Look, We Paid For It, So Shut Up!

We will idle our huge vehicles for hours, just to run the air conditioning for one person

because we have paid for the gasoline and, of course, air is always free

and so will our children pay, with energy shortages, endless record heat and lung diseases

We damn sure can spew unburned diesel into the upturned faces of tiny infants

because this here big old truck is my pride and joy

with no money down, a zero percent APR and small monthly payments

We can rend the life from fields and meadows with our mighty excavators

because we have leveraged this land to build another cloned strip mall

so we’ll just see all those small mammals, little birds and tiny insects later on - in hell

We can throw those greasy fast food wrappers out the windows of our shiny vehicles

because we bought our gory double meat cheese burgers with blessed american dollars

and we wish to be done with our trash in a real and permanent hurry for,

stuffed with hydrogenated fat and supersized on carbs, we will sanctimoniously roll on

We will blithely discard all the aluminum, papers and bottles that might be recycled

because we paid for them, we own them: and now we are done with them

and we will throw them away unless somebody pays us and picks them up

and who are you to tell us about responsibilities to some hazy future?

We drive when we could just as easily walk our fat and lazy asses

because we can afford the price of gasoline

but not the shame of being caught while waddling in the open

Sincerely Yours, Hundreds of pounds of ugly fat stuffed inside 3 tons of wasted resources

We can floodlight our homes and blot out the moon, the planets and the stars

because we mostly pay the electric bill on time every month

and our statement shows no dollar amount for the loss of the Milky Way

and you know what, screw the wacko stargazers and all them newage nut cases

We can blast out our boom boxes in any forest campground

because we paid for these goddamn spaces and now it’s time to party

and our noise is no crime against a nature that we don’t know enough to take any note of

We fling our empty beer cans down whenever they are emptied

For we’re now all half drunk and we started out being stupid anyways

And caring for the environment is for candyasses and pussy faggots

Real men let others worry about cleaning up the messes they leave behind them

We can unabashedly toss half eaten dinners into open-mouthed garbage cans

because we gave out our own good money for all that greasy food

and there will always be a cheap supply from our caring corporate agribusiness providers

We can cram that blue exhaust from our personal watercraft

into the faces of those useless water birds and fucking stupid fish

because it's a whole lot of fun to go fast and to be very loud

and all that oil and smoke in the water will

never come back to haunt our families or our friends

We can shatter the silence and belch out smog from our snowmobiles

because we carried them to the national forest in our loud pickup trucks

and, oooh, ain't it a goddamn shame if it stresses them poor shittin elk

we’re gonna shoot their flea-bitten asses come September, anyhow

We can make new outlaw trails anywhere we want and run amok on all the public lands

because we pay our taxes so we the people actually own the frickin’ countryside

and we’re not yet bored of our expensively-financed, oriental ATVs

we can eat as much steak and hamburgers as we want to pay for

and we like them just as cheap and supersized as they can be

so shoot them up with antibiotics and hormones so they get fatter sooner

and it’s just more liberal bullshit that we are what we eat

and don’t put the debt of cleaning up the feedlots on any balance sheet

We can fit our pickups and Harleys out with expensive and ear-splitting mufflers

Because it’s part of our biblical right to make a hell of a lot of noise

We have this need to let out the little boys still living on the inside

We’re loud and obnoxious, dreaming that we remain defiant ‘til the end

We can bulldoze the ancient prairie, put in inefficient sprinklers

and then plant our fragile bluegrass because we can pay the current water bill

and there are no other costs except what shows up on our statements

We can demand ever more of the disappearing bluefin tuna

and the fishermen will gladly continue to oblige

we will pay the ever-higher prices for their decreasing catch

and when there are no more tuna anywhere to be sold

we will forget about them and the fishermen can go find something else to sell

We can cram ten thousand pitiful, squealing pigs into a concentration camp

and leave them there to poison all the water for miles around

because we bought out the farmers who we ran out of business

and we own the filthy, soulless pigs so we can treat them anyway we wish

We can rend whatever riches lie beneath the land in whatever way we choose

And sell them for a profit based solely on the costs of our extraction

Such expenses should not include stream and hillside restoration

But huge executive bonuses are damn sure a part of doing business

Let’s get more efficient and monocrop the once-vibrant prairies

with half-baked, untested, genetically-altered plants and,

now pour on that toxic elixir to kill the bugs that follow

and pile on the fertilizer and aquifer water to artificially stimulate

and, furthermore, what’s left behind is none of our concern

we own the land and we work it to raise the price of our stock and earn fat bonuses

we can cut taxes and raise spending to help us to buy their ignorant votes

mortgaging the nation’s future on gigantic spending binges

now let’s go kiss some babies dragged up for campaign photo-ops

let’s kiss their future prospects goodbye, too, right up close and streamed in high-definition

We can provide cheap electricity by building massive dams

No point in determining what they do to a river system

Who cares about the sediment, screw those hapless birds, frogs and fish

Drown that rich bottom land, bring on the belching pleasure boats

No extra bills are forthcoming in the mail to our immaculate consumers

We can rend the land for minerals, metals and petroleum

Pretty much as we see fit, for seven cents an acre

Then we can walk away and find another place that might pay off as well

For our government has enshrined our right to gash and run

And the dead streams, denuded land and toxic metal runoff

are not items on our balance sheets and do not affect our stock price

And only a lunatic fringe assert that our children have anything to fear

We will clear cut our forests down to the very stream beds

So as to use our great machinery with utmost productivity

And the silt that kills the trout and salmon costs us nothing

And, you know what? who really needs a riparian habitat, in any case?

The loss of such things we bequeath to the public, without any real cost

Let’s warm up our giant autos for ten minutes on cold mornings

We don’t get a bill for belching clouds of smog into the air

There is no monthly Visa item for pounds of CO2 discharged

We bought the gas and we can burn it in any way that we see fit

And we damned sure don’t want to get chilly on the way to work

Screw your conspiratorial and fuzzy global warming threats

and we don’t have to pay for those purported serious side effects

and you know what else, we really don't give a damn about the growers

and care even less about their countryside or shade-tolerant trees

we paid for our latte and it all ends right here in the comfort of a coffee shop

it’s no problem for us to fragment the ecosphere in any way that we see fit

for we now hold a crookedly-leveraged financed title to the land

and under local control, each of us individually will act as we deem proper

then, like magic, things will work out correctly and, in the end,

the wisdom of the blind economic hand will pass our judgment upon the web of life

just get us those large tiger prawns, wherever it is that they come from

kill off your mangroves and destroy your reefs if that is what it takes

goddamnit we will eat our fill and then drive home in a fat consumptive glow

we have exercised our god-given rights as consumers to put

your environmental future on our maxed-out credit cards

we can throw our execrable cigarette butts down anywhere we choose

we paid good money for them and now that they are finished

they are neither litter nor pollution

but we could care less, even if they were, so pick em up if you want to

after all, our clothes, breath and skin are tainted by their smell

and our lungs are turning blacker and growing weaker, day by day

what really then is the point of conserving resources and recycling

where does that fit in with purposeful business profit planning

and our need for mindless family entertainment

since anyway, what has a stinking polar bear ever done for me?

let us put our faith in a strict interpretation of the folklore from our bible

because we lack the will and courage to even try to think for ourselves

and let us pray for guidance so that we can feel at ease

secure that god is on our side and there can be no mistakes for us to admit

we can go on righteously for there is little to worry over in our present lifestyle

our children should enjoy our living standard for as far as we can see

in our minds there is a fuzzy vision of small town harmony and values

but in control are the evangelicals manipulated by the faceless corporations