Scrooge Is Alive and Well

Was Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens'

Christmas Carol purely fictitious?

No, Scrooges live today,

Equally greedy, cold and ambitious.

 

They represent Scrooge before

He earned our admiration and saw

That human compassion came only after

His ice-cold heart had begun to thaw.

 

His transformation showed him his former

Cruel disregard for humanity

And let him see that miserliness

Was nothing but a heartless insanity.

 

Modern Scrooges fail to see

The light of compassion that brightly outshines them.

Their greed prevents them from seeing the moral

Bankruptcy that clearly defines them.

 

They couldn't care less about

The hard-working and struggling masses.

Their main concern is that each law

That benefits the wealthy passes.

 

Some of these Scrooges you will find

Working in Congress, eagerly serving

Wealthy donors who give them money

And feel as though they're more deserving.

 

Creating laws to make their pockets

Overflow: that's their aim.

To them the parasitical poor

Deserve bitter contempt and blame.

 

One wonders if these greedy misers

Find it hard to resist the temptation

Of saying, "Then why not let them die

And decrease the surplus population?"

 

“Aren't there workhouses?” and “Aren't there prisons?”

Are what these Scrooges appear to say.

“Concerns of the poor are not our business;

Why can’t they just go away?”

 

Ebenezer Scrooge was lucky:

His transformation showed him the light.

Will wealthy Scrooges running this country

Discover compassion and be less tight?

 

-by Bob B (12-28-17)