> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://the-stardust-journal-press.ghost.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# We the People
- URL: https://the-stardust-journal-press.ghost.io/we-the-people/
- Published: 2025-06-12T10:52:45.000Z
- Updated: 2026-06-29T13:06:58.000Z
- Description: young Americans reaching across oceans to help build something better: a more perfect union, guided by the people, not clenched in a dictator’s fist.
- Author: Daniel Rutberg
- Tags: Reflection, Poetry, A More Perfect Union, #Migrated-1782738355072, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-06-29 09:05

Born in the shadow of war  
where memories of living skeletons—  
members of my tribe—  
walked free through barbed wire fences  
and six million ghosts haunted soldiers and civilians alike  
we the people our conscience mixed with shame said never again

I grew up with crosses burning on hilltops  
where the Klan leader’s son  
told me Jews were just  
Ngrs turned inside out.  
And yet—I still believed  
We the People did not side with monsters.

When one little girl,  
flanked by the National Guard,  
walked up the steps  
of an all-white school,  
We the People  
awoke to injustice.

Laws were passed  
to shame the haters into silence—  
to let a people once sold at auction  
finally begin to be free.

I remember Camelot—  
both the play and the promise—  
the Peace Corps,  
young Americans reaching across oceans  
to help build something better:  
a more perfect union,  
guided by the people,  
not clenched in a dictator’s fist.

Then, with a single gunshot  
heard round the world,  
Camelot ended.

And in my twelve-year-old heart,  
I was no longer sure  
that good would always win.

But still—I believed.  
We had others to lead the battle.  
We had Martin.  
We had Bobby.  
Until 1968.  
And then we didn’t.

I won’t recount the atrocities  
that claimed so many lives.  
But the image of a naked girl running,  
the kneeling man, executed—  
these play forever  
on the screen of memory.

We the People—  
marching war-weary, medaled soldiers, mourning mothers,  
hard hats and long-haired, tie-dyed youth—  
unmasked the hypocrisy,  
and ended a war  
that should never have begun.

We are stunned and silent at  
injustices we’ve yet to name—  
but I remember when  
We the People had a conscience.