Progress Concerns Me Thus...

Progress concerns me at this moment.
Or, rather,
the well crafted, professionally developed and sold notion of progress
that we in the industrialized world buy in single serving packages
of Duracell batteries, coca cola, Sony and cigarettes.
We buy, hook, line and sinker
like bottom feeders most things and ideas
that our champions of politics and industry sell us
paying little mind to the consequences of our actions.
Or to those adversely affected by our conspicuous assumption.
McDonalds doesn’t tell us when we order our Big Mac that someone,
somewhere is starving because of our need or desire to have a couple of beef patties
or some crispy chicken.
We’re oblivious while sipping on our coke,
water with some syrup in it that elsewhere people would fight to the death for water.
Madison Avenue,
Bay and Fleet streets don’t want us to live in reality,
they’d prefer us to buy, and we do, the picture book life,
THEY sell us.
What is progress?
It is often said that a team is only as strong as its weakest member.
So, we then are exceptionally weak.
What good is progress if we are leaving so many behind?
What good is progress if it is blind?
Will it change?
Will we change?
Only if You and I demand it –
But we don’t because we are too busy watching quote, reality TV.
Our progress is just as real as the reality shows we watch –
crafted to stupefy and placate.

SDM