A member of the CAPA board, Orion Meadows is an award winning, published poet who teaches at the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago and works for prison reform and higher education for the incarcerated. He composed and performed this rap for CAPA’s fall 2025 benefit.
A nation that spends more
money on military defense and war
than on social upliftment of the poor
is on its way to spiritual decay.
From our youth we are taught by the school system that we reside in the land of the free,
but I guess that would be the mantra of the beneficiaries of wealth built upon stolen land.
Land of the free, except healthcare, clothing, hell
even the water nowadays is for sale.
And who would have thought
the very things nature bestowed to us freely would
someday be packaged up and sold to us to be bought.
Our right to life is labeled as propaganda for the left while the citizens are suspended in a center
of chaos perpetuated by political tricks of pimps and polemicists that preach prosperity for the
people but plunder the planet for its riches and hoard the profits.
while pushing a pipe dream of equality in a system that thrives off the labor of those whose
living wage is of the lower brackets.
“We The People” was never meant to be inclusive
but a proclamation of liberty conducive to attaining power for those that intended to be rulers,
a phrase often invoked to provoke the common folk to fight to preserve the status of oligarchs
set out to rule us.
So many souls sacrificed upon the altar of Ares
some buried on memorial soil –
others still amongst the living yet not given the adequate honor for their service.
So they’re treated as though they are worthless
by their own government they’ve been deserted,
for the flag they stood up but was let down
and now society kicks them while they’re lying there as though they deserve it.
Sometimes the thought brings my mind to a song called Mr.Wendel
and I think was this reality a result of mere circumstance or did chance provide a moment for
opportunity to present itself and somehow they missed the window.
Nevertheless, whether you’re from the rural plains of Tennessee or the Midwest concrete streets
of Milwaukee, we’re all just Everyday People
with a voice or rather a Speech that only needs an audience or an ear to hear
the story of why we are here.
The journey of the human existence,
whether collective or respective is one of a Hero’s tale
that entails the oscillations of the mortal experience
in which we have endured to prevail.
For monarchs and emperors produced dynasties that collapsed and fell
but the spirit of humanity with its capacity to love is a vibrant power when tapped into cannot fail.
If we reevaluate our values as a species and place them not in materialism but in empathy and
compassion so posterity will learn not to be cruel
we will abide in A Brave New World
basking in the resplendence of each other’s existence discovering the wealth of the golden rule.