What Has Happened to America ?
What Has Happened to the American Dream?
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Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
~ The New Colossus ~
"The New Colossus" is a sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus (1849–1887), written in 1883. In 1903, the poem was engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the lower level of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
The title of the poem and the first two lines refer to the Colossus of Rhodes, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The poem talks about the millions of immigrants who came to the United States many of them through Ellis Island at the port of New York.
The "air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame" refers to New York City and Brooklyn, not yet consolidated into one unit in 1898.
Today, we speak of rounding up the our tired, our poor, our huddled masses yearning to breathe free...but we are now speaking of deporting them.
Is this really America?
Is this really what we stand for today?
Warmongering?
Torture?
...we talk of building a wall around America. WHAT has happened to America's Political Philosophy?
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