{"id":33937,"date":"2019-03-18T15:12:03","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T19:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=33937"},"modified":"2024-11-09T13:35:50","modified_gmt":"2024-11-09T18:35:50","slug":"ferlinghetti-pity-the-nation-whose-people-are-sheep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2019\/03\/ferlinghetti-pity-the-nation-whose-people-are-sheep.html","title":{"rendered":"Ferlinghetti: &#8216;Pity the Nation Whose Leaders Are Liars&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Lawrence Ferlinghetti must be wondering what all the fuss is about. After all, he&#8217;s only going to turn 100 on Sunday. What&#8217;s the big deal? I&#8217;m betting he would prefer that people take note of his twelve-year-old poem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lKCblAJtzgE?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Pity the nation whose people are sheep<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; And whose shepherds mislead them<br>&nbsp;Pity the nation whose leaders are liars<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Whose sages are silenced<br>&nbsp; And whose bigots haunt the airwaves<br>&nbsp;Pity the nation that raises not its voice<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Except to praise conquerers<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And acclaim the bully as hero<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And aims to rule the world<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; With force and by torture<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Pity the nation that knows<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; No other language but its own<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And no other culture but its own<br>&nbsp;Pity the nation whose breath is money<br>&nbsp;And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Pity the nation oh pity the people<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; who allow their rights to&nbsp; erode<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; and their freedoms to be washed away<br><em>My country, tears of thee<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Sweet land of liberty<\/em><strong>&#8220;<\/strong><br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(After Khalil Gibran)<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And this is&nbsp;<strong>Kahlil Gibran&#8217;s&nbsp;<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/work\/quotes\/1914829\">The Garden of the Prophet<\/a>, to which Ferlinghetti paid homage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lawrence Ferlinghetti must be wondering what all the fuss is about. After all, he\u2019s only going to turn 100 on Sunday. What\u2019s the big deal? I\u2019m betting he would prefer that people take note of his twelve-year-old poem: &#8220;Pity the nation whose people are sheep . . .&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,18,4,20,23,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-33937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"category-literature","9":"category-main","10":"category-media","11":"category-news","12":"category-political-culture","13":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Ferlinghetti.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-8Pn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33937"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63163,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33937\/revisions\/63163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}