Oil in the Gulf. Oil wars. Israeli commandos holding down the forward fire base of the American oil imperium. Water shortages, but Vegas and LA gulp the Colorado dry. Monsoon season in New England. I dump a gallon of benzene, I go to jail. Dow dumps ten thousand, they pay a fine. You run an unlicensed gambling room, you lose everything and do big time. Goldman Sachs does it on a global scale, and buys itself a President. Some one else, anywhere across the span of a continent, cultivates cannabis - and off to the federal penitentiary. GlaxoSmithClineWhatever produces tons and tons of toxic waste, slaps a "medicine" label on it, and buys up half of Congress.
Christ on a stick, people still vote?
They still think it matters?
Still, some solace: it all falls. All of it. No empire lasts. Perhaps we will have the good fortune of watching this one fall. Or helping out a bit...
Crow's Eye: Maintaining a commitment to Pointless Acrimony™ and Hate Filled Invective™! Also available in corvid mischief and traditional sly dog's mistrust.
5 comments:
If voting could possibly make a difference, it would be illegal for all except "corporate entities."
I would really love to see the dawn of a post-American world.
Anon @ 11:27 -
Great observation.
Fwoan -
Soon, I think.
There is solace in knowing this empire will fail. There is solace in watching the one in which I live fail, even at the cost of something like the oil spill, which will destroy my beloved, beautiful state (Florida) and all the beloved, beautiful, wild birds that I love so much.
I signed up to volunteer to help wash oiled birds, there is not much else I can do to help with the spill, but at least there's that.
You mentioned another solace of mine: cannabis. A small piece of joy to me in a world so full of turmoil.
I do not grow it, because I fear federal jail more than I have the courage to protest an unjust law by simply planting a seed in the ground, and watching it grow. I do, however, sometimes dare consume it in small amounts---which I suppose I should not admit to here, because there is no privacy on the internet, but a girl has to feel like she has some power to peacefully resist.
But there are those brave ones---not the greedy ones, here I speak of only the brave ones---who have preserved what I consider to be both a medicinal and a spiritual plant. To those brave people---and not the greedy ones who spill the blood of others simply for a black-market profit---I am forever grateful, for if it were up to the United States government the cannabis plant would have been wiped from the face of the earth.
Why am I so grateful? Aside from its medicinal use, there are occasions where my soul is so full of grief that only a small bit of cannabis can ease the pain, and allow me to believe in the underlying, potential goodness of the human soul.
I am also grateful that I did the months of research required to find the real medicinal and scientific truth about cannabis (thank you books, thank you internet medical and scientific journals!), instead of buying at face-value the hundreds of unsupported lies that the United States government tells about the plant.
(And for the record I make sure what I do consume, for a fact, does not come on the backs of Mexican or American suffering.)
In the words of India Arie, in her song "Spiritual Connection": Daily the system grinds in our minds / Herb reconnects us to the heart of time / Lies they teach, they don't educate, oh, no / Herb-wise eyes see and penetrate ... Dip into the vast knowledge pool / And when you surface, you feel renewed ... Mistakes are a part of living / Remember compassion, practice forgiveness / And when you speak, seek to reach a higher ground / A place where harmony can be found
And I'm sorry if this turned into a little bit of a non sequitur ramble about cannabis, but you mentioned the plant and it struck a chord; I live in Florida (born and raised) and with that oil spill out there, I have been having a lot of extra bad days lately so it was all I could do to respond to this post with something I consider relatively positive. :-(
...And yes, people still vote, and they think it matters.
Let's watch this battleship made of wire mesh sink in the manner it should!
--Charles Fucking Oxtrot, Esq.
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