What Is True Conservatism?

De-regulating giant financial entities which are driven only by their overpowering greed

Then stepping in with bailouts to produce inflation along with a recession

or instead, keeping a watchful eye upon those prone to selfish and childlike excesses

drilling unproductive wilderness and coastline for our tragicomic SUVs

          or saving some of that resource for later by buying it from others

as we scramble all available resources to gain a sustainable energy independence

subsidizing mass production to mono-crop our forests and our fields

          or carefully tending to the mystic diversity that we owe to the future

silting up streams and choking off salmon with corporate dams and logging

          or minding that watersheds stay clean and intact for future harvests

encouraging corporations to develop filthy aquaculture mass production

          or preserving our clean water and diversity of species

for the unknown needs of generations that might even yet be born

promoting the impersonal short-term, stock price-based corporate agriculture agenda

          or subsidizing the real stewardship of our precious native soils

with the oft-mouthed, constantly trampled values of Traditional Family Farmers

letting teenagers keep having children because it is a god-given right & abortion is a sin

          or licensing would-be parents via stiff examinations

lecturing fourth generation single mothers on the morality of abstinence

          or providing timely family intervention to break this pathetic cycle

incarcerating without tolerance ever more criminals raised without hope

teaching them real crime in prison and then setting them free upon our streets

             or seeking to identify and correct their problems at very early ages

funding local governments through cutthroat sales tax competition

over cheap, unplanned, unsustainable retail and housing development

or setting thoughtful long-term policy and implementing it through taxation

being forced by threat of being viewed as unpatriotically unelectable

to condone spending ever more billions on the military,

to combat a bogeyman who melts away somewhere into dusty, poverty-filled shadows

or investing at home in our own education, environment, agriculture,

energy needs, jobs, national debt and crumbling infrastructure

insisting that might makes right and that god is on our side

          or listening attentively to those considered opinions of

our European allies, who also happen to descend from our own very forefathers

electing professional, multi-generational politicians

who trade on their names and grow rich from their contacts

or promoting the Jeffersonian ideal of timely and limited service

to one's country as a matter of civic duty

tolerating a putrid mass of strangling tax code spaghetti

created by and for parasite lawyers and bloodsucking accountants

or making taxes lucid, reasonable, understandable and fair

opening up more of our forests for corporate timber and the obese on ATVs

          or diligently looking to preserve what little remains for the future

enriching puppet so-called royal families in their fly-plagued desert homes

          or severing all our relations through alternative energy sources

paying conglomerates to brew biofuel using up more energy than it makes

          or incepting grid-connected solar and wind power on every roof

allowing coal burning plants to increase their mountain-top destroying, mercury-laden,

horizon-obscuring, asthma-inducing, cancer-causing emissions

or subsidizing truly clean coal and fast breeder thorium reactor development

while systematically closing the oldest and dirtiest of the plants

making government smaller and ever more responsive

          or creating the largest bureaucracy ever seen by man

under the sacrosanct euphemism known as Homeland Security

subsidizing corporate agriculture while preaching of free trade

          or publicly calling out the bastards who ruin the land

with their fossil water mining, sewage lagoons, pesticides, fertilizer & antibiotic overuse

as they weave elaborate tax scams to increase their bonuses

allowing nightmare mega-scale domestic animal concentration camps

to pollute the country’s water with their foul fecal runoff

or ensuring that food production does not ruin our dwindling water supply

encouraging our companies to send engineering, research and information technology

positions overseas forever by citing the inevitability of global competition

or realizing that such services are imported straight back here

and that any developed nation must provide them for itself

letting faceless executives whose only goal is short term stock prices

set policy and retire inside locked compounds clutching obscene unearned bonuses

or demanding a wisdom and a vision beyond mere grasping business acumen

smiling as corporate leaders walk away rich, righteous and free

leaving us to adjust to the reality of a global standard of poverty

or holding them responsible for the debts they have placed upon our children

ensuring americans that their greatest patriotic duty is simply to keep shopping

and that hypnotized consumption is a fundamentalist value

or extolling the virtues of thrift and financial independence

while setting an example by keeping government spending within reason

creating the largest government deficit in all of mankind’s history

          or cutting back thoughtfully during difficult and trying times

demanding that foreigners buy our probably safe, genetically-modified corporate seed

          or working closely together to try and end the world's growing hunger

telling your allies that they are either with you or against you

          or striving for consensus and working together towards a shared future

refusing to sign a global ban on the sick foolishness of chemical warfare

          or leading the world in such a worthwhile crusade

ignoring greenhouse gases and treaties meant to stem their steady growth

          or pioneering profitable methods to deal with this global problem

relaxing pollution standards for the waters of our lakes and streams

          or making them safe to swim in for both the fish and for our kids

deciding that americans are above the laws of any world court

and applying sanctions to others who might be co-operating

or working together on a judicial system which works for the entire planet

refusing to support the international banning of brutal land mines

and continuing their production and export to one and all

or helping farmers and their children to avoid artificial legs and even worse

withholding funding for agencies providing birth control education

          or giving families in overpopulated lands already full of poverty

the ability to choose wisely, just for themselves

turning our national parks over to overpriced corporate property managers

          or keeping profit margins far away from the places

we have been entrusted to pass on to our future generations

interpreting world population growth as a threat to our national security

and determining to respond by increasing our unsustainable numbers

or working to design a rich and sustainable future

for a smaller and far less destructive human footprint

constructing maximally cheap with minimum environmental concern

          or building green with the aim of creating structures actually meant to last

discarding all wrappers, packaging, newspapers, aluminum and glass

since we paid for them and nobody is paying us not to throw them out

or reusing these things to let our children enjoy them as cheaply as we did

spreading the lie that economic growth continues at high rates forever

and burying generations to come beneath the debt of our tax cuts

or crafting a steady-state model that leaves as much as we enjoy today

for those existing beyond the laughably short quarterly horizon we now foresee

being laid off impersonally by some inhumane organization

as a discretionary expense, to be reduced merely to increase stock valuation

just to win a sickeningly large annual bonus for one’s so-called talents

or co-operatively reducing your salary maybe working part-time for a while,

at a place where you might even envision that there could be a future

         

touting free market worship while striving to build totalitarian oligopolies

and labeling any criticisms as socialist, unpatriotic and simply weak

or evolving capitalism to meet the needs of all humanity

aboard this one small blue space capsule that we simply must learn to share

trying to control fast-evolving pests by broadcasting long-lasting poisons

on food crops being raised to sell to your mothers and their children

or finding ways to control these long-term problems

more safely, cheaply and sustainably within the unforgiving laws of nature

encouraging lame urban cowboys to modify their motorcycles and trucks

to leave even more noise in their wasteful and infantile wakes

or enforcing simple common sense when the freedom to make empty noise

clashes with the right to natural peace and sublime quiet

allowing big media to set the body politic agenda via slick repetition

of stocks, entertainment, sports and government propaganda

mixed with 24 minutes per hour of higher volume commercials

and staged combat debates centered upon vital non-issues

or thoughtfully considering personal and national priorities

in reasoned discussion from a thousand different outlets

building the same tacky strip mall packages and

identical cheap convenience store setups at every new intersection

from border to border at the lowest possible costs

or searching for some kind of vision beyond mere stocks and profits

from some wiser group of men than these negligent but rich so-called leaders

whose legacy is greedy scheming behind closed boardroom doors

spinning, staying on message, gaining traction and shoutingly-managing the issues

          or publicly learning from mistakes, incorporating other points of view

and seeking involvement in quietly ongoing, open and non-poisonous debates

permitting contributory corporations to buy up all the media outlets

to serve up the same vapid, franchised media in every town and city

          or nurturing the plurality in our forgotten motto, 'e pluribus unum'

praising the virtues of democratic elections

while buying them with donations to be paid back with favors

or simply admitting that, under our current system, elections are about the money

and evolving our institutions to reinstate the ideals of the past

scornfully belittling science when it conflicts with well-scripted policies

already bought and paid for by corporate payoffs

or adopting the scientific method for rationally and fairly dealing with many

of our most pressing technical issues

invoking the lie of local control to grant outside developers unlimited power

permitting them to rend without foresight, planning or responsibility

or providing coordinated overviews for states, regions and the nation

to ensure a way of life that might even last a thousand years

counseling third world countries to preserve their so precious ecosystems

after having shattered our own and been proven unwilling to restore it

or providing a reality-based example of the benefits of conservation

and then profitably selling related goods and services to the world

touting the benefits of education while marginalizing scientists and

academia quietly through policy and openly in the corporate media

or respecting the educated as our best model for future progress

and our most precious current human capital

searching out the violent and the mindless in pleasure and entertainment

          or seeking enlightenment in the precious little free time we are granted

before we return to cold ashes and thin dust once again

expressing your true inner self via clothes, houses, cars and expensive vacations

          or searching for meaning through study and contemplation         

never saving and then demanding that government pay for your retirement

          or living within your means and laying out your own golden years far ahead

driving a 300 horsepower 4WD all by yourself an hour to work in a cube every day

          or leaving a smaller footprint on the earth and upon your descendants

issuing signing statements and underfunding enforcement agencies

          or impartially enforcing our laws per constitutional responsibility

paying ever more at toney restaurants until the last trendy seafood species

disappears from every ocean

or having the merest shred of common sense to at least leave

a viable breeding populations intact in the wild

ignoring the anonymous industrial holocaust-style production of your meat

          or consuming with forethought about what goes into your body

and having respect for the sacrifice of these other living beings

eating industrial fast food prepared by low-paid strangers who despise you

          or cooking good food and sharing time at home

with the people who are always there to love and respect you

blindly believing in creationism while harshly scoffing at the infidels

        or structuring your beliefs within a framework of reason and good faith,

sprinkled with a measure of respect for the considered opinions of others

spinning drunkenly from one corporate co-opted fad to another

          or cultivating reasoned and explainable values for living

growing fatter and dumber and being a daily target of ridicule

          or growing older and wiser and providing valued counsel

getting botoxed, dyeing your hair, wearing heavy makeup and too much gold

or trying to come to terms with the end of your, so-far, wasted life

spending every evening flipping channels with your stagnating brain disengaged

          or facing the onrushing void for a moment with an unblinking third eye