It’s easy to talk tough, easy to claim you are more than enough
To reclaim a flag and promote liberty and justice for all
Today’s a day for memorials, everyone claiming or reclaiming
A flag, or patriotism whether founded in democracy or fascism

The narrative of a fascist despot aimed at destroying constitutional freedoms
Is answered with a newfound appreciation for the foundations of a democratic ideal once founded upon principles of a nation “conceived in liberty, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”

And we answer how it’s not just men now, but about liberty and justice for all
We take the narrative of the liberty conceived in equality for men
To mean we seek diversity, equity, and inclusion
For all

And we brandish it like a sword of justice, a torch of freedom, the diversity, equity, and inclusion of the huddled masses
Yearning to breathe free
We counter narratives of monarchy and hierarchy
With the watchwords of democracy and the urge to freedom
For all

A movement has come forward, a grand coaltion of the vast majority
Not a polarized nation but polarized rulers
Those who shout the truth of racism and misogyny
And those who’d rather such truths not be so revealed

But do we even remember that this nation so conceived
Was built on genocide and slavery, expansionism, thievery?
That when it came to shove, colonies were conceived as grand compromises
Between assertions of grand capital or profit based in chattel
Codified and sanctified in a war between states, incivil in its argument

Did we ever truly read the amendment to end slavery?
Where slavery was never ended but codified and sanctified
As the small print to be allowed in case of criminality?

And here we are, on a day of memories
Memorializing those we say had died in our great cause of freedom
Did we ever remember how this day has come to be?
How those who had been freed
Honored Union soldiers for their sacrifice in the cause of ending slavery
They are to be excused, how could they know such freedom could result in so many caveats

Do we even remember how that freedom from bondage came with an urge to help a nation be conceived in total war
Against its earliest inhabitants and the theft of lands
That was never meant to belong to anyone

And here we are today
To honor those in every fray, every cause
To usurp so many of so many freedoms
A wave of seeking liberty, a freedomtide
A guidebook for the urge to genocide

Today we memorialize the sacrifice of the vanquishers of the vanquished
Young souls filled with false promises and pride
To fight the wars of rich men for their urge to plunder
To cleave the world for privileged nations
With the promise that in doing so they’ll be honored in appreciation
And nothing else

And so today I am here to remember that indeed there is something to memorialize
Not the death of vanquishers but of the vanquished
The defeated of the Wampanoag, the erased of the Catawba, Cherokee, the Lumbee, and Kiawah

I honor the fallen in the cause of freedom,
The slaves who fought the slavers, the Irish who fought for Mexico
The Kiowa and Comanche who fought the Buffalo soldiers and their masters
Those who fought for liberty and justice for all
Harriet and Sojourner, Inez Millholland, Lucy Burns, and Alice Paul

I honor the opponents of all capitalist wars
Eugene V. Debs, Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, William Schroeder

The martyrs of the wars against Labor
Rosa Luxembourg, Karl Liebknecht, Sacco and Vanzetti
Immigrants and their defenders, Geraldo Lunas Campo, Renee Good, and Alex Preti

And the victims of the veterans
Those school children in Iran, children and their parents in Ukraine
The martyrs for the right to bear guns
Sandy Hook, Uvalde, Columbine

I have no honor for those that killed all these
Or those who fought the wars to divide worlds
No honor here,
Although I may have empathy
If you’re uneducated, you’re only partially culpable for your stupidity

Hence, no honor for the fallen we too often choose to remember
But for those lost who’ve truly born the cost
The victims and those who would defend them

Today I remember and I grieve
Those once slaves who honored fallen fighters for their freedom
Those who were victimized by wars against nations, against immigrants, against rights for some democracy
To wrap these memories in a flag of thievery and genocide is a travesty

I will just remember those against having wars, for those who seek the rights of the oppressed
For those who sought not the democracy we think we have
But the one we wish to finally see
It’s memorial day
Let’s remember who we truly wish to be