F.I. Goldhaber

STOP

Stop identifying them as Christians.
They follow none of Jesus Christ's teachings
including his instructions to love all,
welcome strangers, feed the poor, share their wealth.

Stop confirming as conservative those
reactionary by definition.

Stop calling them phobic when it's just hate.
Gender critical is just another
form of misogyny, to vindicate
imposing their bigotry on others.

Stop accepting claims to patriotism
when they despise, undermine, and assail
any who appear, believe, speak, or love
outside their narrow range of acceptance.

They may belong to a traditional
party, but they have no interest in
governance, seeking only to extract
and steal labor, land, resources, and wealth;
fouling water, soil, air needed for life.

Stop listening to liberals excuse
ableism, trans vilification,
contributions to climate catastrophe,
genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid,
complicity. Believe votes not their words.


F,I,'s YouTube reading of "STOP"


F.I. confesses: Words have meaning. Those meanings matter because they give words power. But authoritarians pervert language to serve their own agenda. As someone who's always made my living using words, who carefully chooses words to most clearly communicate my meaning, I find the abuse of words in service to fascism offensive.

F.I. Goldhaber's words capture people, places, and politics with a photographer's eye and a poet's soul. As a reporter, editor, and business writer, they produced news stories, feature articles, editorial columns, and reviews for newspapers, corporations, governments, and non-profits across the country. Now paper, plastic, electronic, and audio magazines, books, newspapers, calendars, broadsides, and street signs display their poetry, fiction, and essays. More than 265 of their poems appear in 100 publications including What Color is Your Privilege?, their political poetry collection published by Left Fork press. http://www.goldhaber.net/