I see you...

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I see you hiding around corners, lurking behind trees and bushes.  I see you watching the children as they play their silly games in the park.  The children still young enough to think it's a beautiful world and mommy and daddy can fix everything. 

I see your handiwork in the "Hannah Montana" and other celebrities (High School Musical, Gossip Girl) who direct their careers towards elementary school girls and those other young people looking for a hero.  You lure them in young and innocent with all of the glittery room accessories, the baubles and perfumes, the complete makeover kits.  The dolls and the dress up, teaching our daughters that "slutty" is the new black!  And making sure our sons look for girls wearing the new black!

I see you as you follow newly double digit aged kids, those 10-15 year olds who are finding that not only is it not a beautiful world, but mommy and daddy can't even fix themselves, let alone everything.  I see the stain of your touch on those children, their clothes, their iPods and cell phones.  What messages are you whispering in their ears as they walk down the street to the beat of whatever music you have convinced them that they need to listen too.  I see your plan, you decide who and what is "cool" and then you get them young.  But I question who is truly working for you, the kids who everyone wants to be like, or the kids they torment into shooting the school to hell?

I see you as you struggle to maintain your control over the young twenty something kids who have started asking questions you really don't want to answer for fear they will see you as the lie you are.  You start losing control as they start developing lives, ideas and ideals of their own.  Well you lose a few.  Less that you did 20 years ago, but hopefully more than you will 5 years from now. 

That is my hope, that the generation that is coming into its own now has the wherewithal to stand up and put a stop to you, to your lies.  That they will be strong where we were weak, educated where we were ignorant, and brave where we ran off to do something else.

Because I have to have hope in something, so I'm putting it into the children I've raised with the knowledge, strength and bravery I didn't have.  That they will either rise as an example or lead others in the struggle to survive.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Oh, yes.  I see them too, scuttling around in our governments and our televisions and our school boards...They are the cockroaches of the apocalypse, and they're here to make you safe.  Popular.  Cool.

They worm their way into your children's minds with meaningless pop music...Meaningless, but not without message.  That message, of course, being "Any thinking that goes beyond teenage angst is uncool, and will result in you becoming a social pariah."

But they don't just target kids, do they?  No, they have that annoying-ass guy with the sticky voice doing the Lexus "pre-owned" commercials, who is happy to tell you that if you buy their used cars, you will have achieved the American Dream and become a blue-blood drone.

Let's face it, Khara, you ARE what you CONSUME.  That is your role.  You aren't called a "citizen" anymore, you are a "taxpayer".  That's your job...you pay taxes.  You aren't a "customer" anymore, you are a "consumer".  Your job is to consume.  It's who you are, it's what you do.

Is it any wonder that people can't be bothered with the strain of self-government, Khara?  No, everything is mapped out for them in their day-to-day lives, so where on Earth would they get the training to, you know, take control of their destiny?

And the trend does not indicate that future generations will be smarter about it.  How could they be?

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

And the true problem Roger, the monkeys have stopped evolving, they seem to be, in fact, regressing.  They are no longer capable of individual thought.  They have to "tune in" to have an opinion.  You are right, there is no individual thought anymore, because GASP it is no longer socially acceptable.

It's deceiving though isn't it?  They have slowly desensitized us over the years.  What seems to be no big deal now, at one time was a major thing.   

Buy more, eat more, get further in debt because that is the way they want you, broke, fat and owing your next paycheck.  Was it only a couple of generations ago that to borrow money was the last option to take.  Visa fixed that fear for us.  No worries, just charge it.  And that is how they catchyou, because they make it all so easy for you to drown yourself.

So the downfall of humanity,  the start of their demise, can we actually say it all began with plastic?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

So the downfall of humanity,  the start of their demise, can we actually say it all began with plastic?

Optimist. 

You see the end of humanity, I see the beginning of a drudgery that will last 1000 years.

Our descendents shall beg for death, and death will not come to them.  But their credit card bills will.  Oh, yes.

[Richter]

A "sustainable" culture has to be one of the things they fear the most, coem to think of it.
Waste and obsolescence makes way for new sales.  Mocassins you repair yourself, leather garments that last for years properly kept, these are the deadfalls that the industry will not suffer.  The stars will wear the new sneakers you all NEED NOW.  Jeans half destroyed already will be diplayed on heroin angles struttign across the stage.  Make it to fail, and they'll be back in a few months. 

(The jeans I wear were once stark indigo, and have faded past cerulean to almost white on the knees thighs and seat.  They don't make shit like they used to, only two years....)

Make waste to support your markets.  Consume carelessly to drive the pace.  If everyone paid perfectly on time do you know how high prices wold go?  Interest and fees from everyone not lucky or forward - thingking enough to avoid them are the base of the pyramid supporting everythign else.  An educated consumer, financially empowered is a BAD THING for them. 

They watch and they spin.  Old jakes and tricks are outlawed so they ge even more obtuse and strange.  100 permutations of the same sin of usery. 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I see them too, I see them scuttling through the halls here, Starbucks in tow, poking and prodding at how many of you went into one of our stores and how many of you actually paid for something after entering... Oh yes, they are, right now, looking at everything you buy from all of our different stores and brands, after all, how can they guess what they can get you to buy next, if they don't know everything about what you've already consumed? Of course, the ironic absurdity is that while they're doing that to you, a thousand other people just like them, are doing the same thing to them. Just ask Starbucks how many extra skinny lattes they ordered last week.

Ah but it is progress. It used to be that men were held in chattel slavery, but slaves that can see their chains and see the scars from the taskmasters whip... those slaves can revolt. Slaves bound by the Chains of the Free Market though don't see what binds them. Slaves beaten by the whip of Marketers don't remember the scars. Slaves that get to vote on who will beat them next, think that they are free.

It is progress, for we have a better class, a happier class, a more complacent class... of slaves.