Happy 2019...

Happy 2019.  Let's hope it goes better than 2018. 

Now that the amenities are over with, I offer this poem for a start to the year. 

How the End Begins

(or a Recipe for Disaster)

So this is how it all starts, the end; 

A dislike for someone not like us:

A darker skin in our sea of white

Or a faith just seen as wrong. 

Then, add a bit of glib talk,

    no credence, just smooth

To beguile and to tempt

The disaffected to take up the chant.  

Now, after this stews awhile, 

and the growing anger emerges,

Add a tiny bit of power to start -

    stirred with a good dose of 

Self-righteous smugness,

And then trigger a small demonstration,

Where someone might be killed.

Then, it's on for one and all!

Stir in a bit more power, and then

Lead the willing hordes to larger

And greater

Explosions of hate and un-reason. 

Keep at this for as along as it works, or 

Until the mass eruption.

And through the processes aforementioned

Be sure to add lots and lots of lies, but

Calling them the Truth. 

Now, the final power grab, and after

Comes the ukase, the purge, the destruction

Of what went before.

And the waning of reason.

The demise of virtue,

Then the blessing of war. 

This is how the end begins, 

And this is how we begin the end.