Simple Techno-Peasants

they tell me what to long for, twenty-four minutes every hour

through my radio and tv, from billboards, in the paper and online as well as on my cell

pounding it constantly and far too obviously into the holes that they have drilled into my head

and though I knowingly laugh and nod, I just keep on buying, anyway

they tell me that they only provide the things I kept on saying I always wanted

based of course, just upon, the high-margin items they chose to show me -

wrapped colorfully in the clever sloganeering of those very slick campaigns:

wasteful but high-profit vehicles designed not to last and shoddily produced

low-risk ironclad leasing deals crafted upon sticky financial fly paper

lifestyle enhancing drugs more expensive to market than to research

costly and unproven supplements fortified with imaginary claims

foods full of salt and sugar, greasy fats, artificial colorings and chemical preservatives

their allies place such products in the formulaic action movies that they feed us

these epics I watch in the places that are owned by their close associates

or they tie them in each month with fast food deal or some pre-paid sports championship

and I commit another plot to memory for bright regurgitation among acquaintances

each and every store in those disposable malls wherein,

I first experience the chaotic bits of meaning they have designed for my life

is owned by the faceless, absent multi-nationalists,

and staffed by the marginalized, the bored and the permanently disaffected

each and every consumer move I make carefully monitored and recorded

by greedy and voyeuristic, high-commission marketeers

and what little thoughts I actually produce are but simply feedback

produced only from the steady stream of nonsense that they feed me

the single mothers cannot nurture their amoral, bastard children

because their own mothers never learned these basic skills

before the childhoods of their own parents ended far too prematurely

in a cycle that now seems to us, as old and natural as time itself

my neighborhood resembles the poultry compounds built by agribusiness

my city like their stinking feedlots, my house identical to the other sties

I move about upon the filth I create in line with the entire diarrheic flock

for only so long as I am capable of working long hours and spending too quickly

I mass together in those chattering prairie dog cubicle colonies,

a piece of voluntary veal, happily lashed down inside my little pen

every day my fashion statement requiring much more thought

than I ever give to the filthy mess I help create

through the commonplace acts of my humble faith-based life

I claim to work so hard to pay off all the debts,

motivated by needs that were artificially induced,

that my relaxation is only found in front of huge TV screens,

thinking very little and moving even less

too unaware to know that fast food kills, or that hot drinks must surely burn

that tobacco causes cancer, or sitting on my ass must make me rot

I should hire a lawyer to go find someone to sue for me,

so that I can pay off all these debts for which there’s nothing left to show

too full of fairytale images implanted by a vampire media

too wedded to the status quo, too tightly bound to manufactured traditions

and the guilt that is such a vital part of their merchant's holidays

to assess or even comprehend the waste produced simply by my existence

and finally as I lay in my own toxic byproducts and listen as I wheeze,

watched over by bored and careless immigrant strangers

being paid by merged and downsized medical conglomerates,

I receive the very best care that my remaining money

and a corporate decision-making team can provide

then it's off to chain-store funeral parlors staffed by those

who care as much as I once did about the boring jobs that they do

selling themes to suit the lifestyle that I am now departing

preying upon my family’s grief using the leverage of their guilt

Safety Bleating Within The Herd Of Consumers

how they struggled like salmon to negotiate the currents of trendy styles

they quoted richly and freely from various movies and sitcoms

how they practiced their lines like Shakespearean actors

reciting advertisements and slang phrases endlessly to each other

how they fled like the wildebeest when their leaders were startled

stampeding once and again from gizmo to gadget

how their consumer assemblages changed like rainbowed chameleons

as they threw down and picked up in seemingly-chaotic but instinctive patterns

how they continually sought the hyperbolized New and Exciting

always in the context of their blindered and literalist, neo-con xenophobia

how they raised their little muzzles from their cubicle burrows all alike

sifting the complex breezes of hyper-consumerism

how they moved on without concern leaving their droppings behind

rendering unfit what they no longer wanted

how they bleated like piglets for sugar, salt and fat

trying to assuage the emptiness that they mistook for hunger

how they piddled and side-barred until they lay in their own wastes

passing away while myopically planning only to rejoin the consumer race

how they huddled together as media shadows danced on their walls

and clever adverts crushingly drowned the quiet voice of the earth

how they saddled themselves with surreal financial burdens

chasing lame illusions which were bored endlessly, deep into their skulls

how they lied to themselves and boasted emptily to each other

swimming in a twisting bait ball, trying not to look either forward or back

how they shopped too close together for cheap imported goods

bleating quite foolishly as the good jobs gradually disappeared

how they wasted with gusto both water and oil

fouling the air with their driving and poisoning the land to grow food

how they groveled like fawning dogs for government subsidies

meanwhile ranting on about personal responsibility and fiscal conservancy

how they twitched and cried out in their uneasy sleep

not quite remembering dreams of things they would never dare face

how they struggled to define themselves within the vast herd

and savagely attacking en masse, those daring to differ

how they continued denying their place in some squishy balance of nature

blithely assured by media leaders that more research was needed

how they quickly grew impatient and bored when the details were gone into

yet avidly dismissed out of hand scrupulous research as junk science and fuzzy math

how they squirmed with discomfort when they glimpsed contradictions to their faith

diving back with alacrity into the warm and sustaining illusions of their media hosts

how they portrayed each other as intelligent creatures

echoing pre-digested soundbites back and forth until, finally, each one fell silent

how they boasted of their supreme natural moral authority

never bothering with the lessons their forefathers had left them

how they condescendingly viewed those fools in the rest of the world

as they were overtaken in education and human understanding

how they tripped over each other in individual quests for the same illusion

searching for spiritual fulfillment within the noise and dust of the swarm

how they all clucked in avian tones at each new atrocity

always convinced that, at last, the bottom must have been reached

how they reacted without thought, all in the same direction

like a large school of small fish when a cloud throws a shadow

how they often festered inside, nursing many small grudges

then lashing violently out, but still always wanting to be in

how they fell asleep at the wheel on a road straight and wide

woke up in horror just upon striking the tree

how they carefully deluded each other as to the nature of their fate

willfully ignoring the great empty void to which they all must return

how they conscientiously wasted each waking hour and avoided all introspection

then, far too late with feeble excuses, tried to invent some kind of accounting

Where will we be when all this progress is done?

where will we be when all the forests at last turn into tree farms

and all the jobs have finally been exported

where will we be when corporations build all of the food

and there are no more species to protect from extinction

where will we be when all the districts are properly gerrymandered

and the elections are so much cheaper to pay for

where will we be when our children are full of mercury and lead

and they are bursting with video smarts but empty of education

where will we be when strip malls have sprouted from sea to shining sea

and every brave citizen lives within five miles of a Wal*Mart

where will we be when we import every drop of our oil

but our frightening bombers cannot fly for lack of fuel

where will we be when we are all safe inside the air-conditioning

but the bugs have become immune to the chemicals we are spraying

where will we be when the illegales leave for home

because there are no more jobs that we won’t take for them to do

where will we be when we are permanently downsized just before middle age

and there are no jobs anywhere and we have never saved a penny

where will we be when all our credit card bills come due

but all we want to do is simply to retire and draw out social security

where will we be when Levi's makes every pair of its jeans overseas

and hungry workers down in Mexico lose their jobs to the Chinese

where will we be when all the small plains towns dry up and blow away

and the ConAgra crowd takes over completely as stewards of our land

where will we be when grandsons cannot eat the fish that they catch

and Appalachia has been scraped and flattened for the coal that remains

where will we be when we can't afford new cars or the gas to power them

and our own children sit on the streets in rags with dirty faces

where will we be when our factory farmed fish are full of poisons

and the milk from the mothers that we fight for is laced with PCBs

where will we be when there is no more water for golf in the desert

and the underground aquifer wells make that empty sucking sound

where will we be when the drought just does not stop getting hotter

and industrial crops wither and corporate-owned soils blow away

where will we be when it's all wheelchair and ATV accessible

and our kids beg the conglomerates for temporary jobs at any wages

where will we be when everything we buy, we proudly do not understand

and we do not have the cash to hire someone to fix them

where will we be when we no longer need to save more time

and our lifestyle choices belong to those who manage our bedpans

where will we be when millions contact a fatal influenza at identical malls

and homeland security permits vendors to sell your viewing habits

where will we be when the only real broadcast news is subsidized by the state

and conservation is merely a hobby, smirkingly ignored by those in real power

where will we be when our students finally learn the value of a real education

then realize with growing anger that the good jobs are nowhere to be found

where will we be when global competition pays us all 70 cents an hour

and the world finds itself, at last, in an egalitarian corporate economic balance

where will we be when the educated far outnumber the jobs that remain

and the ignorant and brutal can no longer prosper safely within our midst

where will we be when the next demagogue simplifies all the answers

and how will we avoid a war that kills at least two hundred million

where will we be when all our engineering tasks are outsourced quite routinely

and research and development is quickly farmed out overseas

where will we be when all our clothes are made in foreign lands

and the only things we export are used packaging, corpro-food and raw materials

where will we be when everyone gets the same tiny bite from a fast-shrinking pie

and the corporations at last merge with their partners in government

where will we be when we fall just like the old soviet union

and foreign investors abandon us to our unpayable debts

where will we be when the bills come due and there is no more refinancing

as our own poison dust is carried over us by the hot and drying wind

where will we be when the yellow and brown saviors come to buy our homes

while the european brothers we alienated simply smile politely as we leave

where will we be when we finally rid ourselves of concerns over the biosphere

and we can concentrate on the last of the feasible extractions

where will we be when all the coral reefs bleach out and wash away

and the economic forecast far outweighs our environmental scorecard

where will we be when religions compete freely on a global scale

and the venture capitalists take them public for franchising fees

where will we be when we have little remaining except our nuclear arsenal

and the biological and chemical weapons we have stored in the desert

where will we be when high tech meets those three upon their horses

and we cannot simply point and click again to solve our real problems

where will we be when the red Chinese smile upon us from the moon

and still we let them ship us things built by the slaves we are becoming

where will we be when all the baby boomers morph into doddering botoxed zombies

still demanding more than those before them for doing much less

where will we be when there are no more dolphins to perish as simple tuna by-catch

and the sharks have all been slaughtered to make soup of their fins

where will we be when our wonder drugs do not protect and patients rot away

and the amoral without foresight go forth and genetically modify the world

where will we be when drinking water costs more than rationed gasoline

yet comes in dirty buckets siphoned from contaminated wells

where will we be when the market value of a human life bottoms out once again

while the faithful suffer quietly all of their lives, sustained by a fairytale heaven

where will we be when the conglomerates have finished all their acquisitions

and southern china has no more farm land but lots of empty factories

where will we be when the fix to the genetic modification problem goes awry

and the ultimate solution involves unforeseeable risks and too many trade-offs

where will we be when the Israelis fence the Palestinians into a sandy ghetto

but their loyal soldiers shoot only upon orders from their superiors

where will we be when the Kamchatka tiger leaves no more silent footprints

and his mighty brown bear brother shuffles off into the void as well

where will we be when the songbirds are no longer heard in our backyards

and who would even notice while playing video games upon big screens

where will we be when we realize our food supply is full of poison

and the government cannot blame terrorists for this corporate crime

where will we be when the most heat we can afford barely keeps our pipes from freezing

and we can no longer ignore the heat because there ism more no air-conditioning

where will we be when we create a digital life-form from among all our images

and they take into account the things that we choose to ignore

where will we be when the world realizes your son is not worth ten cents an hour

but their purchases of treasury bonds assumed two hundred dollars per day

where will we be when rodents become a vital part of the food supply

and boiled water is not used simply to make a little tea

where will we be when proud male lions no longer bring down filthy hyenas

and fat men with thinning hair cannot drive their large and loud pickups

where will we be then, it’s pretty easy just to ask right now

and the drunken Inuit watch the polar bears retreat forever along with the ice

When the voice of reason is drowned out...

The foolish student hears of the Tao and laughs aloud – Lao Tzu

when the people measure their success

by what they see in movies

honest work and a real education

must be viewed as the pointlessness of losers

when the old are not respected

even though they are still alive

and the latest thing is so important

the most recent must be forgotten

when the voice of reason is drowned out

by songs of clever hype

and the ignorant swell with a pride gained by rejecting learning

it is effortless to mold their children to be just the same

when accessibility means that ATVs and snowmobiles

should run free throughout our forests

then personal watercraft and vapid speedboats

can emit their smoky exhausts underwater

when the land is ripped and cut while still alive

without regret, much less any ceremony

domestic animals are held like hostages

inside concentration camps for slaughter and cellophane

when all we eat is poisoned by

petrochemical concoctions

that make for higher yields

mass production has won the day upon thy fruited fields

when societies forbid a woman's learning

but let her raise their leaders in bare feet

as they grow more ignorant and even poorer

they look outside for someone they can blame

when anonymous conglomerates

provide for all your needs

and interlocking directorates invisibly set the country's course

the ultimate seamless integration looms nearer every day

when strip malls drape all potentially profitable street corners

destroying our uniqueness

and digital signals coat us uniformly with slick advertainment

some of the disillusioned brothers take up vows of silence

when the government routinely informs us

not to eat the fish from our lakes and streams

and lets asthmatic children breathe diesel fumes on their way to school

regulation is expensive and could easily cost you jobs and money

when every year is up among the ten hottest ever seen

and all the glaciers on the equator melt like soft ice cream

and tropical diseases spread far to the north

the clean and killing cleaning frosts of winter disappear

when the government warns against junk science

and politicos rail against so-called fuzzy maths

they still ask us to believe the facts they cite

when pushing the agendas of their financial benefactors

when the media ignores humanitarian crises around the globe

and concentrates on chewy nonsense, safe for their advertisers

then the great cats and the primates can be driven into extinction

as the old trees are cut down and the pygmies are sent to live in town

when real men spend their free time

in expensive, brutish recreation

swilling canned drinks and greasy food

suddenly they are sixty with prostates swelled like lemons

when the citizenry disdainfully make no attempt

to grasp the way the things which support them work

and dismiss such tasks to others

they are quickly fleeced by crooked techies, they pay with overdue credit cards

when all the faithful pray to a god who they still believe

must bless their fair land the most every day

and is, with all certainty, playing on their side

they can admit of a solemn righteousness with all this in his hands

when all our government becomes an aristocracy

with royal families and traditions

their lawyers and lobbyists will rule the legislature

passing the requested laws of tithing corporations

when your land is a better and safer place to live

but you are not quite sure how or why

you know for certain that you must be for it,

for you definitely cannot be against it

when its either gay or sissy to worry about the planet

or think about the future

it becomes simpler to go off to some impoverished land

and pound a backwards people

when golf is considered quite a sport

even though you are forced to ride about in a little cart

and Doing Lunch is passed off as some form of real work

good jobs await other’s children in the future that you shape

when you waste a lot more than you were ever worth

yet your wants seem never to be fulfilled

and you are not quite sure where your desires come from

then media hypnosis has you blindly in its net

when you see the new construction and increased traffic every day

while on your long way once again to more pointless work

at last you will no longer even wonder

why it will never make a lot of sense

when there are always more people around this year

than there ever were the last

you realize the pointlessness of trying to escape the crowds

already gathered anywhere decent that you go

when all you seem to do is work

and the time goes by so fast

it is easy not to notice that

this vapidly-consumptive lifestyle cannot last

when you can look up suddenly

after thirty years have passed

and see there is no end in sight

what happens when you realize that you cannot run much longer?

when you have come so damn far that

all your dreams somehow don’t matter any longer

since you now have other interests

what can you look back upon that makes any sense at all?

When all the rain that falls cannot wet the soil

And all the days of winter cannot cool the air

How far are we, really, then

From those dusty camps full of haggard, begging refugees?

When all the wild places are convenient to identical corporate storefronts

And our forests become dull backyard amusement parks

At last the only wildness remaining in the West

Spews from our reckless minds

When all the fossil fuels have been guzzled down

And there is not enough water to go around

While the hot wind blows dust into every corner

How will our great war machines be run?

When no one can save up enough to provide for their own future

But the dirty screaming mobs demand an ever larger circus

Resource wars will provide us with safe and pleasant diversions

And things will keep on moving right along, in the same wrong direction

When the average Bangladeshi child is better educated than your son

You will, nonetheless, find him entitled to a future in the first world

For have not your surrogates: television, internet and his game consoles

forged him into a job-competitive leader of this new global order?

When even grandmothers are filled with pointless anger

Why are the Canadians, Germans and French so much less violent

Who made it so easy for you to hate and wound and kill

No matter if the enemy is your brother or a stranger in a foreign land

When we have wiped out all the charismatic mega-fauna

And the wildlife that children know consists of only

Stray cats, giant rats, flies, roaches and ugly spiders in their beds

Who could believe your old stories of clean water and fresh air?

When all the boomers are outsourced, downsized and laid off

they see that they have nothing left to show

except their monthly payments for sixty something foolish years

Note with what great style they ride off, leaving their mess in your lap

When the monsoon fails to come because the hot seas no longer circulate

More than a billion Indians will show us a new way

While a billion more hungry Chinamen build houses, schools and factories

On their very finest farmland which already barely feeds them

When all the porpoises are dead from military sonar and factory tuna fishing

There will be one less silly debate through which we have to suffer

And jobs and the economy can more easily assume their rightful places

Along with canned entertainment, at the center of our lives

When all the scowling Imams governing by the Koran are killed or captured

We can send in the evangelical missionaries to set them straight at last

A couple rigged and sorry elections and maybe a few fast food franchises

Should set them happily upon the glorious path of freedom and democracy

The Salesman’s Tale - Con Fessions

I am fresh out of new bullshit lines to use to get your money

My stream of sales pitches seems to have run quite dry at last

My messages are all faded out like the glossy brochures you threw away

I have no exotic suburban lifestyle enhancers left to try and sell you

There is no more strength left within me to overcome your opposition

I have run the last of my empty, full-color ad campaigns

I will coordinate no more glitzy marketing efforts

I will not attempt to fan any more vapid sales buzz

The last of my mail-in rebates has finally expired

There will be no more no-money-down offers by this tired pitchman

I am sick to death of offering usurious sets of easy monthly payments

I can no longer lie in print about yet another diet that does not work

I have had my fill of differentiating useless items which are really all alike

I will never again tie in a fast-food special with an action movie

I can no longer super size you or offer two for one on dangerous, cement-like pizza

I quit trying to relieve you of your money using gentle music and family scenes

I feel really filthy about using mass media to promote your unique individuality

I will no longer offshore the culture you invent and sell it back to you in a cheaper form

I am tired to my bones of taking chances with your money

Enough of silly slogans and attempting to be cool

I am finally fed up with defining new and shocking pre-teen fashions

I do not promote getting fat and staying stupid anymore

I am no longer running scams which purport to pay off all your credit cards

I cannot help them to make you point and click yourself further into debt anymore

I refuse to lie and tell you once again that you need a new car - every other year

I have had enough promoting brain-dead trips on stupid cruise ships

I am finished paying broadcasters to play my commercials louder than their content

I will not send you ten or twenty emails of porn-diet spam per day

I cannot make up more empty catchphrases to help the politicians con you

I promise to stop reducing all issues to thirty second sound bites

I no longer wish to bait you with a celebrity lifestyle that you can never enjoy

I will not use artificially-beautiful models to pimp things that no one really needs

I now regret my very profitable association with alcohol and tobacco companies

I do, however, wish I could have had a chance to market drugs for BigPharma

I wash my hands of the billions spent on promoting cleansers all the same

I hereby remove the bullseye from my favorite target markets

I am no longer any part of masking phony entertainment gossip as serious news

I am done calling for better education while ridiculing scientists and pushing half-truths

I leave the false advertising of US brand name garments made in china to my brothers

I no longer import plastic decal flags to adorn your financed foreign cars

I refuse to produce a fairy tale world to sell old men erection pills

I must, therefore, reject as well the fiction of teenage abstinence

I disavow my long-held notion that advertising is a form of scientific herding

I now respect you far too much to try and fleece you like vapid sheep...

I have stopped paying has-beens to promote items without any redeeming value

I decline to call for your patriotism while designing, producing and hiring overseas

I discontinue pushing stultifying, brain-damaging intoxicants as refreshing, cool and lite

I bequeath the honor of branding panty hose to the next generation

I swear off embedding lame products into movies consisting entirely of special effects

I will not make vapid girls in red underpants the focus of more film plots

I will promote no more fat, poorly-built, high-profit SUVs as important lifestyle decisions

I will push no more violence saying it is what the public wants and our savior OKs

I am ending my total dependence on the new and the improved

I have had enough of lying about the imported and the cheapened

My time of putting up For Sale signs from my luxury automobile and

Taking 7% of your home price for nothing, is now quite finished

No more will I prey upon the guilt I created hinting at neglected children...

I cannot pay off the health care system to have them labeled as in need of Meds anymore

Don’t look to me for corporate news and sports and entertainment

I will not repeat just how much you can trust us to the sounds of soothing music anymore

Forgive me for not creating a phony lifestyle angle for your worthless soft drinks

Show mercy when I stop pushing dangerous snacks consisting of fat, sugar and salt to your kids

I grow nauseous selling drek pitched to recapture the person you never were

I am sick of all this silly pretending just to siphon off a bit of your cash

My enthusiasm for hyping meat built in torture factories has slowly waned

I no longer see the great meaning I once found in amping wireless minutes

I have lost the urge to sell more jet skis, ATVS, dirtbikes and snowmobiles

I will only isten as others encourage the use of toxic chemicals to green our stupid lawns

Never again will I ask on TV for donations in jesus’ blessed name

I promise never again to take a payoff for pushing worthless stocks

I will create no more homey messages for corporate political research foundations

Done with promoting manufacturers through the use of mothers and their babies

In good faith do I forswear creating $XMAS guilt for greedy merchants

Neither will I try again to tie your love for her to the price of a diamond

Do not expect to see my cheesy product placement on reality TV shows any more

Look no more for glossy inserts pushing financed imported electronic toys

I cannot idealize a gas-guzzling, polluting SUV in the pristine mountains ever again

I will nevermore promote any petroleum company as being environmentally friendly

You will not see any more of my pet food ads covertly aimed as dinner for poor seniors

I vow an end to schilling tainted, ineffective arthritis supplements as fountains of youth

I disavow my goal of keeping kids stuffing their faces in front of TV ads

Let me end my empty foisting of phony and expensive wrinkle removal aids

My sales of broken closeouts as once-in-a-lifetime bargains are no more

I finally see that manufacturer financing does not actually improve a product

I now find my practice of pitching presidents like women’s hygiene aids was immoral

I am truly sorry that I sold you on drinking beer and eating crap while watching TV sports

Now I find it must have been wrong to ask that people open up their hearts and wallets to jesus

Praise the lord, I see the sin in associating women’s cleavage with men’s shaving cream

I reject those that follow me as I stake this higher moral ground for myself

I have milked you well, and thusly, have I, at last, grown pure and clean

Stupid Libtard Non-Issues Solved

If the trout disappear from streams drained for watering lawns and washing cars

It may be said to be a small part of god’s mysterious scheme of things

If the polar bears have no more ice to wander about upon to look for seals to eat

Why, someone once asked me what a polar bear had ever done for him

If the insects needed by parent birds now arrive before their eggs hatch

Is the world any poorer if we do not have so many songbirds?

If we build roads to prevent wildfires by removing only the largest trees

Our children will not have to face such old-growth controversies

If we use bulldozers to sculpture every piece of open land

What real harm is there if it all looks, and actually feels, quite the same

If the ponderosa pines retreat ever higher from the heat and the drought

Won’t we still have some purple mountain majesty left, somewhere else

If agribusiness and petrochemical interests take over all the farms

We can still make calendars with quaint and peaceful rural scenes

If we have a half a billion people living with us in our current fashion

We will likely still retain this good and peaceful quality in our lives

If we allow every impoverished and illiterate teenager to bear children

We know in our hearts we were righteous in ignoring their offspring

If we catch and kill and eat every last one of those mighty bluefin tuna

It won’t affect my take home pay, not even by a penny

If our lakes are merely cesspools and our rivers simply transport wastes

who really cares if we can still drive to the movies at the mall

If there are no more engineers, scientists or technologists in our country

maybe the unemployment rate will, nonetheless, remain quite low

If our children sit at home for hours wrapped up in exotic video games

Schools just need a little work to make the difference in their futures

If two million people make a parasitic living pimping a real estate bubble

Their blind greed shows free enterprise to be man’s noblest invention

If we strive to manufacture food animals as efficiently as some form of plastic widget

There is not the slightest chance we have lost any of our humanity

If power plants are allowed to add a bit more mercury to our infants brains

That means cheap and plentiful juice to microwave our instant meals

If we just let their diesels continue spewing this grayish and tubercular fog

Wal*Mart can hold the line on the prices of its imported goods for us all

If we let two thirds of our children leave school not knowing how to read

They need only wait for the better jobs replacing those gone forever overseas

If we spend a half a trillion on defense every year against shadowy, homeless enemies

Surely it is unpatriotic to vote against giving our boys what they need

If we over-fertilize, over-water and over-poison our own artificial lawns

Agribusiness will, of course, be the good stewards of our blessed farmland

If the wheelchairs should be allowed to penetrate the wilderness

Then surely ATVs and snow machines can provide accessibility as well

If the European people that we once were, shake their heads in disbelief

we believe it still must be some wondrous, sunny morning in America

If seal milk is laced with toxic dioxin and cancerous PCBs

How can that affect me as I watch pro sports on my big screen TV?

If the ash trees all die from parasites borne on containers full of imported goods

Which patriotic jet-skier really gives a flipping damn?

If the grizzly bear retreats until he reaches a point of no return

The livelihoods of patriotic ranchers will no longer be quite so threatened

If we let the big energy boys write policy that mirrors their best interests

Clearly, these experts know what laws best serve god and country

If it is cheaper to bulldoze open space than to rebuild aged retail centers

It shows how isolated economic self-interest blindly operates to optimize our futures

If the oil sheik puppets suck our blood and nurture our terrorist enemies

It is a cowardly lie to say we support them every time we fill our tanks

If our food, clothing, shelter and entertainment all come from corporations

The lifeblood of our great country still remains the creativity of its people

If you act on the premise that you need a new car every other year

We hold it self-evident that advertising is mainly in the public interest

If families take turns controlling the American political scene

Old Europe should wake up and take a lesson from our new realities

If a minority tortures and humiliates, we the righteous remain blameless

A few crusaders have punished the perpetrators of far greater crimes

If the reality of war and death is withheld or sanitized by the censors

We are spared the troubling images which threaten security issues

If our troops are recruiting daily for Al-Queda on Aljazeera

We will spread the message of democracy throughout the middle east

If forty-five million plus uninsured can get treated only at emergency rooms

Our nation provides the best and greatest choice of health care in all the world

If we need television subtitles to decipher the speech of our own citizens

Let us revel in the strength of the diversity found in our great caste system

If we foster an elite and outsource all mental and physical labor

Americans remain the most creative salesmen in the business world

If genetically modified crops and bacteria spread wildly without foresight, but for profit

The American farmer is a reservoir of conservative traditional values

If we bog down in expensive little wars in far off desert wastelands

The American military is the mightiest fighting force upon the planet

If thirty percent of our children live in poverty and have but a single parent

The wisdom of our people lies in their innate common sense

If we turn our best farmland into strip malls and throwaway tickytacks

American agribusiness can feed the entire hungry world

If we stir up a nest of bearded fanatics whose only wish is to die for god

Our motives are pure and our actions far beyond any reproach

If we allow slaughter, disease, ignorance and torture to flourish in Africa

Our work in other parts of the globe is still not strictly concerned with oil

If we grow brutal, loud, greedy, arrogant and ignorant in front of the world

We draw strength and piety from our history and traditional values

If, inexplicably, the frogs disappear from the marshes and the ponds

We still will not permit any net losses to our precious wetlands

If all the signs and the menus come in half a dozen languages

We will surely never become a Balkanized land of Alphabet Soups

If, at the end of the day, we are known best for our clever advertising

Our ideas can gain traction if we simply stay on message

If we allow big oil to make us groveling hostages to the petro-sheiks

We must safeguard our energy needs by any means at our disposal

If the air is dirty, the water fouled, the trees clearcut and the animals extinct

Human life, security, the family and our jobs will still remain the goals we seek

If there are no more big trees and we shoot the bears and trap the wolves

Third world lands should doubtlessly preserve their flora and their fauna

If our daily bread comes from factories and our milk is genetically improved

Global Industrial agriculture feeds the way to a better tomorrow for our children

If we are the willing victims of our selfish and greedy mass hallucinations

Our cause is surely righteous for He leads us upon our self-serving way

If we find we must consume obscenely, merely to keep the economy afloat

The sure guidance of the omnipotent unseen market hand will lead us safely to heaven

If we drive an hour each way, waste ten more, doing things that we despise

We urge all our citizens to partake in the dignity of Self Responsibility

If geography is a puzzle and arithmetic is too hard except for losers

We are committed to the notion that no child will know they’re left behind

If we steadfastly hold to the one true course to which He has committed us

Faith-based, free-enterprise social-Darwinism will rule in this world and the next

Greed Shall Overcome

Greed is love, Greed is mercy

Greed shall light my way, all the days of my life

Greed is pure, Greed is honest

Let greed be my real and true life’s purpose

Greed is patriotic, Greed is forthcoming

Greed is my weapon in the struggle for survival

Greed is godlike, Greed shall overcome

Help my greed to grow greater the more that I succeed

Greed is jealous, Greed is vengeful

Greed barks not even one other true passion

Greed is hope, Greed is righteous

Let all see the greed that shines from within me

Greed is a fountain, Greed is all-consuming

Greed provides the framework supporting my life

Greed is forgiving, Greed is always within me

Greed guides the blind hand of the omnipotent free market

Greed is my true passion, Greed lights my path

Greed is never satisfied by any past

Greed is truth, Greed is salvation

Greed help me to assume man’s highest form

Greed is good, Greed is great

Thank you dear god for all this greed, amen