Showing posts with label environmental destruction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environmental destruction. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

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 4th 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

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Tipping Points Towards Our Own Extinction


At some certain instant, tiger habitat became too fragmented to support them any longer
One further revelation of instability sparked a blind run on all of their assets

One more tuna caught and that species lacked a viable breeding population
One final gas price rise and suddenly it’s the end of giant SUVs and battle-ready pickups

A random plant closing and our manufacturing base has finally disintegrated
A millisecond more sawing and that great, old hardwood could only fall

Once we began to melt the ice, the warming accelerated independently of our actions
One simple truth can ignite a revolution that repression can never halt

A bit warmer and the permafrosted bogs melt and let go all their methane
A seemingly insignificant gain begins the turn from utter defeat to certain victory

One more tiny plot burned off and the rainforest cannot ever stitch itself back together
A final imagined insult brings the shooter back with a murderous vengeance

A last drop of acid rain and the fish can no longer breed in yet another lake
A single additional case turned the simple outbreak into an epidemic

One thoughtless bandit trail crushed and isolated a entire soil microbe community
Another partial degree warmer and the pristine coral reef bleached and died

The first drop over the levee began an unstoppable flood upon the town
From the tiniest genetic alteration sprang the lethal pandemic virus

A last paved lot destroys its earthy sponge and another river becomes just a sewer
A final engineering job outsourced and Yankee Ingenuity is simply a wornout legend

Just a tad warmer and the insects hatch before hungry songbird chicks are born
One more road built unleashes another gluttonous orgy of so-called progress

A last paranoid nightlight hides the MilkyWay in yet another shoddy, overpriced boomtown
Demand for one more barrel causes the price of oil to rise for years

A million ice floes, every one a little smaller, and each polar bear catches fewer seals
A final bit of overthrust and the plates slip, loosing a huge tsunami

Another mortgage rate reset and one more overextended family walks away from its home
A last missed lesson and a blessed child cursingly gives up being literate

One more confusing, real world issue and literal scripture begins to makes real sense
Some random stimulation and an orgasm occurs outside of any conscious will

A few more diesels rumble through the hood and a single-parent baby develops asthma
A little more mercury in the air and another little girl can’t do her reading

A final swig and the drunken driver does not avoid a shuffling pedestrian
One more hit of Meth and it becomes the focus of someone else’s life

A last gallon of fossil water sprayed into the hot wind and the well goes dry
The desert expands just a tiny bit and one more family can no longer farm

Change the 6th decimal of one physical constant and there never was a universe
Just a moment’s extra sun and cancerous skin lesions are guaranteed

A single catchy slogan transforms the rowdy crowd into an angry mob
A single case of counter evidence and the entire theory must be abandoned

One more repetition and their lying, self-serving propaganda becomes true gospel
Another day of sunshine and bureaucrats declare the drought official

One more night of a slow disease progression and that man never walks again
The sight of one more disaster and agnosticism gains another follower

A last new strip mall and a tourist trap morphs into a pointless exurban tumor
Still another aching joint and he realizes he has become old and weak

Suddenly another senseless bombing finally begins the long-awaited war
One more small deception exposed and all their belief is suspended

During some measurable instant the illiterates and evangelicals regained their majority
One day it simply became acceptable to print every sign in Spanish

A single survey first revealed the appearance of their negative savings rate lifestyle
Just another drop lost and the patient’s blood pressure plummeted

One final fused hydrogen atom and the sun no longer sustains its reaction
There’s that one extra mouthful after which it all gets stored as useless fat

There is an instant in which daydreaming turns into that gentle beginning of sleep
The first time the snow changes to rain early in the Spring

The moment when the impossible first starts to become the unavoidable
That hard day when prayer becomes a welcome refuge from unforgiving reason

That final repetition that morphs honest patriotism into arrogant and proud ignorance
A first surprising upset that somehow begins an inevitable string of defeats

That moment of conception that ensures a rendezvous with the void
Just irreversible tipping points retreating on beyond our short event horizon