Pitiful Prematurely-Wasted Planet

Now that all these years have passed, I gaze once more upon your face

I see those things that I remembered so often in my foolish race

But still I wonder, how could age come so quickly to the land?

How could you have changed so much in the lifetime of just one man?

I see the lines upon your face and the soot within your tears

the damage from your gouged out hillsides is even worse than it appears

I gasp in disgust at the condition of that once fair, sweet meadow

I fear for myself looking at the waste and garbage from long ago

And I remember how your beauty beckoned me the closer that I drew

And how I now howl as what little remains still comes shining through

I shed a tear now and again as your dawn still nuzzles me as it used to do

I only wish I could have loved you as much but simply left you as I found you

Everywhere I see the struggle to tame, control and then, finally, to enjoy

But around me too, I miss that wild presence that just had to be destroyed

Your streams hold fish raised in tanks on pellets and dumped from trucks

The roads I once walked alone are full of men who seek only quick bucks

The sunsets have grown deeper with all our smog and smoke

The summers have grown longer and the winters are not as cold

Your trophy game have all been taken but we shoot them all, just in case

The spring rain you still bless us with is a thing of unappreciated grace

The uncalled for erosion of your hillsides into your creeks is just a little kiss

The shattering of your wise thick silence is surely nothing we should miss

As we slash your forests and silt your rivers we are showing you our love

So long as you support us will we continue, with the blessings from above

The scattering of our plastic litter is an offering to appease your spirit

Though we rip you with our bulldozers, you really need not fear it

The choking madness of our cities surely bonds us to you

Our agriculture and husbandry pervert the very work you do

The way we treat each other mirrors what we think you find fair

Our system values greedy self-interest as you valued the water and the air

We invented a merciful, beneficent god who blesses our daily destruction

And we bade that god command us to take dominion with our construction

After a long time in my short life I never thought you could change very much

But many of the things I thought would last, we turned to ash and such

The rate that we extinguish your precious life forms drains your very vigor

Your resources are severely strained by our awful population figures

Your waters now filled with toxic runoffs no longer flow without a care

We managed even to abuse the great wide oceans beyond our repair

How do your ancient senses relate to our blind and mindless noise?

Why is it that I know, it truly was much better before these foolish boys?

In your silent mercy you fully support our arrogant and ignorant folly

you grow old before your measured time amid our foolish caterwauling

As I gaze once more into your eyes still bright with curiosity and excitement

Though humbled and ashamed I still stand by and watch in wretched guilty silence

In our long histories, just moments in the vast time that you have known

To my astonishment I see we have only reaped and never, ever sown

Tell me, do you still have places that rekindle your fondest memories?

Do you long for the days before this mass rending became our legacy?

Your arms still reach out to embrace me in those same soft ways

Why does it seem now as if I visit you during your last hospice days?

Your perfume was truly exciting that time when we first kissed

Now it is laced with so many forms of our careless toxic mist

I remember your many coats of splendor made of trees and grass and flowers

Now grown threadbare with excavation, mining and dark, modern towers

there is a contradiction looking upon you now as you lay sleeping

Your present image draws a profound mixture of nausea and weeping

From all directions come reports of unending insults to your perfections

I realize with shame it must get worse with each of our generations

I wonder if your are mortally wounded or, perhaps, merely ill

we will never know if you die or recover, for very soon we all will be forever still

Symptoms Of My Wasting Disease

I spent many long hours growing dull in front of the big screen,

flipping channels idly with my mind completely disengaged

I wasted years of precious brain cycles, simply wanting something new

cars, clothes, electronics or homes, it was but the lust that mattered

I sat chewing salty snacks like a vacuous, bipedal ruminant

a few calorie-laden morsels at a time, just keeping my mouth moving

I drove nearly everywhere except within my home

a soft, fat, white worm encased in a manufactured plastic shell

I always spent everything I made and then charged even more

now growing old, I seek assistance from my government and family

I knew my god had decreed I should go forth and procreate

I raised up a lot of vapid halfwits: simply venal, but quite loud and proud

I was certainly blessed by God as the politicians often called for

the world owed me a living and I glowed like a fat, bright star

I steadily gained weight and became less active all the time

finally injured at some banal pursuit, I gave up even trying any more

I found the local newspaper to be my highest reading level

I never spent a moment improving my meager employment skills

I wasted thousands on hair replacement and phony erection pills

even more on sound systems and silly, so-called, home entertainment

I needed a new vehicle, it seemed, about every couple of years

never asking why, I felt kind of sorry for those that had to do without

I watched sports on television, drank beer and ate snacks from plastic bags

later ordered pizza and thought about all of those new cars

I planned but little, saving nothing and then, facing a forced early retirement,

tried to save up in a hurry but was quickly savaged by clever brokers

I tried with desperation to retain the promise of my youth

yet the more I spent, perversely, the more quickly that I worsened

I could not find our country’s enemies on a simple map of the world

yet I supported their extinction in wars marketed alongside other ads

I bought my meat wrapped in cellophane laid out in styrofoam holders

cursing the bloody tree huggers who might cost me a nickel more

I spent far too many hours alone, going nowhere in my car

polluting the air and wasting petroleum, just idling in traffic jams

I always came around when everybody else went somewhere, too

forever stuck in the crowds, one of the most faithful of the sheep

I could always be counted on to fall for the next big, manufactured Thing

That is, to just have to have, the next really stylish, expensive bauble

I finally saved enough to retire and then, promptly, came my cancer

my money drained off quickly, to caring corporate health providers

I had but faint conception of the bigger world that existed all around me

though little did it matter, so small was my imagination

I purchased, consumed and discarded, excreted and respired

and noble beasts became extinct as I helped lay the world to waste

I smoked, drank, gambled, shopped, prayed and pledged allegiance

and I found my life’s true meaning raising up offspring just like me

I sneezed, wheezed, farted and belched, coughed and blew my nose

hawked and spit, scratched, picked and peeled and then lay very still

I watched nature shows while my cars leaked oil on the driveway

everywhere the land was cleared to provide me with convenience stores

I heated my un-insulated house so we could wear shorts in the winter time

voted for those that told me it was patriotic to shop and to consume

I favored SUVS, jet skis, snowmobiles and ATVS for my dulling pleasure

Laughed at saving any places for animals, trees or my descendants

I cast off my clothes before they were well worn

even as I spent all my money long before it was earned

I learned to shit where the urge came and then to walk away in peace

But surely I will not be shit on, walked away from, and forgotten

I leave behind a legacy of simple-minded ignorance and waste

I rest easy for my work is part of something far larger than myself

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

Population Metastiszation

There’s twice as many now as 50 years ago and that’s well over twice too many

They say our numbers will stabilize after increasing half again as much

There is more obvious evidence of this vast metastasization, everywhere you look

They say the earth can support us, one and all, without any real problems

But we’ll live a septic and squalid lifestyle, rooting amid the rubble and the trash

We’ll manage token forests after trading wildlife for agribusiness monocrops

We can finish strip-fishing the oceans to meet the growing demand for food

Then our seafood will come from filthy, toxin-rich, germ-infested mudholes, like those in China

But, hey, we’ll still have the dead oceans, spreading deserts and a thawed arctic to enjoy

We can archive old footage and preserve lots of different creature’s DNA

No doubt there will be a huge pool of labor glad to work for next to nothing

We’ll chemically purify other’s wastewater before we drink it down and flush it on

We’ll be ripe for shocking pandemics, crammed as tightly as we can be

Wars will break out often among the lemmings milling towards the precipice

Pestilence will spread quickly through genetically-modified corporate crops

We’ll have great zoos and well-fenced, highly-managed game preserves

Town names will still remind us of the creatures we eliminated long ago

Miraculous and expensive medical advances will help us all live even longer

The fractional percentage at the top will still enjoy rich and wondrous lives

Rugged individualists will still find ways to be distinguished in the crowds

The squalor, crime and emptiness will produce great but twisted works of art

Globalization can help us all achieve a state of Mutually Assured Misery

Debates on climate change and environmental damage will be long forgotten

India and china will provide our wasted world’s natural model going forward

We can all turn inward, away from the writhing masses, like the Japanese do right now

We will be able to escape to a convergence of entertainment and computers

Uncounted untouchables will colonize and mine the rich dump sites worldwide

God told us to forego contraception so we can swarm like filthy rodents

We can adjust to the grimy reality of a greenhouse heated world together

Emissions will decrease nicely once we’ve expended all our fossil fuels

We can get on with human progress when the amphibians and whales are gone

Global corporate capitalism will triumph over fairytale ecosystem sustainability claptrap

The weak will be culled by dirty water, polluted air and contaminated breast milk

Shove aside the charismatic megafauna from the Arctic to the Serengeti

Slash and burn and cut the jungle, the old growth and the boreal forests

Pack us and our wastes ever more tightly into sprawling, unplanned mega-slums

Dam the rivers, kill the fish, cut off the rich silt and poison the waters

Let the global oligopoly rule based solely on stock market considerations

We can all flourish on patented corporate crops and recycled sewage water

Make it so that peace and silence reign only in ever-expanding, newly-barren wastelands

We can school more tightly on the green pills inside our privatizing earbuds

Our children won’t have painful memories of clean lakes and country roads

Generations can progress at last freed from divisive whining by the squishes

The rats, roaches, flies, cats and dogs can raise their numbers right along with us

Natural catastrophes occurring in overcrowded, unsuitable locations will be magnified

No longer able to foul and just move away, we will gaze off from inside our filth

After several generations, children won’t have just their own parents to blame for a reduced world

Opportunities micro-marketing to the very poor will create wealth for a few

The adventurous can pursue their dreams alone upon oceans where only odd life forms flourish

You can take your children on safe strolls thru carefully tended tree farms

The dead were dug up long ago to make way for cropland and development

You could walk for weeks over identical automated farms, if it were allowed

Colonies will return once again to Greenland as Spain becomes a desert

Group suicide bombings will attain an unspeakable global popularity

Politicians and conservatives will always find some form putative progress to trumpet

Those who call for population reduction will be labeled as genocidal elitists

The rational will continue to decline in reproduction, quite unlike the vast, very poor majority

There will be no more ecological debates in the mass struggle to survive

The dirty, hungry hordes of Africa will have consumed every bit of wild meat

Religion will still provide an irrational hope in a calming, faith-based narcotic

Meaningless elections and ‘free’ markets will vie against cults of personality

No longer will displaced subsistence farmers fear raids by hungry elephants

We will choke the estuaries with filthy aquaculture pens and kill all the mangroves

Dye the farmed salmon pink and genetically infect all their wild brethren

They will flood us with images of things we cannot afford in places we will never see

We shall ignore natural cycles and say “Fuck insects, bring on the weeds and loose the goats”

For we live beyond the checks and balances of nature in the images of our one true gods

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

Time And Time Again We Ignore...

Time and again they tell us of

Natural systems that are collapsing

Time and again we glimpse

Species as they are disappearing

Time and again it is said that

such and such practices are not sustainable

Time and again we hear of

Shameful waste that must be stopped

Time and again we read about

Shocking crimes in our own society

Time and again we think that

we must finally take a stand

time and again we ignore

the quiet truth that surrounds us all

Time and again they tell us of

The wondrous power of prayer

Time and again we help ourselves

to more than we can ever use

Time and again it is said that

Clean air and water cost too much in jobs and money

Time and again we hear of

Liberal plots against our family values

Time and again we read about

The ways our children fall even further behind

Time and again we think that

Common sense must begin to prevail at last

Time and again we ignore

The unread lessons of our musty past

Time and time again they pummel us with

These vital issues like gay marriage and abortion

Time and again we see

The free market drive up the price of disappearing goods

Time and again it is said that

Fuzzy thinking and junk science are plotting against us

Time and time again we hear of

The costs of so-called environmental racism

Time and again we read about

The grinding poverty of the global masses

Time and again we think that

Events a world away do not affect us

Time and again we ignore

The subtle signals nature sends

Time and again they share with us

Their clear visions of our bright future

Time and again we see

Too many people carrying water and cutting firewood

Time and again it is said that

Giving our jobs away will help to make us richer

Time and again we hear of

Subversive media plots pushing a godless agenda

Time and again we read about

CEOs eliminating jobs and slashing benefits and getting huge rewards

Time and again we think that

Surely now things must, at last begin to change

Time and again we ignore

The legacy of our uncontrolled consumption

Time and again they tell us of

Their duty to defend us, as they attack

Time and again we see

Peaceful pictures on the wall and bulldozers out the window

Time and again it is said that

Politics and religion have a place in scientific debates

Time and again we hear of

The latest in unbelievable social atrocities

Time and again we read about

Dire new threats to the environment

Time and again we think that

Certain trends can surely go no further

Time and again we ignore

Things we cannot, or do not wish to see changed

Time and again they tell us of

Horrible tragedies in far off lands

Time and again we see that

Freedom of expression turns an arrogant ignorance into a virtue

Time and again our shopping habits tells them

Mass-produced food at rock-bottom prices makes us happy

Time and again we hear of

miracle breakthroughs for baldness, impotence and weight loss

Time and again we read about

People just trying to obtain a little clean drinking water

Time and again we assume that

Our lives will continue in this style on into the Happily-ever-after

Time and again we ignore

Global facts which do not suit our national agenda

Time and again they tell us irrelevant stories

Of mighty civilizations that have crumbled into the dust

Time and again we are pounded with

Another complex issue reduced to a 30 second sound bite

Time and again it is said that

Wars of liberation will bring about freedom and democracy

Time and again we hear of

The inexcusable differences between the rich and the poor

Time and again we read about

Poaching and habitat destruction threatening one more species

Time and again we are assured that

Corporate globalization inevitably leads to a better world

Time and again we ignore

The unsustainable overpopulation that further dims all our futures

Time and again they tell us of

The average person’s struggle to attain the barest needs of survival

Time and again we see that

Some casually waste more than most ever have to consume

Time and again it is said that

Tax breaks for the richest are the surest way of reducing poverty

Time and again we hear of

Cultures where women remain ignorant, veiled, barefoot and pregnant

Time and again we see pictures of

Diarrheic babies, bloated and hungry, with fly-encrusted eyes

Time and again we are told that

It is fruitless to try and fathom the mystery of god’s will

Time and again we ignore

The wanton destruction of the very earth that supports us

Time and again they tell us of

The power of local control to protect everything important

Time and again we watch as

Hungry people cut down trees as their goats graze the land bare

Time and again our leaders assure us that

God blesses our country and guides their great decisions

Time and again we hear

Foreign religious fanatics proclaiming holy wars against such infidels as us

Time and again we are reminded that

God’s gift of the soul separates us from the animals

Time and again we ignore

Tainted facts that emanate from pre-condemned sources

Time and again they tell us of

The need to ensure that their unnecessary sacrifice will not be in vain

Time and again we see that

We gain by the inhuman labor of the peasants who took our jobs

Time and again it is said that

The miracle of compound growth will set us all free in the end

Time and again we are made just dimly aware of

Tragic events that can never happen here

Time and again we are quite confident that

We can simply muddle through the unforeseen effects of our unplanned actions

Time and again we ignore

The myriad small changes, so that we do not see their net effects

Time and again they tell us of

The foolishness of taking expensive action, without real certainty

Time and again we see that

We need to trust them as they act in secret, relying upon their personal faith

Time and again it is said that

We must globalize, downsize and outsource to compete

Time and again we hear of

Heinous plots against our beliefs and freedom by heathen enemies

Time and again we re-assure ourselves of

The correctness of our actions without re-examining our assumptions

Time and again reports indicate how little our children are learning

Yet we still treat them as if they were future world leaders

Time and again we give a little thanks while praying for even more