{"id":44756,"date":"2025-10-26T14:41:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T21:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=44756"},"modified":"2025-10-26T14:41:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T21:41:21","slug":"pity-the-nation-a-poem-for-our-time-by-lawrence-ferlinghetti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/10\/26\/pity-the-nation-a-poem-for-our-time-by-lawrence-ferlinghetti\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cPITY THE NATION\u201d A POEM FOR OUR TIME BY LAWRENCE\u00a0FERLINGHETTI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

richardlfloyd<\/a> (richardlfloyd.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPITY THE NATION\u201d<\/strong>
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (After Khalil Gibran) 2007<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots haunt the airwaves<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pity the nation that raises not its voice
Except to praise conquerors
And acclaim the bully as hero
And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pity the nation that knows
No other language but its own
And no other culture but its own<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pity the nation whose breath is money
And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pity the nation oh pity the people
who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My country, tears of thee
Sweet land of liberty!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

copyright Lawrence Ferlingetti<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 4, 1919 \u2013 February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

November 22, 2020 by richardlfloyd (richardlfloyd.com) \u201cPITY THE NATION\u201dLawrence Ferlinghetti (After Khalil Gibran) 2007 Pity the nation whose people are sheepAnd whose shepherds mislead them Pity the nation whose leaders are liarsWhose sages are silencedAnd whose bigots haunt the airwaves Pity the nation that raises not its voiceExcept to praise conquerorsAnd acclaim the… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44756"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44757,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44756\/revisions\/44757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}