Prohibition Zeal ...

The misplaced zeal of prohibition.

Yes, booze was killing millions.
Caught in the hell of their factories.
In the slime of the slums.
Without hope and without light.

Booze becomes, then, or now, some relief.
Who can blame anyone wanting a little R & R?

So, the pious and the well-meaning.
Smashed the barrels and passed the 24th Amendment.

And we all know how that worked.
A boon to the crooked, it was.
While the rich still had their booze and speak-easies.

I guess the nation needed to try it out.

But what a dismal failure it was.
Because the real issues were poverty.
Child labor.
The cruelty of the rich.
The wantonness of Wall Street.
Desperation for millions caught in the cogs of "progress."

This whole anti-abortion thing strikes me as pious palaver.
Misplaced energy and misguided thinking.
The issue isn't abortion.
It's a thousand other things that weaken families.
Victimizes women and young girls.
The macho men who can't keep their pants zipped.
And the pathetic preachers who label it all, "God's will."

Piety of this sort isn't piety at all.
It's just ignorance, fear and misogyny.
The ancient anxiety of men.
To keep women penned and pregnant.

I don't know.
Looks like we're headed in all the wrong directions.
With a brute in the WH.
And sex-fixated conservatives, hands in the pockets.

I hope it doesn't endure.
It won't.
This kind of stuff always falters and fails.
But not without doing its horrible work.