Sunday, October 11, 2020

Tail Lights


Beyond the Rubicon

Now Rome is on fire

We’ve been ridin’ shotgun

Beside a getaway driver


Tried to get some education

Now they pretend I’m guilty of some crime

They keep sending those letters

To tell me I’m living on borrowed time


What did I learn besides the fact

That the system is a shell game

Odds always favor the house

And the damned pit bosses feel no shame


Go ahead and comment

Privileged spectators to the fight

Tell me to keep working ever harder

Without any end in sight


Don’t ya tell me to be patriotic

As tyranny wears no disguise

I just don’t have patience to listen

Tell it to my tail lights


I know it’s said Rome wasn’t built in a day

But in a couple decades it’s been sacked

So-called public servants tell us to 

join a press-gang and help build back


We aren’t the ones guilty of tearing it down

For the true looters sit upon high

Like spectators in the colosseum 

Jeering for gladiators to fight


Don’t tell me how to clear the speck

While you got that whole log in your eye

We know about the bunga bunga parties

Privilege buys any forbidden delight 


Don’t ya tell me to be productive

As decadence wears no disguise

I just don’t have patience to listen

So, tell it to my tail lights


Karma exacts a toll for

crossing this continent it seems

Our ancestors cast others out to 

make way for spreading their seed


It wasn’t with malice that they crossed

The powers-that-be used them as pawns

Called their plight “manifest destiny”

In order to pompously goad them on


Now a new generation feels pressured to flee

This time tetraethyl lead is the blight

Drives the aging into psychopathy

So that they cannot empathize with the plight


Don’t ask me to stick around

And rebuild what ya’ll set alight

I just don’t have patience to listen

So, tell it to my tail lights 

Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Downer Cow


Don’t be such a downer cow they say

Come join in all the reindeer games we play

Don’t you dare ask who moved your cheese

We own you and do with you as we please


We’ve got you now, so assimilate

Give up your soul and you’re sure to be great

Submit completely or blackballed you’ll be

Go ahead and leave, after all you’re free


Bribery made us you sovereign lords

Representation goes to who can best afford

So no amount of votes will get the people far

Impirio in imperium we are


Don’t be such a downer cow they say

There is more life force to squeeze out of your day

For your damages we need not pay

For isn’t it the downer cow they slay


Thursday, September 3, 2020

Hearts and Minds


You think you're doing enough

You think you're doing fine

You think you can keep on bidin' your time


There were the right things to say

But you never said them

They weren’t even written on the prompter you read


You think you did the right things

Won’t apologize

In the name of law and order you destroyed lives


The overseer’s scion

Exacting the debts

Only we debtors have promises that must be kept


Just there Bidin’ your time for 

Thirty-five years

Demagoguing pearl clutching white mice and their fears


So many locked away

For what should be no crime

Now you ain’t gonna win the hearts and minds


You want us to believe

You’ve gotten sweeter with time

But you ain’t gonna win our hearts and minds



And you, glowing orange

Don’t think you’re in the clear

You’ve lived your whole life insulated from fear


Win or lose you’ll get 

what is coming to you

Not a threat, just soothsayer delivering news


You think you’ve done great

The best there’s ever been

But self-exaltation will end in abasement again


Is it so hard to learn

Crushing dissent is disgrace

The people will teach--won’t take a punch in the face


You’ve bought votes on the range

You’ve bought votes in the lofts

But transactions alone only get you so far


At the end of the day

You think true freedom is crime

So you’ll never win our hearts and minds


The numbers aren’t with you

Among those still alive

And you’re never gonna win our hearts and minds


It's time to stand down

Occupation must end
Tanks and fatigues have no place on streets again

You try to outlaw our lives
The people punish this sin
Maybe we'll be lenient if you make great amends

Otherwise a cleansing fire
Will separate silver from dross
And fill a dark hole with tin-badged despots

Why the people rage
can't be a mystery
Fuzz ought long ago been left in the dustbin of history

Still time to surrended
And make restitution
Restored social compact may curb revolution

Social unrest always stems
From treason on high
That's why you can't win these hearts and minds

Soothsayer warns
Oh, beware the ides
You're never gonna win these hearts and minds
.

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Throwaway Empire

Nobody admires the ruins, Of a throwaway empire
They left a shitty plastic flag on the moon
The used whalebone to make nature groan
And to make all the ladies swoon


Built a facade instead of civilization
Around the worship of worldly mammon
They had just enough of the right kind of faith
To make them sacrifice the innocents


At night the rubble glows, rusty water flows
Watch out for feral tigers and the razorbacks
Relic of the frontier, I only survive out here
Guiding safaris for pseudo-brave guys named Vlad


Some folks grow things, by scratching in the earth
In the spots that aren’t too radiated
Some smelt the oxidized beams that lay around
Skim the dross and sell the remnant


That’s the homage we pay to that throwaway empire
That barely registers in our memories
Because even when it was, it was working toward
Ceasing ever to be!

--

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Cold Light of Day

I used to think I was the only one
evermore under the gun
And had to self induce mania 
just to get through each day


Now I see that others do it too
With what they smoke
or drink or pop or chew
to push the trauma out of the way


Until foolishness floods the land
So many pretty houses built on sand
And when calamity strikes
It’s so hard to understand 


It simply can not stay
The same old goddamn way
Once we’ve seen this world
Under the cold light of day


A knack for breeding in captivity
Or rather were we bred selectively
Spiritually abused and indoctrinated
In order to serve and plough under the yoke?


And so they keep the mass guilty
Reminded of their own redundancy
Until they forget the feelings
Of a wild and roaming liberty


And so on and on the cycle goes
As inevitable as the storm that blows
Away the sands on which we’ve 
built this house and this charade


It simply can not stay
The same old goddamned way
Once we’ve seen this world

Under the cold light of day

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Unforgivable

In the summer of 2003 I made a very grave mistake. The sort of mistake that society has determined to be unforgivable.

You see, I had recently injured my back, I wasn't thinking as clearly as one ought to have been before making a decision that will irreversibly alter the course of the rest of one's existence. But I wanted to be self sufficient. And I had two young children and a wife depending on me to be breadwinner. And I knew that my physical limitations meant I'd have to do something differently, going forward.

I'd seen the ads on TV promising flexible schedules, so I went to see about the opportunity in person. I listened to the slick sales pitch, how it would all be manageable financially. How I would get a degree that employers were looking for. How it was an ever-growing field, with no slow-down in sight. How this was a path to self sufficiently.

And then I made the worst mistake of my life. I signed up for the drafting program at ITT Technical Institute. And I allowed myself to be saddled with $36,000 in tuition.

Early on, I got the inkling I'd been had. It turned out that classes started an hour earlier than was promised, which was a major issue for someone who worked eight hours and got off at 2:00 AM. I seemed to have limited aptitude for the technical part of the work. AutoCAD was familiar to most of my classmates, but we hadn't had it in my High School in the mid 90's.  Despite the "flexible schedules" promise in the television ads, the classes were only offered for my course material at 7:00 AM. And the instructors kept making a point that if anyone left the program early, their loans would be due immediately.

In 2004, I got more of an inkling that I'd made a mistake when ITT corporate offices were raided by George W. Bush's Department of Education.

Despite these obstacles, I managed to muddle through, with the help of outrageous amounts of caffeine, and Graduated with a 3.42 GPA. Then I began looking for work in the industry.  The trouble was, that despite the claims that the recruiter had made, there didn't seem to be entry level positions that paid as well as what I was making as a janitor. My back had largely healed by this time, and I genuinely regretted my decision to attend.

Over a month after graduating, I finally found a position that paid a few cents more than my janitorial job. Unfortunately after going to school full time, and working full time, and being a parent part time, for over two years, I just didn't have enough left to learn this new position at the rate necessary. Add to this, that the chronic abuse of caffeine had left my attention span depleted.

It took over a year, but eventually my working errors caught up to me, and I lost that job.  I got rehired by the janitorial company I had worked for before, and tried to put myself back together.  The amount of credit card debt that my household had increased while I was attending ITT Tech, and this continued until we declared bankruptcy and my marriage fell apart in 2010.

And that's where this story gets it's title. Because whereas loans for for-profit colleges could have been forgiven under the bankruptcy code that was on the books when I entered school, by the time I had earned my degree a new law had passed.

The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 passed a few months before I graduated. It included language that made my loans unable to be forgiven, even though at the time my other debts were being discharged, I was living in poverty.

I lived in a studio apartment that I had had to clean up in lieu of paying a deposit. I ate mostly refried beans smashed between two corn tortillas and pan fried, because this cost less than $2 a day. I worked janitorial at a local university, and had to park off campus, because I couldn't afford parking fees. I still had back and other physical pain all the time. I had no credit. And I still owed over $20,000 to an entity that should have known better than to loan to a fraudulent predatory educator.

The truly unforgivable part, is that they knew that this fraud was going on when the law passed. I know that because I was attending when the ITT corporate offices were raided in 2004. It can only be surmised that they knew this was an economic bubble that would pop, unless they sacrificed a generation of people to fix the mistake.

The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 enjoyed bipartisan support too. In fact, one Joe Biden voted in favor of it, and worse: hasn't offered a plan to forgive or otherwise help out the victims of predatory educators who have been financially unable to constently make payments:

So, regardless of who else is in the running for president, I can never vote for Joe Biden. Because like the worst mistake in my life has been for me, that vote is unforgivable.


Sunday, October 13, 2019

Jubilee

Hey, it’s a national shame
A great hypocrisy
Even a peculiar institution
Updated for the modern day


Under the thumb of subjugation
These generations are just trying to be
The myth we were taught to believe in
That we had the right to be free


But it’s not that simple in practice
With stumbling block of a guilt complex
Told to do better than those before us
With this millstone around our necks


Hey, Heyyyyyyeee!


Olly Olly Oxen Free
Olly Olly Oxen Free
That’s the way that the world should be
Like the year of the Jubilee


Under the thumb of subjugation
These generations are just trying to be
The myth we were taught to believe in
That we had the right to be free


Ignorant; we were cheated
Asleep, we’ve been surprised
Divided; the yoke has been forced upon us
Heavily laden; lest we might try to rise


Too late once we became enlightened
Now awake to the fraudulence
Many factions find themselves united
Disobedient but ever vigilant


Hey, Heyyyyyyeee!


Olly Olly Oxen Free
Olly Olly Oxen Free
That’s the way that the world should be

Like the year of the Jubilee

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"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men: Therefore the people alone have an incontestible unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it." -- Constitution of Massachusettes (1780)