January 13, 2011

After the Fall

(These lyrics put to song here) 

 Why do the bells toll, daddy?

For humanity, for the triumph of democracy. The Cold War is finally over. Now we can all be free…

Free…
To buy anything we want, and to feel inadequate when we can’t even afford to buy the things we need.

Free…
to compromise our human dignity just so that we can get a miserable minimum wage job at a dehumanizing fast food labor camp;

Free…
to lose good union jobs as greedy corporations outsource to the global South where they can pollute the environment and exploit workers easier than ever.

But daddy, aren’t we free, I feel free…

Free…
to be searched without a warrant, arrested on suspicion, judged and punished on the spot by psycho robocops with a vengeance.

Free…
to not be able to afford a decent place to live thanks to crafty real estate speculators who take over our inner city neighborhoods so they can build luxury condominiums for upper mobile yuppie hordes.

Free…
to be controlled by a media answering to corporate interests.

But daddy I am free, we are all now free…

Free…
to participate in the democratic process if you can afford to buy into it, or if you don’t get shot, co-opted or locked up while trying.

Free...
to get indoctrinated into submission at a decaying public school where you can graduate without knowing how to read or write, set free from there, of course, to attend the mediocre institution of higher learning of your choice, where you can learn any number of corporate surrogate professions that teach you how to maximize your ability to squeeze a living out of one another’s needs, pains, desires and fears…

But Daddy I AM FREE!!!

Free…
to be drowned in a sea of mindless sedating entertainment where one is constantly humiliated and degraded by crude stereotypes or made to feel inept by cocaine realities fabricated by corporate whores around a Hollywood pool party…

Free…
to self-destruct as we seek answers to a human condition which seems to no longer exist…

Free…
to grow old without dignity, scavenged upon by TV evangelists, who, for a considerable piece of your dog food budget social security check will intervene in your behalf with GOD himself in at least twenty known languages and four or five unknown ones

Free…
to join the new order or face the consequences,
Oppress, or be oppress,
Join the new order or face the consequences,
Oppress, or be oppress,
free at last,
free at last.
 free at last.
Oppress, or be oppressed.

Adrián Boutureira-Austin 1996


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