Finally Lost My Wack Libtard Idealism

Lost sight of the person I once had wanted to become

Got comfortable with seeing bulldozers roaring everywhere I went

Got used to living in a greedy plastic land of marketing make believe

Gave up on those homemade, love-based, back-to-the-land, juvenile delusions

Forgot completely about swimming in clean water anymore in the summer

Grew able to ignore the polluted air since I was always behind dirty windows

Lost connection to the land but tuned into the stock markets

Came out of the forest and became a temporary stain on the pavement

Stopped looking for some small-footprint, self-sustaining lifestyle

Lost sight of the ideals that were instilled in me so long ago

Grew to find happiness in buying cheap new imports and saving nothing

Quit walking in the woods but made new trails with my noisy dirt bike

Learned to look for speculative potential behind all undeveloped land

Adopted a conservatism which promotes exploitation in all directions

Surrendered happily to every childish urge presented by the media

Succumbed to a fantasy lifestyle financed by expensive credit cards

Gradually lost empathy with the poor and totally forgot the underprivileged

No longer plant trees on Earth Day but I do know which SUV has more horsepower

Lost sight of happiness in the endless rush after pleasures I never remember

Look right on thru the endless suffering of my less successful brothers

Don’t worry about safe, homemade, organic food cause I eat out all the time

Forgot how to think critically and do not listen to that quiet voice inside me anymore, either

Don’t care that I lost track of the cycles of the moon and the seasons

Remain ignorant of science but freely quote from hundreds of Hollywood releases

Gave up on the redwoods and no longer fear for the baby seals

Let the rain forests go and what good, really, were those polar bears anyway?

Not going back to the land except on my powerful overpriced and financed OHV

No longer question the morality of war if our born-again leaders find it necessary

Quit worrying about a planet that I do not own and cannot control

learned to overlook my extra 25 pounds, double chin and metabolic syndrome

Found it so much easier swimming deep inside the school rather than against the tide

Gave my children everything in hopes they would always find me cool

Spend thousands on an illusion that I am not like those who came before me

Lost sight of the person that I had wanted to become when I finally grew up

Barely notice that I stay at work too long and commute way too far

Gave up any sense of responsibility for leaving behind a better world

Find it easy to sit semi-comatose flipping channels instead of reading books

Narrowed a broad curiosity into eToy price comparisons and stock watching

Haven’t taken up a new sport or picked up an old one since I don’t want to know when

No longer strive for a mystical connection to any land, weather or animals

Don’t really recognize the person in any of my old pictures

Sometimes try to consider what I might have thought of my new self, way back then

Caught up in watering, poisoning, fertilizing and mowing the stupid grass I so detested

Grew embarrassed of recycling when my Conservative betters deemed it a sign of weakness

Foolishly dress like a ‘Professional’ to keep a job I actually loathe very much

Don’t bother checking miles per gallon or tailpipe emissions but I know my 0 to 60 times

Quit worrying where the food comes from or where the garbage goes

Forgot about acid rain, global warming, overpopulation and toxic chemicals

Convinced now that greed is enshrined in our infallible constitution and the holy bible

Trying to make a difference no longer keeps me awake in the night

Long ago put down the musical instrument I once found so important

Wake up with thoughts of who I must backstab at work instead of who I should try to be

Quit living in the moment and simply work for short, mindless breaks

Never walk quietly and all alone in the moonlight anymore

Lost sight of all the reasons I once had to strive for a better world

Focused quite clearly on myself and what the kids want right now

Sometimes wonder who this person is that I married so long ago

Grown quite accustomed to the sight of miles of brand new and identical Burbs

Content with family adventure at some new and distant shopping mall

Anti-depressants and alcohol help to smooth out the bumps and the glitches

Feel cheated cause I didn’t spend hours at electronic games like my kids get to do

Accepted Jesus as my personal savior and abdicated all of my rational responsibility

No longer see well enough to scan those far off horizons for spiritual clues

Don’t bother to stop for the rainbows I only see now through my bug-splattered windshield

Look forward to salty snacks snatched from cellophane bags

Use my remaining thinking skills to analyze overblown corporate sporting events

Pretend to look rich to those just like me on vacations none of us can actually afford

Dress up like an outlaw on my financed Harley on weekends, insured by the AARP

Expect to maintain my accustomed lifestyle from the Social Security I so richly deserve

Paid off my credit cards again by cashing out more unearned home equity, then filed Chapter 7

Made big money cashing out my home & leaving the community my kids can’t afford to live in

Lost sight of the great wheel and was to quickly thrown off the corporate merry-go-round

Don’t feel like that aging person I don’t recognize in unexpected glances in mirrors

Am not a litterbug but don’t recycle since it doesn’t really matter

Love my second home but am mildly appalled by habitat destruction

Take fashion cues from my kids marketers, adding lame twists of my own

Quite often need a morning Ibuprofen just from sleeping wrong

Don’t walk the sidewalks anymore for fear of being seen as squishy

Financed a new and bigger house after the kids simply ruined the old one

Plumbers and electricians, roofers and carpenters make me uneasy

No longer unaware of a tee shirt in which the sweat has dried in its place

My search of the unknowable ended in small tithes and a blind trust in Jesus

Staunched my bleeding heart with a swab of Social Darwinism

Now we pull together with the tough love of compassionate conservatism

All the attractive women call me Sir and recommend what their fathers like for me

Spent the money my parents left me on a facelift and a new sports sedan

Found some drawings I once made but quickly regained my petty focus

Lost sight of stars that had guided me, but not just because of all the light pollution

No longer see important images in those great western skies

Now prefer the non-stop, empty din of the media to culturing peaceful silence within

Would not mind seeing all that empty wilderness if I did not have to walk to get there

Lay in bed trying to figure out how I can make all that money I need real quick

Learned that if I cannot really afford it, at least I can still put it on the credit card

Hurry Up And Damn MAGA

Hurry up and get the government out of the ‘business’ of habitat preservation

Make haste and put jesus front and center in all our courtrooms and legislatures

Let’s rapidly streamline these burdensome and costly mining and drilling regulations

Our opponents partisan stalling is at the root of our most serious problems

Quickly dump these time-consuming environmental impact statements

End the charade today and let’s get all the oil we can from anywhere we want

The people deserve to see our complete vision enacted in its entirety

Quash this talk of a right to privacy and get on with unaudited secret surveillance

Hurry up and gerrymander all the voting districts with unbeatable majorities

Abruptly end Title 9, handicapped access and all this BS affirmative action

These endless rancorous debates are paralyzing our government bodies

Quickly now, terminate all entitlement programs and end corporate taxes

This very afternoon let’s abolish these meddlesome Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts

Immediately allow all vehicles anytime and anywhere on all our public lands

We need to rid ourselves of this poisonous atmosphere of political acrimony

Cut to the chase and allow mineral extraction wherever, whenever and however

Spin off our under-utilized forests via open bidding to encourage unfettered development now

Hurry up and get prayer back into the classrooms right along with Intelligent Design

Too much energy is being wasted in polarized, non-productive arguments

Right now - Post a 30 day eviction notice on the door of that godless United Nations

Quit stalling and just pack the court full with those who share our enlightened views

Immediately ban all forms of artificial contraception and sex education to those under 25

We can eliminate many conflicts forever by finally making some decisions

Quickly institute mandatory prayer and bible study in all our public schools

Make a rapid purge of the liberals controlling our colleges and the media

Let us use sound bites and prayer to make the tough decisions we need never regret

Right now lift all emissions and mileage regulations from our new vehicles

Abruptly end government-funded public radio and television for good

Hurry up and abolish the minimum wage and ban all forms of unions

We must make our decisions and write them all down and get on with things

Make a quick and final exit from species preservation and re-introduction

Immediately empower confidential government policy-making boards led by industry executives

Simply quit subsidizing or even encouraging recycling and conservation completely

Marginalize these whining squishes now so we can make clearer plans for our future

End race-based quotas and assistance to the children of poverty after lunch

Abolish these stifling offshore drilling restrictions before leaving today

Use endless rapid repetition of slickly-packaged simple messages to establish guiding truths

Put all of the public-housing and property-stealing national monuments up for sale tomorrow

Quickly make it impossible to obtain information outside of official sources

Govern best by doing less, trusting in God, the marketplace and anonymous corporate donors

Immediately put a cap on punitive damages any way industry sees fit

Right away re-classify all politically sensitive documents as secret

Quickly eliminate the EPA, lay off its workers and cancel its mandates

Silence the foolish gun control whiners forever with court decisions and new legislation

Terminate these non-productive federally-funded climate studies immediately

Right away start teaching Traditional Family ValuesÔ and the Bible in our public schools

Let us do these things with candor and energy and record our results

Eliminate this misguided national endowment for the arts as fast as you can

Abolish quotas on technical visas and give bigger tax breaks for outsourcing jobs

Drop all these socialist controls and give the free market complete control of the healthcare industry

Hurry up and let consumers decide the fate of remaining old-growth forests

Quickly make it official practice to edit and censure federal research papers

Immediately further the spread of democracy at will via military force

This incessant quarrelling is tiring and stands in the way of our real progress

Replace all burdensome government oversight with non-binding self-regulation

Speedily stop the endless appeals on extraction and development projects

Starting now, give all aid only through the faith-based charities of our supporters

Enough of mere drips and drabs, riders and amendments – full speed ahead!

Quickly stop the debate and simply ban all abortions. Period.

Right away we need to give new owners full control over their leveraged wetland properties

Let such actions replace empty rhetoric and the results can be recorded for posterity

Provide permanent relief of excessive tax burdens on the wealthy right now

Make it official today that all poverty benefits simply trickle down from the rich

Let it all come to pass and let everyone be judged for their part

Offer black convicts slavery and prejudice reparations in the form of one-way tickets to Africa

Speedily make implanted smart card IDs mandatory for all migrant workers

Give us a chance to bring our democratic, faith-based vision to full fruition now

Rapidly free our corporations from uncompetitive pension and benefit burdens

Fast track an amendment for annual increases in military spending into our sacred constitution

We have a clear vision going forward, just let’s quickly remove the obstacles in our path

How Could We Be Like This?

Why did you scrawl ‘No Trespassing’ on old boards all around your filthy little pig sty

Who would try to root you out from that vile and tiny piece of your hog heaven

How could you simply flick your filthy butts down wherever they were finished

And why were the empty packs also permitted to fall crumpled to the ground

Why was it all right if you just tossed your cans aside, somewhere in the bushes

If you just didn’t give a damn, why was your pickup bed always so clean and empty

Tell me of the great pleasure you took from a loud muffler on that pathetically obese pickup

What was so great about drunkenly blaring music so long after two in the morning

So was it really OK to make all those new bandit trails on your obnoxious ATV

Where was the pleasure in ripping up the turf with a smoky, noisy dirt bike

How did you manage to shout so loud and so hoarsely for so very long

Who taught those fat, young girls to swear so coarsely in such hissy voices

How many ways did you find to exclaim with such great fervor that you just didn’t give a fuck

How many times did you let your boyfriend smack you and your helpless little son around

Was there any way that you could ever turn down free donuts or a Big Gulp

Were you really big and tough or was it pretty much just poison-laden fat

Were you able to spend your whole life watching DVDs and playing videos

Why did you drop out of that expensive school your helicopter parents finally got you into

Did it make any real sense to pull a huge speed boat behind a giant truck

Do you know why you wore an item once and then just tossed it casually aside

What do you want to be now that you’ve grow old and your credit has run dry

When did God grant you the right to cheat the illegales you enslave at jobs that we wont do

How were we stronger as a nation for your ingrained over-consumption

Show me how your asian plastic decal ribbon made you some kind of an ever-vigilant patriot

How could you love America so much if you could not always find it on a map

Why did you take comfort in us spending more on arms than all the other countries combined

How come everything you got was stamped ‘Adulterated By Slaves Polluting China’

Where have all the engineers gone who knew how to take us to the moon and back

Could your children read and write or would they supposed to learn that when they got to college

How long could the scripted bullshit you read so convincingly dupe the illiterates who elected you

How did you always easily overlook those who lay in filthy castoffs on the dirty streets

Why should I support you now that you are fat, sick, hurt, old and haven’t saved a cent

Tell me all the wondrous things your personal relationship with Christ has provided you

What good was yet another clumsy, obese & overpriced pickup to your everlasting soul

How could we dare to tell others to preserve ecosystems after we shattered the New World

How recharging was it really - having your drunk, fat ass dragged around atop a jet ski

Who do you think you were to demand that we clearcut our tiny remaining old-growth forests

For which of our precious unborns did we rip the final drops of oil from our last wilderness areas

Where did you get the gall to righteously preach abstinence and call it foreign aid

Who convinced you that we alone carried a bright moral compass for the entire world

How could your family be so rich and educated yet produce an airhead like yourself

Why would you let them spend a $trillion creating a petro-haven for islamic terrorists

How was it you thought you’d be able to work til 75 when you were laid off for good at 52

What can your son do that five Indians will not together do better, cheaper and faster

Since you could not recall last years 4^th of July, how then could you plan for your future

Why did CEOs globalize for bonuses except that all might live in an equally-abject poverty

How come you always drove a brand new car but never had any money saved at all

Why did you need 15 rooms for 3.7 people, 5 blathering TVs and a few unopened books

Tell me again all about how you were so lost but at last found your personal savior

Whose voice was it that you really heard on your knees praising sweet Jesus, my tired brother

What the fuck would you have done forever in your fuzzy and evangelical paradise

Would you still overeat and lay on the couch in your own stinking gas

What did you mean saying “It’s only business” as your layoffs shattered people’s lives

Why did you deserve so many times more money than the workers you continually shed

Where did your lovely daughter get those crude tattoos and nipple piercings

Why did your son still smoke dope if he seemed OK when he stayed on his meds

What did you plan to do all day when you were thoughtlessly thrown off the treadmill for good

Did interminable golf and fishing satisfy your precious, unique and everlasting soul

If you worked so hard for your family why did you not spend any time with them

Should you possibly have given a damn about some phony worldwide water crisis

How did you dare to idle your Ram-tough pickup just to run the goddamn air conditioning

Do you really believe your uninformed, fat and spoiled offspring can lay claim to world leadership

Could your One God condemn their True God’s followers to eternal Hell, just as theirs did to you

How did you go on wasting more in a week than they earned in a year for so many years

Did you deliberately raise children to be stupid enough to accept the mess that you are leaving them

How could you grant yourself the baseless right to be above and apart from the plants and animals

Why did you fail to notice that your society and lifestyle were simply unsustainable

How is it that you had no clue as to why you could not sleep at night

By what authority did you try and spread corporate democracy and franchised free enterprise

What made you believe others really wanted to share your synthetic, commercial visions

Why would you think that hair dye and skin cream could make you young inside again

What did your merciful God counsel you regarding that fifth new 300 horsepower SUV

How exceptionist did you think you were to chant ‘God Bless America’ at every staged photo-op

Why did you support a crooked Social Darwinism based on birthright, prejudice and favoritism

What did you really do with all the time you saved at all those drive-through windows

Why did your so-called leaders hire marketers to sell the policies of their corporate handlers to you

How come they confined themselves to 30 second sound bites whenever they had to talk to you

Why did your favorite so-called news channels spew forth the same sponsored vapid tripe

If you loved your kids so goddamn much, why did you leave them a gutted and shabbier world

How come you could name 50 actors but not a single biologist, much less one chemist

What drove your total focus upon satisfying your greedy hyper-consumerist needs

What god taught you to cast blind eyes on all those who lived on but a dollar per day

How did your get-rich-quick stock and real estate schemes help create a better society

As you died did you reflect in peace upon the many nights spent laying dissipated in front of TV

Why did you eat meat raised with all the soul there is in efficient modern factory production

Who really benefited from your narrow specialization and proudly loud ignorance

What kind of leader made great political decisions based on fantasy talks with a personal savior

Why did you deny them contraception yet refuse to help all their innocent, bastard children

Why would you replace biological diversity with poverty, suffering, filth and ignorance

What remained to you from all those years of anger, stress, anxiety and hurry

Did they extol your lengthy and expensive devotion to pro football and NASCAR in your obituary

At your funeral, was it noted you never left the house without several coats of cosmetics

Who were you to seek continuous immediate gratification even while earning your eternal rewards

How could you act like the world was yours to be pillaged in your patriotic pursuit of happiness

Why did it confuse you so much when you awoke in real silence for just a moment

How did you mostly stuff down the portions that were twice as large as you needed and toss the rest

How could you cast off all of this stuff we now mine from your toxic, overflowing landfills

How was it you fouled the air and water and still sang America the Beautiful so very emotionally

Slashing And Burning In God’s Name

Ignoring children born with AIDS while righteously preaching abstinence

Fearing to denounce overpopulation despite the fact it’s at the root of most of our problems

Labeling alcohol, tobacco and gambling as evils but depending upon their tax receipts

Spending millions to market Viagra but not funding such as malaria research

Praising technology while politicizing science and outsourcing engineering

Mouthing family values from inside the pocket of the rich and the corporate

Watching women carry water in plastic jugs on TV while wasting so much on over-fertilized lawns

Calling for peace while being the world’s largest arms salesman

Paying corporate farms not to produce corn for cows or ethanol while malnutrition grows overseas

Idling in air-conditioned traffic jams for hours while the permafrost belches methane

Preaching democratic values while propping up corrupt and totalitarian dictatorships

Declaring the equality of all men though we practice a rigged Social Darwinism here at home

Labeling others nakedly aggressive but ourselves as preemptively-defensive, heroic liberators

Exporting our pollution and packaging where enforcement is lax and slave labor flourishes

Calling ourselves leaders as we gushily mouth the policies of our donor corporations

Extolling logic, reason and hi-tech with nose down & eyes closed in literal evangelical faith

Scrambling to downsize and outsource for bonuses while praising our beloved Human Element

Demonstrating our proud patriotic sacrifice with plastic flag decals on our imported cars

Preaching the sanctity of life while abandoning single-parent children to multi-generational poverty

Craftily greenwashing antiquated, polluting coal technology into a clean & proven alternative

Enjoying nature shouting to overcome your screaming speedboat, ATV, jet ski or snowmobile

Slashing workers and benefits simply to raise stock prices and earn a even bigger bonus

Denying every charge with still more lies until the truth is finally out and it all caves in

Spending 20 times as much per year on a prisoner as for a student

Selling us on nature’s beauty while bulldozing it away with a desperate greed

Driving to the health club to page thru magazines on an electric treadmill

Marketing a 300 horsepower hybrid SUV as an environmentally friendly & economical alternative

Portraying environmental sustainability as a threat to our noble Traditional Family Values

Exchanging reasoned debate for the angry and loud repetition of exaggerated corporate sound bites

Focusing on this quarters GDP while letting the Multi-Nationals chart our future by their bonuses

So We Chose To Be Like This?

So we save the jobs, cut the trees and extinguish the spotted owls

When the old growth is all cut and exported what jobs then remain

If we saved the trees and retrained a few lumberjacks right now

Maybe there would be some tourist jobs in the old growth along with the owls

So we spend a couple trillion to secure democracy and oil in the middle east

When the fields are tapped and sent to China what will Big Oil then provide us?

If we spent a quarter of that money to develop energy independence

Maybe we could abandon the Sheiks and Imams to the biting flies of their stinking desert

So we tithe without question a half a trillion every year to the god of war

Why then can’t we prevail against their homemade IEDs and crude truck bombs?

If we took three quarters of that budget for education, infrastructure, health and the old

Maybe we would actually be ready to meet any real challenger who might arise

So we go ahead and tap our arctic wilderness for a small petroleum reserve

When we consume all of what little there is today, it’s just gone forever

If we simply waited while technology got better at doing more with less

Possibly they could drill cleaner and safer sometime when we really need it

So we spend more every year on prisons for petty minority drug users and hookers

What value flows to society for the costs of their miserable upkeep

If we legalized and regulated, taxed and collected fees instead

we might even spend more on schools and put the pimps and pushers out of business

So we open up the forests to entrepreneurs and activities of any stripe

When it’s all built out, what then will we turn our holy bulldozer crusade against?

If we preserve what rightfully belongs to generations yet to come

Maybe they can tap potentials that we have never even dreamed of

So we conglomerate and merge and automate and globalize to the limit

When every worker toils for pennies, who then can afford the flood of goods?

If we lower the human population and use resources more efficiently

Maybe we won’t all have be reduced to a miserable common denominator

So we open a Wal*Mart close to everyone in this exceptionist land of ours

Local businesses are buried beneath their semis stuffed with imports

If we have to pay a little more than for their asian knockoffs and cheapened generics

Perhaps our towns will retain a bit of diversity and a few real jobs

So we ban sex education, contraception, abortion and preach solemnly of abstinence

Since our children learn so very little as it is, why would that ever work?

If we implanted contraceptives in all those first-time unwed mothers and irresponsible dads

Maybe we could end the multi-generational cycle of babies born on welfare

So we embrace religion in government and let them interpret our Father’s intent

Are we more righteous than those who rule thru the violent twisting of the Koran?

If we leave religion out of both government and foreign policy

Maybe we could live more peacefully with those we will truly never understand

So we made the jobs so bad that we wont take them but those despicable illegales will

How can we stop them breeding and staying and bringing in their friends and families?

If we make every job simply decent, then none would remain beneath us

Maybe we could retain our own standard of living, our language and our traditions

So we plunge bravely on under the aegis of faceless corporate supply side economics

Creating an angry, armed mob of outsourced techies and the proudly-ignorant poor

Perhaps formulaic slash and burn capitalism is not really the way to a free market utopia

Possibly there’s a steady-state economy in which overpaid sociopathic CEOs have no place

So they continue reducing issues to clever sound bites and catchy slogans

That way our political leaders on either side have no need of an educated population

If we send the spin doctors back to hyping products instead of selling the issues like dish soap

our brave leaders would have to learn to speak to us for themselves

so we wait until the price of oil makes it too expensive to drive to work

then they tell us it’s just a simple matter of consumer supply and our demand

they could see the supply was running low but demand just kept on increasing

but they never did a thing and now their powerful petro-donors reap a fortune

so we closed all the factories and outsourced all the engineering overseas

put the customer support in India and got all the latest numbers on computer

we invested only in the marketing and sales machines here at headquarters

but now the buyers realize our wondrous brand is simply more cheapass chinese shit

so we keep repeating that ours is The Finest Healthcare System In The World

but the admin costs, infant mortality and life expectancies don’t bear it out at all

though the money we spend tops everybody but we actually cure less but pay far more

and 50 million have the right to choose any ER they wish for their family healthcare

so we let em churn worthless home loans OKd just by greedy salesmen

and gave em cash back at closing to re-supply their credit cards

now we see they’re too big to fail so we must bail them out

once again the wisdom of unregulated free market solutions is revealed

so we react only when issues turn to crises but population keeps on increasing

muddling through with the quick and dirty, blind luck and the just for now

mortgaging the planet’s future behind winking smirks and infallible personal saviors

until it’s too expensive, widespread and complicated for us to do anything at all...

ByCatch

drawn towards the lights but unceremoniously left behind for the scavengers

dredged up into cubicles to decompose slowly in front of computer screens

casually dumped back into the deep water, crippled and unable to survive

sworn at and kicked aside to die on shore for slowing up our good work

injured by educational procedures used to safely ensnare desired students

albatrosses taking the bait from the air and then being dragged for miles underwater

fatally injured and cast back to swim upside down in descending circles

unintentionally captured then disdainfully thrown into a useless drug rehab, again

incidentally taken by non-selective methods, they are merest collateral destruction

non-targeted and unwanted, uncounted and non-revenue generating

discarded as quickly as convenient to bloat and smell in welfare lines

disgorged whole and dead with the bloody offal of the target catch

only occurring to the least practicable extent - With ham-handed factory techniques

landing with a wet thud in another interminable and useless meeting

certainly harmed in a random fashion with absolutely no malicious intent

accidentally ensnared to the detriment of the ecosystem and the species

unintended targets mistakenly gasping for breath by shopping mall fountains

brought tangentially to the brink of extinction by blind economic demand

expiring uselessly from unwittingly administered injuries

unsuitable for membership in a proper consumer society

condemned by cost accountants as too expensive to even try and save

held fast and unwanted in traps in place for profit-generating species

caught tightly in marketing schemes but then clubbed and dumped back

standing out embarrassingly against the mass of the desirable catch

innocent bystander relegated to an expense called ‘Cost of Disposal’

unwittingly hypnotized by dreams built to ensnare real customers

the vast mechanical operation made more senseless by their unnecessary deaths

fought over by seabirds whose numbers increase unnaturally…for a while

bodies falling to the bottom feeders like the drug dealers, pimps and preachers

adding but the smallest fraction to the price paid by thrifty consumers

the cost of their extinctions not reflected on corporate income statements or CEO bonuses

expiring slowly on their sides, so very pale and fish-breathing in old modular homes

spiraling downward alone into the pressure and the darkness of the abyss or the void

A Manifest Destiny...Of Mass Destruction

There were these great hardwood and evergreen forests standing undisturbed for millennia

We invented clear-cutting efficiency and the gasoline-powered chain saw

The land we found was full of life and a thousand kind of plants

We created lawns of over-watered, chemically treated, heavily fertilized bluegrass

The rivers teemed with spawning salmon on both wild and lonely coasts

We built dams and cut down the trees that sheltered their tiny fry, and they disappeared

The buffalo, grizzly, wolf and elk roamed the plains in uncounted numbers

We devised agribusiness to monocrop and to hold our livestock as deathcamp prisoners

The land held great wealth in silver, gold, oil, iron and coal

We gave the greedy and shortsighted free rein to gouge it out and walk away for 7 cents an acre

Snow fell white and pure and lay undisturbed all Winter in the mountain valleys

We turned it black with exhausts and the oil spilled on our great roads

Aquifers deep within the earth stored up clean water for a million years

We pumped it out in a heartbeat to irrigate subsidized crops for cows & snack foods

Sometimes the smoke from great unchecked fires blanketed the land for weeks

Now every day we belch out more toxic, climate-changing gases in unimaginable volumes

Songbirds in their millions greeted each and all the spring mornings

There are many now who have never heard them and so, cannot ever miss them

The skies were darkened by flights of uncountable passenger pigeons over billions of acres

We wiped out these so-called free goods as a cheap and easy to obtain food source

Men lived in tiny bands whose small household messes soon healed over as they moved on

Now billions squat in their own wastes under thick, toxic clouds of their own making

A group could strike out on its own to lands where no one had ever lived

We installed roads leading to identical strip malls from sea to shining sea

Every spring the gentle showers would slowly wake the land from a long winter

During such rains now, a bolus of coal-fired acid rain poisons the lakes and stunts the trees

A myriad of frogs croaked from a million scattered wetland patches

Today a tiny fraction still linger, many sporting exotic deformations

Grasses, flowers, field mice and hawks lived in many meadows

Weeds, broken glass, rats and cockroaches share empty lots with drunks, prostitutes & addicts

The great cats padded along in their mystical silence throughout the world

Now we require the use of the entire habitat that once sustained them

The cetaceans with their huge brains flourished in the oceans for a million years

Fifty thousand dolphins are sacrificed as our factory fishing bycatch, every season

Orangutans spent untold generations adapting to their remote jungle habitat

Today we just cut the trees down right out from underneath them in their so-called preserves

In the past the wolves would howl and the loons would cry out in the stillness

Now we roar on by in our loud trucks with 150 decibel music blasting, tossing out burger wrappers

It used to be that our numbers made sense in terms of what the earth could bear

Now the researchers say our population will stabilize at around 10-12 billion immortal souls

Every parent could believe his child’s life might be better than those who came before

More and more grow up condemned to mine garbage and carry water in dirty plastic buckets

The sun was cool in spring and one could count upon a dark freezeup every November

Now each year is right up among the very hottest that man has ever witnessed, but we don’t care

There was a time before plastics when we already had electricity and running water

Today there are electronic chips implanted in our beloved pets and spyware on our phones

Just a little while ago my own grandmother rode in a horse-drawn wagon

Now you can make a reservation to travel as a tourist into space

As children we rode three across hating the back seat of that hot old sedan

Now our kids must have varied snacks, video games, DVDs and personal air conditioning

Man witnessed the parade of the charismatic late Pleistocene megafauna

Now we are told that we are responsible for the latest in earth’s great mass extinctions

The lakes were filled with fish and there was always a chance of hooking an even bigger one

The government now warns against their consumption due to the pollution of our waters

The great eastern forest stretched from New York to Chicago

Now the trees and wildlife survive there merely at our decorative pleasure

Man and the bonobo evolved together sharing 98% of their DNA and homelands

Today we eat them even as we destroy their remaining jungle habitat

Giant bluefin tuna raced with warm blood throughout the worlds oceans

Now, even as we catch the last of them, their market price just keeps on going up

Old growth forests sheltered complete ecosystems for ten thousand years

Our technology replaced them with sterile single species tree farms

Galileo was absolved by the church for his heretical notions regarding the universe

Our evangelical zealots engage in a religious debate over evolution, without science

Oral traditions and rights of passage guided young men to adulthood in the tribe

Our fatherless youth must invent a directionless but violent culture on their own

Children learned the phases of the moon, the constellations and the useful plants

Now they clamor for fast food and the latest in couch-based electronic entertainment

Just yesterday one-income families with children could afford a small summer cottage

At this time speculators from far-away cities have driven up all the prices

In the old days family farms dotted the plains for hundreds of miles

Modern agribusiness has consolidated its holdings for industrial efficiency

We paddled the lakes in rowboats and canoes, murmuring and laughing

Now jetskis and speedboats whine and smoke from late morning right through the long twilights

Previously there existed a social contract between workers and their company

Today the corporation discards people as quickly as their useless and polluting byproducts

In the past the New World was filled with natural mysteries and untapped potential

We have successfully built an unbroken network of convenience stores and fast food outlets

The old folks helped stitch the children into the tapestry of their families

Now the elderly are seen as useless, drooling fools to be ignored, swindled and locked up

We minded our own business until called upon in times of great world crises

We protect our freedom and democracy thru preemptively defensive wars of liberation

Left alone, rivers meandered, sheltered fish, birds and frogs and left rich farming sediment

Now channelized, they provide no shelter for anything but trash and their runoff fouls the sea

The grasses, swamps and woodlands caught and held the precious rainwater

Acres of concrete now drain their oily burdens straight into vile but pathetic creeks

Every small town had its own hardware, grocery, pharmacy and feed stores

Merged and downsized corporations provide for our every modern need, straight from China

Bakers, butchers and small marketplace vendors were part of our everyday lives

Super stores stock shrink-wrapped factory feedlot steaks shipped inside dirty semi-trailers

Polar bears and seals shared the dance of life for thousands of generations

As we melt the ice, the bears must disappear right along with their prey

Tigers stalked for eons in the shadows of the volcanoes on the cold Kamchatka peninsula

The last of their penises are downed in expensive oriental soups as a purported aphrodisiac

Humans thrived while covered by a multiplicity of microfauna

Now household sanitizers speed the evolution of disease organisms & autoimmune disorders

For uncounted lifetimes worms, bacteria, plant detritus and silt tended to the soil

Pesticides, fertilizers, pivot sprinklers and massive machinery are now its uncaring stewards

For eons the earth and its atmosphere danced out their many graceful, interlocking cycles

In a hundred years we have altered the CO2 balance, along with the entire climate

Men took creatures as guiding spirits and thanked them for their sacrifices

We assume a dominion which permits atrocities on any and all animals, with our god’s blessing

In a delicate choreograph, chicks hatched just as their insect food appeared

With spring arriving earlier every year, the insects have gone and baby birds must starve

For centuries tropical mountain glaciers have served as natural reservoirs for the people below

With their melting people will go thirsty during the long and hot dry seasons

Coral reefs sheltered ecosystems for millions of underwater generations

Dynamite, cyanide, high temperature and UV rays have devastated them

Fetid swamps were known to reek with highly poisonous, miasmatic vapors

The cities built in their drained places fill infants brains with mercury and lead

Man was viewed as the measure of all things during the Age of Reason

We now rely upon faith-based initiatives to light our paranoid and superstitious way

Astronomers have mapped the universe and can see 14 billion years into the past

11% of our population cannot find our country on a globe of the earth

Our forefathers were amazed at the teeming schools of cod in the Atlantic

experts wonder if there yet remains even a viable breeding population

The mighty Colorado crossed the desert and fertilized the diversity of its delta

Now it is sucked dry in the desert, leaving behind only salt, chemicals and fertilizer

The Grand Canyon offered awe-inspiring, crystal clear, panoramic vistas

Nearby coal-fired generation plants now obscure the view on a quite regular basis

For centuries the Anasazi lived in cliff dwellings and grew enough food to live

Now the water is all spoken for and the great droughts that doomed them have returned for us

The Kwakiutl people competed to give away more than their neighbors at their potlatches

Our government subsidies the poor, enabling them to care for the needs of the rich for very little

The orcas and cetaceans have longer histories and brains as large as our own

Studies have shown that we have contaminated their blubber and their milk with our toxics

The Plains Indians were marvelously transformed all too briefly by Spanish horses

Electricity, running hot water and the automobile have also only briefly been part of our lives

We conquered, tamed, surveyed, cleared, settled and developed the New World

But, we lecture the Third World on their sacred duty to preserve their precious natural heritage

The press as the fifth estate was admired for its ever-vigilant role in democracy

The government and the press now produce ‘news’ stories that are shown without attribution

Scientists spoke slowly and carefully, always admitting to a measured uncertainty

Now pundits urge a small leap of faith to the literal truth of scripture and their fake news

We created the worlds first national park, the clean air act and banned DDT

We disavow global warming, drill in all wilderness areas and ignore coal-fired mercury and lead

30 million or 99% of native peoples perished in a brave conquest of the Americas

Yet all of our recrimination is targeted at shaming the Europeans over the Holocaust

Great storms came in off the pacific for millennia and gentle trade winds kissed the Caribbean

Presently, smog from china and sandstorms off Africa sullies their cars and lungs

Over thousands of generations the indigenous discovered medicinal plants

Big Pharma patents these as profitable drugs and keeps all the profits as the forests disappear

During a process of millions of years organic material was converted into fossil fuels

Every day we litter a blizzard of petroleum-based packaging and walk away without a thought

The bible provides rich examples of a broad and humane philosophical wisdom

We pick and choose our quotes to justify our venal and self-serving philosophy

A myriad of species from mammals to bacteria intertwined in the wondrous web of life

A leveraged corporate oligarchy of producers and suppliers greedily noses us all into poverty

Humans spoke with thousands of languages each supporting a different culture

Advertisers and politicians use Spanish as a sales tool and we all text in a pidgin English

Demean, Diminish, Disgrace, Dishonor

Not to be confused with Reusing, Refurbishing, Repurposing, Recycling

Subverting simple will to faith with the worn-out fictions of intolerant religions

Casually exterminating the bluefin tuna, albatross, dolphin, cod and salmon as mere bycatch

Pumping the sales of cheap imports via artificial guilt created solely for phony merchant holidays

Posting warning signs but not cleaning up the poisoned waters of our lakes and rivers

Letting advertising and entertainment set a totally vapid national agenda

Shaking our heads without taking meaningful action as each new genocide unfolds

Forever fighting wasteful wars and urging our inexperienced youth on to a tragically-false glory

Watching fresh water dwindle and being horribly polluted while letting our population swell

Witnessing our casual gases ending snowfall and spreading hot deserts to our doors

Stockpiling chemical and bio-weapons in case our many nukes are not quite enough

Plowing under fertile farmland for cheap strip malls, offices and ‘convenience stores’

Going it fumblingly alone in ill-conceived, immoral wars with no plan for the peace

Finding false virtue in the long hours but never asking about the meaning in the work

Spending more on building prisons than on maintaining our children’s schools

Wiping out the bears and tigers for some horrid oriental impotence fantasy

Destroying the orangutan’s habitat to ship ancient hardwoods off to Japan forever

Finding our Bonobo brethren in the local meat markets, shot with AK-47s

Discovering lots of our dioxins and PCBs in the rich milk of mother seals

Squabbling over destroying the 2% of old-growth forest that has somehow escaped us

Allowing coal-fired mercury and diesel emissions to poison the infants in mother’s wombs

Wasting money and alienating societies with a ridiculous and failed war on drugs

Nurturing the tragedies of tobacco, alcohol and gambling to retain their tax revenues

Furthering ignorance by portraying creationism as a scientific theory & climate change as bunk

Spending so goddamn much public time on the very private issue of abortion

Letting teenaged grand-daughters of under-aged mothers raise more babies all alone

Cutting every social program but preserving generous tax cuts for the rich

Wiping out the last amazon aborigines through slash and burn by the poor from city slums

Erecting trophy homes while the poor subsist on castoffs and live under cardboard

Allowing faceless and amoral global corporations to dictate domestic and foreign policy for profit

Perpetually stalling socio-environmental progress with the same phony jobs and money mantra

Watching corporate chains put an end to small business by abusing Chinese workers

Outsourcing CEOs signing off on 14 hour peasant work days at poverty wages and calling it progress

Taking pride in corporate agriculture and ignoring its subsidized price fixing

Coating our fields with poisons, fertilizers and fossil water while abusing disposable illegal labor

Fighting emission and fuel regulations instead of engineering better vehicles

Cynically labeling energy efficiency and recycling as small virtues of dubious social value

Backing self-enriching dictators if they allow multinationals to drain off their resources

Clucking self-righteously at grinding poverty which we view as ordained by our own one true god

Allowing immigrants to Balkanize us by providing their old languages in our ads and government

Estranging ourselves from our European brethren and ancestors, to our own great loss

Enriching fracking petro-giants as supplies dwindle without seeking out alternatives

Being required to piously intoning “God Bless America” after every carefully scripted speech

Finding childish pleasure in ATVs, Jet Skis, Snowmobiles and loud truck mufflers

Scoffing with macho disdain at geeks who read, write, solve and contemplate

Actually feeling real anticipation over a media sports event or some reality tv show finale

Twisting tired and worn-out biblical fairy tales into a self-serving, literal truth

Worshiping a system that raises prices with scarcity and thus encourages extinctions & shortages

Selling the fantasy that a negative savings rate allows you to continue to live beyond your means

Regurgitating sound bytes instead of considering issues for ourselves

Preaching that the “jury is still out” on global warming as well as evolution

Feeding cattle grain they cannot digest while people starve and farmland disappears

Not even realizing the vast unsustainablity of our self-destructive lifestyle

India pridefully becoming the most populous nation even when most live like dirty urban rodents

Inflating profits, lying to investors, stealing fortunes and then having folksy memoirs created

Not speaking up at all as the country plunges blindly into a dark night of ignorance and poverty

Lacking any awareness of the worldwide die-off of say, the amphibians and songbirds

Convincing deadended peasants to crusade by pitting one imaginary spiteful god against another

Institutionalizing constant and expensive warfare instead of actually seeking to eliminate it

Glorifying the conquest, subjugation, extermination & destruction of the New World

Vilifying only the losers of every war for their hideous crimes against humanity

Exporting intellectual jobs while pricing higher education out of reach

Gutting pristine mountain habitat for the benefit of the recreation & tourist industries

Attaching narrow-minded evangelical moral strictures on aid to people of faraway cultures

Passing bans on drug re-importation at lower prices over phony, soundbite safety issues

Not creating a moon landing effort for clean energy independence but bailing out the venal bankers

Disabusing world accord via mouthing the transparently stupid lies of industry donors

Melting tropical glacial water reservoirs without the slightest care or regret

Extending the deserts and letting the good topsoil blow across the emptied seas

Labeling any who criticize our doctrines as unpatriotic cowards who undermine our efforts

Spending more on so-called ‘defense’ than the rest of the world combined

Falsely portraying a greedy bulldoze and unplanned sprawl ethic as healthy economic progress

Somehow honoring as patriotic those imported plastic flag decals that adorn our obese vehicles

Allowing amoral agribusiness giants to treat gentle domesticated lifeforms as factory raw materials

Praising free elections in districts illegally re-drawn to ensure your own perpetual control

CEOs defaulting on pension plans and thus earning fat bonuses from the temporary stock rise

Workers expecting more for doing less every year and learning nothing new on their own time

Guiltlessly sticking to bad decisions made in private talks with our personal saviors

Settling issues through simply remaining doggedly on the scripted message of our donors

Explaining mass extinctions and global warming as simple geologic-scale variations

Pushing to get the government out of the so-called ‘business of habitat preservation’

Trusting that billions of selfish, isolated decisions will somehow result in an optimal world

Gutting the land, poisoning the water and selling off resources just to get rich quickly

Violating personal liberties freely on the basis of terrorism and national security

Destroying a society and then telling its people that it’s now their problem to solve

Exporting all kinds of weapons and raw materials but no factory goods

Replacing a heritage of wide open spaces with coast-to-coast, cloned corporate strip malls

Remaining silent, getting by, being comfortable and not making waves

Forgoing savings, abandoning our parents and drugging our children

Calling endless angry repetition of fictional corporate sound bites a reasoned debate

Leaving a lesser world in the filthy wake of our short-sighted and greedy, so-called progress