The Empire 43

Temidden van alle hysterische gekte, de politieke propaganda, de vernietigende kracht van de neoliberale economie, het gezwets van de commerciele massamedia klinken er toch weer heldere stemmen met een geheel ander verhaal. Die dringen niet door in de gangbare officiele politieke en journalistieke kringen, maar toch, ze zijn er.

Phil Rockstroh, a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: philangie2000@yahoo.com .

In Information Clearing House schrijft hij:

'It's Always Darkest, Right Before ... It Goes Completely Black.


One's actions grow out of one's beliefs. Beliefs grow out of the ecosystem of our collective lives known as culture. In this way, cultures are
organic: they germinate, sprout, grow, bloom, bear fruit, then fade in accordance with the climes and terrain of the times.

America now grows: paranoid delusions and wishful thinking. These are our national plant and staple crop, respectively.

A strange genus of the former has overgrown the land. It began as a small hybrid, a member of the Bush family, growing mostly in southern and western states. Some theories hold that its origins were in Connecticut; although, when it was transplanted to Texas, it spread, unchecked, due to the fact that there are few herbivores in the region to limit its pernicious growth. There, in the dry Texas soil, it grew dense and thorny, and thrived when watered with blood and oil.

Left unpruned and unregulated, it grew thicker than an ancient oak, larger than a redwood: It became a Paranoia Sequoia, growing ever larger in the hot greenhouse gases of global climate change; its massive branches spread across the world, casting a shadow of fear and revulsion beneath it.

And it has bore strange and terrible fruit, indeed - as well as proliferate assorted nuts.

Unfortunately, its oily wood limits its use as timber that might be used to built anything constructive: Its wood is mostly suitable for crucifixes and coffins ... Yet, due to its aforementioned oily base, it can be used to build a bonfire large enough to set the world ablaze.

At present, the people of the United States are lost in a dark woods overgrown by these sun-occluding trees. Some among us have taken to ingesting hallucinogenic mushrooms (the aforementioned staple crop) sprouting from the forest floor. Upon ingestion, they tell of having strange visions involving a covey of Democratic dwarfs who will fell the dark forest with their K Street provided axes.

In addition, borne of our desperation, many of us dream, two years hence, Prince Biden the Bland or St. Hillary, mounted upon her triangulating donkey of war, will come to our rescue and lead us from this dark and terrible place.

Such foolishness is understandable within the context of American culture: Our decaying empire has become an over-the-counter culture for legally medicated Lotus Eaters. Yet the effects of the meds are palliative. Prozac poops-out. Rush Limbaugh's Oxycontin certainties transmogrify into detox deliriums. The Republican Woodstock of the so-called "Clash of Civilizations" becomes the Altamont of Guantanamo.'

Lees verder: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15480.htm