monkey. In reference to Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón, she said “F— that guy. … He’s with the Blacks.”

People are angry and upset
At politician’s racial diatribe
Their crime – being politicians!
No other way to describe

Politics is a contact sport
Fight or get out of the ring
Who doesn’t like power?
What you heard is the real thing!

They chose the profession
Or profession chose them
Makes little difference
Lust for power, they can’t stem

It is a zero-sum game
They don’t want to lose
Instead of us choosing them
their electors, they choose

For once we the people became
“a fly on the wall”
Saw the “cock fight”,
Raw, uncensored, full of gall

Power is an aphrodisiac
Addictive and seductive
Tasted once, hooked for life
Walk and talk, both invective

Politicians want to hold on to power
By any and every means possible
Who would not? It’s intoxicating
Act like Mother Theresa? Not viable

I bet you Bezos fortune
If you tasted the potion
You too would act the same way,
realize there is no other option

Their guards fell down
didn’t measure their words
Uncensored speech is what you saw
Let’s not pretend, let’s be adults.

You don’t join politics to serve others
To say so is nothing but hypocrisy
Your job one is to always win
Anything else is sheer malarkey

Politics is a lucrative profession
Sets you up well for generations
Won’t you do whatever is required
be it through legal or illegal actions?

Prejudice is as normal as thirst
Lying dormant under the skin
Even small provocation wakes it up
Just needs the prick of a pin

Politicians are bottom feeders
Will stoop down to no end
Will throw any one under the bus
No doubt, be it foe or friend

I feel sad for the Black Americans
Slaved under Whites’ subjugation
Now it is the Hispanics continuing
The cycle of discrimination

Once they too were a minority
joined forces with the Blacks
Now that they don’t need them
They are kicking them off the tracks

Politicians will be politicians
Blame it to the profession
This moment too will pass
Lasting change? nah, bad assumption

World changes, yet history repeats
Basic human nature – set in our genes
People will seize and hang on to power
by all and every possible means.

Their only crime is
Getting caught doing the crime
What they did is par for the course
Such crimes happen all the time!!

Can’t tame natural biases
That’s what makes us human
If you are looking for the cause
Blame it on evolution!!

Life is not fair!
Never was, never will
You just have to keep moving
Can’t stand still.