Waving Goodbye To Their Future

Every day they seem to slip just a little bit further out of our grasp

Their color isn’t good and it’s almost like they no longer care

They’re even less aware than our dear children - whom they cannot recognize

But at some point they gotta realize we got lives of our own to live

Lots of us are saying they’ll just have to be able to take care of themselves

Life must go on for we the living, so we’ll just have to let them go

It’s not like we don’t got our own futures covered, what with christ and all

So we’ll just take a moment to wave goodbye from amidst our noisy fortunes

After all, we are, one and all, in this competition called the pursuit of happiness

Their far-off signals are pretty much indecipherable along our hurried way

So we’ll see them off and wish them well on whatever road that they may find

We cannot sacrifice our very lives providing for all their needs forever

They do not seem to grasp the vitally important nature of our feverish pursuits

They cannot share the passions which consume us to the exclusion of all else

Their silent presence can become oppressive when we have so much to do

We all must learn we just have to let them go - even if they might not go away

They cannot realize the immense burden their simple presence generates

In any case, how can they expect their milk without fighting for a teat

Their passive and unwavering silence cannot fail to hurt their cause

Because the earth’s sweet goods get divvied up to whomever grabs the most

But every day our own needs seem greater and their voices grow even fainter

So we leave them on an ice floe or cast them into the river in tiny fragile boats

We borrow a moment to wave goodbye and then hurry back upon our noisy way

We grant them their freedom and independence, out of sight and out of mind

We absolve ourselves of knowledge, responsibility and any guilt on their behalf

We wish them well and wave goodbye and promise we’ll meet again, somewhere up in heaven

So we set the children of the future free that we might get on with our own pressing lives

We forever turn our backs on them for we have determined to have it all today

Virga

Rain, especially from desert thunderstorms, which evaporates before ever reaching the ground

Gusty winds and far-off thunder

Drops which never quite strike this ground

Darkened the skies and it grew cooler

But the shower dried before it reached us

Struck out with all those good intentions

Mixed with the dust during my descent

Tumbled thru these wondrous skies

But never got to soak the earth

Held a promise to quench deep thirst

But could not even wet our lips

Brought us hopes of good moist soil

Yet only stirred the hopeless dust

Like some preacher or petty politician

assurance fading with the music

So deceivingly cool and dark and wet

Unreal as that lake mirage on desert road

A welcome sight for burning eyes

Left us wet, but with merest sweat

Blown out by unforgiving winds

Evaporate just beneath their thunderheads

So very appealing to the desiccated

So cruelly deceiving to the hopeful

Such wondrous promise at a distance

Dissolving into simple salt and disappointment

Sense Of Impending Doom

There’s this vise-like tightness growing in my chest when all I do is look around

Twilight’s lengthening shadows bring on a strong sense of my own impending doom

Maybe it’s the gray skies that just cant seem to brighten up all the mud and trash

Or it could be the endless pronouncements of wondrous new economic recovery initiatives

Then there’s this feeling like everybody’s running and I just can’t quite keep up

Seems like simply busting out in tears is appropriate at least once or twice a week

Even though my job seems pretty safe for now, the next round of layoffs still looms overhead

Once or twice a month it seems I wake up in the dark, drenched in a cold sweat

Doctor says that these new meds may take a while to reach their full effect

I surely hope so cause it feels like a lot of things are tightening up all around me

Maybe it’s cause I’m too old to hire, too young to retire and we’re still so far in debt

I just cant seem to get any air as I lay here in bed gasping like some tiny drowning fish

Feels like I’ve been squeezed into a corner that only leads to blind dead-ends

My savior’s not been as effective so I’m trying to turn up the power of prayer a notch

This awful burning that’s gnawing at my stomach speaks volumes, without a single word

Smog-darkened skies make sitting in endless lines of traffic just seem foolish and quite futile

Wise corporate leaders laying off thousands and defaulting on benefits fit neatly into my despair

Feels like the end of the carefree world that they advertised and helped us to finance

Can’t tell if that smell of fear is coming from the dark mall or the local feed lot

Just don’t have any matching ties that don’t cut off the circulation to my brain

There’s a numbness that’s spreading from my thoughts on out to my extremities

I’ve got this tingling sensation and my left arm feels as if it’s fast asleep

They say I’m just innocent detritus from the vast new global economies of scale

But there’s no way to avoid the simple conclusion that this just cannot continue

My ankles are swollen and my eyes are puffy and it’s really hard to get upstairs

A few drinks don’t bring the satisfaction that they always did, not so very long ago

I’m not seeing all the colors anymore or else everything is black or dirty gray

Feels like something quite sinister is flowing in silently from all sides at once

I’m subtly twisting everything I see to support these feelings of inevitable calamity

The dirty, littered streets all whisper to me of some ghastly approaching plague

Haunted eyes stare back at me from deep within the dark sockets of my own haggard face

Seems like the crows wait with ever more raucous impatience on something I do not see

The Sound Logic of Conservative Policies

This credit debacle far outweighs their cutesy fuzzy pipedreams of whatever sustainable living

These unemployment figures must push the real poor further into the gray background

Decreases in tax revenues force us to slash funds for even studying climate change

In this economic downturn the ecosystem simply must take a back seat to family welfare

The financial crisis leaves us without monies for these so-called superfund sites

We must pare social spending to the bone to preserve our military preparedness

Alas, educational funding must suffer given the collapse of the holy housing market

Real healthcare reform will remain on the back burner until consumer confidence returns

Cleaning up our waters takes a back seat to restoring mindless consumer spending

Energy independence can be shelved again thanks to fracking & a temporarily reduced demand

Burdensome impact reviews must be put on hold to help jumpstart the precious economy

Expensive emission control procedures can be waived until the recovery finally takes hold

This discretionary habitat restoration must cease until our families begin buying on credit again

Personal responsibility can wait while we bail out both irresponsible debtors and lenders

Clearly this is not the time for some expensive, lifestyle-based disease prevention program

We certainly cannot impose costly deposits on recyclable materials during this crisis

Requiring power companies to stop acid rain could push customers over the edge

Mandating energy efficiency for electronics could hurt slumping sales even more

Saving old growth forests must take a back seat to temporary jobs cutting timber for export

We cant stop illegal worker abuses without threatening businesses and raising costs

Protecting our soil must now take a back seat to curbing factory food price increases

Underwriting investment banking gambles trumps making higher education affordable

We wont be rushed into phony climate change fixes but this huge bailout must be fast-tracked

To fight this crisis, patriotic coal-fired power plants will be permitted near national parks

Limiting worker chemical exposure imposes undue costs on already-stressed industries

Ethical treatment of animals must take a backseat to affordable factory protein for our families

Calls for smart growth sound pretty silly given these current dire economic conditions

We must pump trillions to the bankers while cutting back on unproven childcare programs

Overseas atrocities and starvation are secondary to rebooting our own hyper-consumption

Right now, rugged conservative straight talk must override shrill liberal whining

We cannot embark upon squishy socialist programs lest we jeopardize a fragile recovery

Unlike the planetary ecosphere, our investment banks are too big to be allowed to fail

It would be insane to radically increase gas tax now to rebuild the failing transportation grid

Regulations can wait until the bailout money has re-lubricated the noble financial system

Habitat preservation is for the birds when good families are suffering economic hardship

Fairytale wacko concerns must take a backseat given our ongoing economic uncertainties

Junkyard Tripping

Took a trip out to our dump when a hot dry wind was blowing hard

Could see that funny yellow dust in the air well before we got there

Bulldozers and giant aerators stirred up a foul, freshly amalgamated scent

Brown and lumpy liquids leaked from below where we tossed away our stuff

Sun baked junkyard men smoked cigarettes and joked about their health

The county dump is on a hillside above a Western river on its way to California

There’s a posted list of prohibited items but no one checks your stuff

There’s laws about sanitary disposal but the county’s out of money

So we got a concentrated plume of an evil witch’s brew not too far from home

A small price the earth that god so loved must pay for our ordained presence here

Well, that smell gave me a headache so I guess that I’m still not a real man

In fact it was slightly lingering in my nose til late into the morning after

But I wasn’t all like tongue-clucking, finger-pointing and exposing some great sin

It was just the stuff that you and me don’t want sitting around our family homes

All tossed into a toxic grimy blot not suited for the pregnant or might become so

An accepted, respected and budgeted part of this small and rustic community

But I saw things there I could not be part of as my eyes filled with its bitter dust

I could not merge this place into my vision of our happy family way of life

There were no picnic tables or benches beneath the trees that could never grow here

Children would not be romping among the twisted metal coated with corrosives

There was however no escaping that this place is an integral part of our home

A place where our multi-chemical legacy returns to the surrounding ecosystem

Out-of-sight, downwind and downstream is just the best that we can do for temporary

This is the spot where all the other cleanups go, never meant to be cleaned up

It’s just a giant compost heap for toxic waste, garden varieties of trash & all manner of recyclables

A place where plastic is smashed into tiny pieces without ever breaking down

Where dirty oil, old paint and mild insecticides all mix and blend and start to flow

Yeah, food remains and old clothes get stirred with brake fluid and shrink wrap

There are rich veins of jumbled aluminum and glass we chose not to reuse

But all that tossed out paper soaks up a lot of the nasty liquids and stays in place

The tree limbs and grass clippings and rotting food produce flammable methane underneath

Hope our kids don’t have to mine this before it dries out and the smell goes away

Reinventing Ourselves For The Good New Jobs

You Could Be...

Programmers are bending themselves into grocery clerks going forward

So-called financial engineers should be snatching at secure jobs driving school buses

Web designers are strutting in their natty fast food uniforms

Physics graduates optimize sweeping patterns in their work as custodians

Shy mathematicians are re-inventing themselves as stockers down to Wal*Mart

Unneeded chemists are scheming to open up their own new brew pubs

Moping, unemployed newspaper writers futilely send their signal into the blogospheric void

Graying, downsized middle managers pass out identical resumes on every corner

Washed up autoworkers line up for full-time positions driving garbage trucks

Former roofers and framers look to re-invent themselves installing solar panels

Downcast Teamster container ship unloaders will become produce clerks, someday

With straight faces, liberal arts grads try to get hired on to redneck road-building crews

Quality assurance experts audit their own work cleaning toilets in convenience stores

Unemployed statisticians calculate their odds for success at professional blackjack

Burnt out, washed up teachers with no alternate careers shut down, but stay on

All those 45 and older are quickly cast aside and wordlessly encouraged just to die

Financial planners are now without the income streams needed to smother their own debt

Database administrators finally try to use their hands while studying to be paramedics

Laid off PR goddesses become consultants to other useless baggage trying to reinvent itself

Overextended real estate profiteers look for big scores in pyramid fat-burning scams

Unread resumes clog vast networks of pathetically over-eager former executives

Hapless retail attempts by entrepreneurial laid-off accountants die in record time

Ex-project leaders learn to live with being laughed at by fellow Home Depot stockers

Run down car salesmen start peddling reverse equity home scams to seniors

Cast off nannies make the long trek back to Guatemala without a dime of severance pay

Mestizo vaqueros in dusty baseball caps find no more labor and shuffle back towards home

Merged and downsized bankers cynically scheme to make it as credit counselors

Environmental activists try to get on with coal companies as public spokesmen

Moving firms reinvent themselves emptying abandoned, foreclosed McMansions

300 pencil-necked ex-loan originators apply for a single firefighting position

100000 returning war vets are laid off just as soon as permitted by federal law

Cute former cosmetic sales girls learn to turn a few tricks for rent and food

Stock brokers feverishly search the internet for another golden egg of greed

Soccer moms are forced to morph into gas clerks in oversized checkered shirts

Off-shored Customer Support personnel enjoy painting houses and mowing lawns

But, at last, those bottom-feeding military and priesthood recruiters gin up a few new bodies

The Baby Boomer Legacy

Prodigiously wasted precious, non-renewable energy without the slightest consideration

Cloned endless farmland, coastline and forest into identical suburbs and cheap strip malls

Sent engineering jobs to Japan, production to China and customer support to India

Passed laws to protect the environment but cut backroom deals so as not to fund them

Unquestioningly threw away more money on defense than all other developed countries combined

Sent mom and dad off to the mercy of low-wage, franchised, contract, foreign attendants

Never saved a nickel but demanded free health insurance and a fat retirement pension

Expected safe food even as I flooded my own lawn with pesticides and fertilizers

Smirkingly spun and marginalized as wackos those who dared to question our agenda

Stepped safely away from the mortgage on that thrice Re-Fied, shoddily-built McMansion

Shook my head in disbelief at the environmental mess the Chinese made producing our cheap goods

Gave my kids every opportunity to become obese and diabetic - Even younger than I did

Sustained multi-generational poverty by simply managing to always look the other way

Unconsciously belched out tons of climate-warming CO2 on countless, very pointless little trips

Turned sleepy backwaters into artificially-overpriced, family adventure resort communities

Left my inflated healthcare bills in the laps of my spoiled and ignorant children

Burnt up all the easy-to-grab fossil fuels and left the roads and bridges in ruins

Stayed utterly silent and permitted human population to increase to the crashing point

Institutionalized snowmobiles, jetskis, ATVs and 50’ RVs as valid forms of wreckreation

Deftly ignored the holocaust from which our meat emerged, so safe and very shrink-wrapped

Stored billions of tons of recyclables under toxic landfill goo - to be mined by those yet to come

Wasted irreplaceable fossil aquifer water growing indigestible grain to tenderize our meat

Disinterestedly stood by as big energy devastated anywhere it pleased, in the name of cheap energy

Convinced our clueless kids that they were special and that they would surely rule the world

Brought god into the government but vowed to keep its nose out of our commerce

Replaced climax old-growth forests with a corporately-managed, monoculture investments

Re-introduced the wolf but extinguished the songbirds, reptiles, fish and amphibians

Flushed a giant dead zone down the chanellized Mississippi into our once-fruitful Gulf

Sacrificed my ideals to media hypnosis after each long day of pointless toil, under nitwits

Schemed to preserve the beings we wiped out in the wild in sterile zoos and laboratories

Replaced home cooking with fast-food, take out and frozen microwave dinners

Drove up the price of each toney new seafood item until it was harvested into extinction

Used credit cards as an income source and then squalled loudly for relief from the unfairness

Alienated the entire world and caused the teeming global poor to attack us everywhere

Always stopped to smell the roses and lived for today and wished our kids good luck

Rode on, convinced that my insular, fundamentalist, creationist faith would protect me, forevermore

Just One More Filthy Pond

A filthy pond, exposed to the merciless sun with weeds and stickers surrounding it

Litter and household castoffs line its entire shore and fill its slimy green water

Too close to the smog-belching, constantly-roaring traffic jam called a freeway

Too easy for those criminal disposal trucks to visit late at night

A sad little pond, but well-suited to hold many empty beer cans

Sometimes a pair of dirty dish water ducks somehow still bob upon it

Too small and unimportant for us passing daily by, upon our hurried ways

Nonetheless, a good place for lost youth to go and get really blown away

Algae-filled home to a couple of mutant and air-gulping carp

Washed into by every manner of foul runoff with each and every dirty rain

Not even on our social radar given our much more pressing economic issues

As easily overlooked as the homeless misfits we gingerly step over every day

It’s care falls permanently between the cracks, just like the multi-generational poor

A lost shopping cart leans green and now only half-submerged, close onto the shore

A deformed frog with a disfiguring skin disease croaks in vain for a mate

This festering leper holding up a tiny dirty mirror to our progressive and bustling city

Not even in a bad part of town, but, nonetheless, entirely without a social safety net

Protected by a falling down fence, Poison Warnings, No Fishing and No Swimming signs

That is, not suitable for our kids or puppies, but yet, not worthwhile enough to be cared for

A filthy pond that exposes a small flaw in this whole living outside of nature campaign of ours

It Aint Gonna Happen

We aint gonna reduce no emissions cept when all the fuel’s done been burnt up

Them heroes in Detroit wont ever build no successful alternative energy cars

We’ll always treat them cows, chickens and pigs like they was mining resources

Haf-neked africans are always gonna be starving, fightin and dyin from awful diseases

Nobodys ever gonna make you sort out them greasy recycles from your useless garbage

Listen, all them charismatic mega-fauna are gonna have ta jest make way fer progress

We’ll never have the resources ta clean up the lakes and rivers, much less them oceans

But we’ll always have more money we can spend on finding new ways to kill each other better

We just caint implement no socialist solutions to these here pressing healthcare issues

Might as well get used ta climate change cause we got more important economic needs

We’ll never admit that our sheer fool numbers are at the very roota everonea our biggest problems

Look, yer kids jest don’t have a brighter future than your senile damn grampaw did

You aint gonna start savin and you’ll always have to work – but look - there wont be no jobs fer ya

The salmon ain’t comin back and the grizzlies don’t got no place among us

They ain’t no heaven and jesus word aint worth even one of the wars that it’s caused

You aint cuttin down on eatin and yer blood pressure and sugar will stay way too high

All them phony sports aint gonna help when yer lying there covered with tubes and bedsores

Yer pointy little breast implants will look real stupid when yer 80 and all like shriveled up

Those lame tattoos will fade on topa age spots, ugly wrinkles and layers of fat

You’ll be snoring thru yer damn nose ring, wondering why they still cant see you’re special

You wont ever take the time, even if you could understand above their 3^rd grade level spin

They aint gonna re-open that free ATM you thought your house would always be

You wont ever pay off the negative savings you got stored up on your damn credit cards

They ain’t no better jobs coming to replace them onesa yers they sent off ta china

Actually, your kids don’t have exceptional potential and they caint be bothered to work hard either

It ain’t gonna make any more sense when you’re being nursed by low waged immigrants

Yer so-called personal savior is just another nutritionally-empty but high-calorie concoction

Actually, ya see, they won’t have found a cure for that yet, when you do finally get it

Obese pickups and giant SUVs aren’t goin away any more than you are, fat boy, LOL

Never gonna stop their sacred public access on snowmobiles, ATVs and fatass jet skis

Aint no way we’ll save one tree if it costs us any jobs, money or cunvenience

They wont start exercising and eating sensibly, why thats fer frickin bird watchers

You fekin liberal environmental wackos ain’t never gonna ruieen this great landa the free

Jobs and cash will always win til nature slaps us down inta some dark and polluted stone age

Them bankers and financiers caint lead us out of the mess they got rich getting us into

It aint never gonna happen and you aint waltzin off fer free ta some cockamamie heaven

Feeling Good, Doing Badly

You’ll be laid off when you’re about 50 and your services won’t ever be needed again

On the other hand they’ve pushed back your full retirement age until at least the age of 70

We’ve developed nearly magical cures for all the illnesses that will soon plague you

Unfortunately, they’ll be far beyond all your government benefits and meager savings put together

You’re grounded by the wondrous set of private dialogs you’ve shared with your personal savior

But you pack with 3000 other prairie dogs in a Wal*Mart style mega-church to worship him

She walks dogs at the Humane Society and donates to groups with cute puppy calendars

You’ll find her serving guests tender veal that can never even stand up inside their tiny pens

Under great duress they righteously accorded several species their so-called protection

Meanwhile, the seas were strip-mined of all life and filled with microscopic plastic

I reflect upon my efforts at recycling with a certain greenish sense of satisfaction

My used paper heads off to China to be used to package all the imports we don’t make here anymore

We provided temporary jobs for honest loggers harvesting the last of those valuable big trees

But now there’s no more logs to ship and tourists don’t visit to gawk at trees and spend their money

You borrowed millions and started carving a remote area into a toney second home resort

Your little friends pulled the plug on your leveraged scheme, so you just walked away

I am searching for the miraculous and straining with every fiber for cosmic understanding

I’ve got juicy soft porn sites bookmarked that I visit with a monk-like regularity

They demanded our personal responsibility regarding health care as well as pensions

On the other hand they were bailed out by crooked cronies with no strings attached at all

We could step in and lower your interest rate and we could even guarantee your loan

But with your no-down and equity re-financing you’re still way too far underwater for you to bother

Things are looking so much better for us now than earlier in this bloody financial quagmire

Yet, no one will ever be held responsible for the crimes and sins that got us there to start with

You rage against the fact that you only earn 80% of your male colleagues takings

But they’re working 10% overtime & holding the door as you leave early again, for your lame kids

At last you’re free to enjoy all the wondrous things that you’ve always dreamed of

Your eyes are bad, your back is sore, your wind is gone and you never hatched a nestegg

Smart consumers have at last stopped credit spending and some have even begun to try and save

Alas, such wise household spending attitudes cause stocks to fall and even more jobs to disappear

Honest citizens have been freed from oppressively high fuel prices once again

Just in time to fuel another surge in purchases of gas-guzzling SUVs & obese, road-hogging pickups

The car dealers, real estate agents, cruise lines, and hip restauranteurs were mired in recession

And they say consumer spending always solves our economic crises and certainly never causes them

The vacuous, self-serving geniuses of Wall Street are getting flak over giant bonuses again this year

On the other hand they’re not going to jail cause they’ve convinced us we still can’t do without them

I'm Special

I’m quite gifted and my parents knew all about that well before I was even born

I have special needs which I am permitted to express with a loud and grating clarity

I require unique treatment simply since my obvious potential is so very great

I’m exceptional as you should quickly note, so I will need extraordinary latitude

I just won’t apply myself if I am not motivated but I could be a great success

I have skills and talents that their boring normal tests simply cannot measure

I need not exert myself or finish any task just to demonstrate to you my wondrous gifts

I call on others to politely recognize what my parents have always seen in me

I don’t have to prove myself because my great potential has already set me apart

I’m quite special you see and my mommy and my daddy have always told me so

I demand what I think is the best and cannot be concerned with any mess that I might make

I quickly and scornfully ignore those fools who do not honor my wondrous gifts

I swill down expensive meals and walk off without a care for their cost or their cleanup

I abandon my dirty clothes where I drop them and my bed as I leave it, late in the afternoon

I need not concern myself with housework, homework, jobs or money

I’m so very special that their lame rules and regulations simply do not apply to me

I’m a video game wizard who keeps on skillfully playing for hours and hours upon end

But I’ve got a touch of ADD when it comes to stupid wasted shit such as school work

I find it suits me well to play loud music until 3 AM and then to sleep at least til noon

Mom says I have this fine aesthetic sense and such great potential as an artist

I trash the expensive clothes I didn’t have to pay for and wear them beyond filthy

I know adults can’t understand me because I’m very special and so unlike them

I broke my arm in some forgotten extreme sport where I might have been a pro

I smashed my car and lost their credit card but they know I had a lot on my gifted mind

I don’t know what’s up with their computer all I did was click on a link or two

I’m a texting wizard and I loaded my 3 guitar chords up onto the Web

I can’t take the time to think about the future cause I’m busy creating it today

Spent hundreds on tattoos and piercings and I have really set myself apart

I eat when I’m hungry and then, without the slightest thought, I simply walk away

I kiss my mom when she cries about me on my way out the door, late at night

Pizza delivery was beneath me and the construction guys just laughed

Went to college a couple semesters, partied hard and just skipped those boring classes

I usually take my meds after I stay up all night and wake up all like really groggy

I always seem to leave food bags laying on the floor with a little stale shit left inside

My bright hair dyes and clippings remain in the bathroom but they don’t bother me

I’m special and all I really need to do is to enjoy the good life until the world takes notice

Happiness Was

Enjoying all the good times spent driving too far back home after working way too late once again

Financing all manner of gadgets, gaudy renovations and re-decorating with unearned home equity

Sitting mesmerized year after year before the empty spectacle of the corporate sports altar

Awaking over and over again in the dark night to relive some imagined office slight

Looking forward so long to all those wondrous vacations we can’t even remember now

Being freed from our grandfather’s thrifty guilt by modern finance go-go negative savings rates

Scarfing down donuts to quell that anxiety which gnawed just as if it were real hunger

Steadily increasing our disposable income thru the miracle of multiple maxed out credit cards

Gunning a loudly-modified diesel exhaust while passing an old Japanese economy car

Dreaming, just like your little friends, that things would never really change that much

Leaving the kids to cellophane-wrapped snacks and their latest video games

Getting paid for doing nothing and saving big on Chinese slave labor down at the Wal*Mart

Tossing out any and all kinds of chemical rubbish and never even thinking of it again

Swallowing whole their expensive lies about the terrible enemies surrounding us

Laughing hard with everybody else about the need for even moderate exercise

Gleefully marginalizing the wackos and scientists, the squishy liberals and those silly tree huggers

Smirking at the weaklings as they scrimped and saved, recycled and economized

Blowing off boring nutrition and eating for the salty or sweet taste of fiber-free, fatty fast foods

Resting quite assured that god watches over and blesses only us, every single day

Visiting our drugged elders in the warehouse whose glossy brochures met all of their senior needs

Driving enraged and alone in a junk Detroit barge built to carry 8 fully-grown & obese adults

Sucking down expensive, high-calorie lattes like clockwork, every day at 10

Labeling recycling as an unnecessary and dubious virtue, simply of no real consequence

Projecting arrogance and pride through our loudly exceptionist and totally ethnocentric ignorance

Coddling our precious children, each quite exceptional & prize-winning in its own very special way

Demanding at every political foto-op that god should bless this land and our traditional excesses

Extinguishing exotic animals for firewood, marginal crops and other short-term, so-called progress

Condemning religious fanatics after prayerful talks with our own personal saviors

Treating our livestock like raw materials and manufacturing our food crops like factory goods

Acting as if consumer spending could actually be the driving force behind any sustainable economy

Expecting to continue this orgy of mindless consumption somewhere off in our fairytale heaven

Flattening forests and turning rivers into sewage pipes and our lakes into cesspools

Condemning all environmental and safety measures as too costly in terms of jobs and money

Cynically labeling research as junk science and fuzzy math and stalling for more study

Mocking their foolish efforts at saving tiny mice, foolish desert fish, stupid frogs and such

Plunging blindly on with the righteous moral authority granted to us by our one true savior