All is Still Calm in the West

the summer solstice passed two days ago, still things remain calm.

we have not bombed Iran, the draft has not been reinstated, no domestic "terror" attacks have occurred, the dollar still floats along its merry way and the housing bubble has not been pricked.

still i have an unsettled almost sick feeling. as this state of affairs continues we drift further into the surreal realm of our postmodern entertainment phantasmagoria. which state of affairs are we referring to?

for starters lets start with the complete lack of cohesiveness to our society. the only thing that binds us all together is fear of the law and living within the national boundaries of the USA. there is no set of ideas that we all voluntarily ascribe to. lest we get bogged down in this lets move on to other observations.

we live far beyond our means, we have next to no civic life, we are accomplice to the slaughter of tens of thousands Iraqis, we are entertaining ourselves to death, we have no authentic spiritual direction

we are stars in our own personal reality tv shows, strike a pose here is your moment.

i have an idea; lets just fuck the pain away. if we try hard enough, it can happen. at least this seems to be the response of my own generation in the face of this obvious farce.

what underlies all this is the lurking suspicion that our future is bleak, that in fact we have not future.

listen up all you new parents, you better get pretty fucking angry, for your child's sake; because their future and yours has already been mortgaged away. the current generation of leaders, which is my own parents generation, the baby boomers have really fucked things up. not that the previous generation did that well either, but still, the entire illusion of wealth over the past twenty years has been based on debt. just look at the numbers yourself. there is no way in hell this will ever be paid off unless we sold the US military. say there's an idea huh? let's sell other countries weapons so they may be used against the weak. and the weak will be us in the future.

wealth is a trap. just let it go is my suggestion. simply stop repaying your debts and refuse to pay your taxes. this will grind everything to a halt. then our country will look to us: the young and the strong. listen, we are the future and we have a future only if we refuse to honor the obligations not of our choosing. otherwise we will pay for our entire lives.

if you live in California you will pay. last year the budget was balanced by issuing a bond. this bond will probably take thirty years to pay off. yes thats right. balance the state budget for 2004 and pay until 2034. of course bonds are issued with interest so we will pay off probably double the original principle. if your child is one they will be 31, if you are 30 then you will be 60, and if our dear governer Schwarzenegger is 50 then he will be 80 (probably dead). so you see? he does not give a shit.

what ever happened to good old austerity? you know the crazy concept of tightening the belt and getting through the tough times by consuming less.

ok my rant is coming to an end. all i can now say is that our society is "off the hook." unmoored from reality, detatched from what is actually going on in the world. we are not special, in fact based on our behavior it seems we are infantile.

and yes, we deserve whatever is coming our way.