Opium is the religion of the masses

[RiverNotch]

Opium is the religion of the masses
 
The rich throw us under their mill,
indiscriminately grind our flesh & bones, indiscriminately, at least, grinds.
yet forbid us poppies to succor
our mental anguish or quite our pitiful moans. quiet.

erthona

the whole thing's not rich enough for me.

the title: opium and religion become circular here, to a point that's kinda grating. really, what exactly makes religion "religion", or opium "opium", in the context of this piece? they do have a meaning generally applied to them by society, but of course the point of the original statement, "religion is the opium of the masses", sought to redefine one for the other, and did so by using the rest of the text -- this one, meanwhile, doesn't. so religion "succors / our mental anguish", etc, which is what opium, barring the technical, is in its entirety -- but then what else is opium? the equation that is the title thus becomes a tautology, one that, by failing to address the differences between their inherent meanings, doesn't add anything to the conversation, ie, if you're gonna call opium a religion, make it such that the text shows the "us" here actually has a system of beliefs, a tradition, or even just a mode of congregation, that involves or revolves around opium; otherwise the title is just a cheap draw.

the rich: it's not exactly that you're wrong -- judging by my admittedly limited knowledge of marx, the rich in general does compose the bourgeoisie, and thus the implications of class warfare in the word are enough. it's just that the implications remain just that, implications -- mill implies industry, grind implies dehumanization, and rich implies what i just mentioned. but that's just it, implies, which if you are going for a critique of Trump, or even the system as a whole, ends up being utterly feckless, and thus useless. these are words, with these same meanings and intentions, that have been said before, and for issues that have existed for more than one, even two hundred years -- it's very hard, i'm sure, to inject anything new to the discussion, but vividness at least would let this float to the top. i'm not saying, of course, that one should advocate a specific political stance, it's just that to advocate not even a specific point of view in this more than two hundred year old issue does not a good poem make.

our mental anguish, our pitiful moans: basically the same thing as on "the rich", although i must also add that "mental anguish", "pitiful moans" sound particularly middle class, ie they sound like a college student being all wimpy about problems he or she doesn't fully comprehend, rather than the same sort of class obliteration, of "ourness", the piece seems to strive for. dehumanization through a lack of proper social and economic support is a very real thing -- to die of hunger or of lack of medicine causes more than "mental anguish" -- and "pitiful moans" has that air of not merely self-pity but of pity for the other, for the "our" the speaker seems to ingratiate him or herself with, that makes the whole piece sound doubly artificial, even the very same level of condescending "the rich" here supposedly revels in. that, and the use of "the masses": at the very least, when marx developed that aphorism, he was talking as a scholar, which this piece does not seem to do. then again, i may just be one of those awkward college students i'm critiquing, but then i'm not the one writing this piece.