Charge of the Human Rights Brigade

Premble

So like a lot of you guys sometime partake in casual chatter, which eventually steers to the point where politics is unavoidable
And it was during one of these that one of my more controversial friends uttered a phrase
"Oh, what is this, the human rights brigade?"
And the tome of this statement really struck a nerve
And made me unleash a rant that didn't know I held in reserve
All my friends stared at me, they knew what was going down
As I built myself up and released my sound

Poem

Alright I forgive your ignorance, this one time I guess
But its certainly an ignorance I'm going to have to address
See, the only way you could have much an idiotic opinion
Is if you didn't know the history of the Human Rights Division
In fact you've probably heard of some of our most famous celebrities
 Like Gandhi. JFK and Mother Theresa, MLK and Tim DeChristopher
And almost everywhere we're marched, our arrival has been hailed
As trying to promote humanity, and though sometime we've failed

Well do our best, put everything on the line
Martyrdoms a common fate, but we don't mind
So we're actually going out, taking action to do what's right
Not getting involved in petty politics night after night
And I've seen our soldiers die, and heard tales of many more
Some whose names were never known, yet still gave up their life for the cause
And although I realise people like you may not care
There's a whole battalion of people just trying to make the world more fair

To help the child, homeless on the sheet
Forced into a sweatshop to make shoes for your feet
To help the tribe on the brisk of genocide
To provide comfort to the teenager considering suicide
To try to stop the husband who beats and rapes his wife
To intervene for the gay kid in a country while his sexuality is the death penalty by the knife
To provide water and food where famine exists
Against these injustices and more, to always persist

And I've tried to march alongside these greats, even though I've been scared
See it's not just the celebrities, but the individuals that make us prepared
So lease join me, sign up to your local branch today
And join the charge of the human right's brigade


***

A poem from before I started this challenge (i.e. pre 2013), that I found on an old piece of paper and transcribed to this blog for archiving many years later. I don't know the precise date, but