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
