Thoughts from an Idealist

Democracy;
Capitalisms Hoax
Yet we preach,
extol the virtues of the systems as we’re not to proud to boast.
Achievements sure, many great and wide,
though the sinister truth is something altogether different
that only now is becoming difficult to hide:
Not Cheney, not Powel, Rumsfeld or Bush,
nor Clinton, or Reagan or Nixon could push,
for the very fabric of our daily lives is not decided by these white guys.

The White House,
a symbol of the seat of power
but in order for it to work the products we must devour,
consume, consume, consume,
come on my working friends –
Democracy depends on it,
until its very end –
game.

It’s a run, a fast break –
the winner is the one that’s first out of the gate:
America,
the beautiful and the home of the brave,
with a population silenced by their own ignorance,
consumers,
who don’t even vote –
But stand as an example –
Americans who gloat.

Tragic really that democracy is being brought to its close by the gluttony that is CAPITALISM.

Democracies big hoax.

SDM

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

Fit to Print

What’s the story, all the news that’s fit to print, save that now so few of us seem to pay attention to the wholesale value of words and what they truly mean, let alone read, in this age of television. In days gone by long ago, words came from storytellers, first spoken through a glorious oral tradition to let us know of our past and where we came from. Soon, the spoken word gave way to the written word giving a freedom of conscience and consideration that the spoken never did, as from behind closed doors we could choose in dimly lit rooms whether to consume tawdry tales of the Marquis or moral dilemmas from Voltaire, Choice; Where should our minds advance? As technology advanced and the industrial revolution gave birth and rise to the marvels of invention again our focus changed, albeit temporarily to radio – The magic of invisible waves renewing and invigorating the spirit of the oral tradition. Families sat in rooms to listen to the news or stories of the world at war or of mystery and intrigue, our imaginations still active as with our minds eye we still had to create the images of people, places and things that we had no firm knowledge of, or belief that we could ever see. Still challenged by the media that fueled our souls by leaving us wanting and hungry. As history shows us, technology allowed us to become intellectually lazy, as again, invisible waves brought pictures to us of places we would never go, to see things we could never see, save for the images that now confronted our senses, first in black and white, then in colour.

The golden age of that technologies advance brought us presidential debates, the Cuban missile crisis, assassinations and the first step on the moon. Respected veterans of that by gone age like Cronkite, I can only imagine what they would think, as now, from the cradle of civilization, in stark contrast to an age of moderately objective truth I now see Babylon falling again brought to me by talking heads that talk a lot but don’t seem to be using their heads.

Brokaw, speaks of death, destruction and terror, Arnett of failed war plans, Mansbridge of suicide bombers and Entertainment Tonight of embedded reporters fired for not following the rules.

What is the story? Is it any of these? Or all? Or none – Was Pandora’s box opened when we gave our intellectual ability to services whose only job is to keep us dumbfounded and staring at the screen, why you might ask; so GE, GM, NIKE and McDonalds can sell me just one more, anything, as long as I watch and consume.

SDM