Democracy is Slow

Technology is very fast

It changes all we know,

Accelerating every task.

Democracy is slow.

Technology requires we learn

And follow ebb and flow.

We suffer when we look away.

Democracy is slow.

Technology is like a mouse

That nibbles here and there,

So slavish to its rapid pulse.

Democracy’s a bear,

Who long appears to hibernate,

Who’s slow to wake, engage,

But should you dare to poke the bear,

You’ll feel her mighty rage.

Technology, it hawks its wares:

Efficiency and Speed.

It promises to share the fruits,

To give us all we need,

To make our labor obsolete,

To let us live for free,

To soon inhabit distant worlds,

Reach immortality.

And all this has so low a price.

In fact, we’re almost there.

Just give the tech-lords every freedom.

Also, kill the bear.

The bear has other plans, I fear.

The mice, they squeal and scurry.

They’ve come too far to just allow

Defeat from one so furry.

They do not dare to wake the bear.

They know they can’t defeat

The strength of millions resting there,

Refreshed, and on her feet.

Like Lilliputian men

Surrounding Gulliver, asleep,

They hoist their wires and bind the bear,

Unconscious. In the deep

Penumbra of her slumber,

She feels something, bats an eye,

And soon discovers in what peril

All her body lies.

She pulls the stakes up without effort,

Shakes, rolls to her feet,

And bellows with a thunderous roar

Toward every mouse she meets.

Give way, give way you overlords,

So miniscule and small!

The People are the seat of power

And will defeat you all.

For a poem on wayward Democracy, or Democracy led astray, read Effervescence. For an essay on what we can do to preserve Democracy with whatever small platform we have, read Bare Witness.