(END)
Anathema
No matter how much we amass
we go immediately in hot pursuit
not of happiness, but
... more ...
which we believe is happiness,
running
just to stand still,
balanced on the knife edge
of failure/success,
financial security,
fame and power,
the "hedonic treadmill"
of the American Dream System,
capitalism
is based on the promise,
not the delivery.
If we were to achieve
we would no longer need
to play the game.
Do the math.
Since the 1950s, Americans
have twice as many cars
houses twice as large
eat out three times more
their divorces doubled
suicides tripled
violent crimes quadrupled
a million a year drop out of high school
diabetes, obesity and depression
are epidemic while we are free
to pursue our whims and while
we are inundated with stuff
most Americans feel
they don't have enough.
And since this makes them feel
things are scarce, wall themselves
off, especially
from the have-nots.
As materialism and misery
have multiplied, happiness
has plummeted. We spend
our lives making and selling
things including ourselves,
pulling away from "we"
because there's no short term gain,
like lab rats pushing a lever
for another hit of cocaine
to acquire things we do not need
and neglecting those we do.
Happiness is the absence
of striving
for it.
Happy
people have their minds fixed, not
on the pursuit of happiness,
but a pursuit followed not as a means
to an end, but an end
in itself.
Happiness is a byproduct.
By not seeking, we find it.
It is a road,
not
a destination.
The American Dream promises
that regardless of circumstances
of birth and within the law,
anyone can pursue his version
of happiness which has been reduced
to the pursuit of money.
Three of four college students hijacked
by capitalism, insist it's "essential"
to become "very well off financially."
To feel fully alive you must find
and follow that "little voice"
which says
"This is who I really am."
Capitalism's fetish for individualism
is actually a fixation on alienation.
From the first moment we're plopped
in front of corporate-sponsored
children's TV now available 24/7
with a booster shot when we enter school,
our square pegs are carved down
to fit capitalism's round,
cookie cutter holes, caricatures
of actual individuals encouraged
to develop our marketability
rather than our individuality,
sell our "selves" for a corporate identity
uniform in its conformity
supported by a multiplicity of meaningless choices
marketed as a means to individuality
as we each sit home alone
with our TVs -
capitalism's perfect couple
an alienated individual,
divided and conquered, alone
with the most perfect delivery system
for propaganda's hollow promises
ever invented.
Authentic individualism
skepticism
making one's own decisions
- happiness -
is anathema
to
capitalism.
Sculptor Henry Moore to poet Donald Hall - "The secret
of life is to have something you devote your entire life to,
something you bring everything to, every minute of the day
for your whole life. And the most important thing is -
it must be something you cannot possibly do.
(END)
The Frog and the Scorpion
A frog and a scorpion met on a stream bank. The scorpion asked the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asked, "How do I know you won't sting me?" "Because if I do, I'll drown, too" answered the scorpion. So they set out across the stream. Halfway across, the scorpion stung the frog. As the frog started to sink, he knew they'd both die. With his last breath, he gasped to the scorpion, "Why?!" "It is my nature. And you knew I was a scorpion."
Americans do not want the facts.
They do not want to hear how many countries
we've invaded for power and money
nor the number of proxy wars
financed in our name for the same.
Americans do not want to talk
about slavery, the Native Americans
or our rape of "Third World" nations
for necessities like bananas or coltan for cell phones
via the IMF, the World Bank and "free" trade.
Americans do not want to see
that compliant puppet governments
and dictators are America's best friend,
that anywhere real democracy rears its unwelcome head
it's put down by demonizing it and its leaders and/or killing them.
(See Mossadegh, Hamas, Allende and Hugo Chavez .)
Americans do not want to admit
that terrorism is not caused by hatred
or envy of our "freedoms", but by our invasions,
torture, exploitation and slaughter,
or that the US sends three billion taxpayer dollars
to Israel yearly to test white phosphorus,
J-DAMS, DIMES and GBU-39s
on the captive population of Gaza.
Americans will not even TRY
to understand that depressions and recessions,
repetitive bubbles and Wall Street's speculative gambling
are planned in advance by the shameless fat cats
of the plutocracy and the "Federal" banksters.
Americans will not entertain the idea
that American business uses human shields it calls "illegals"
to stave of the threat of paying a living wage
and if they ask for one the boss just calls la migra.
Americans do not want to know
that Main Street was murdered by Wal-Mart and Wall Street,
or that prisons are plantations where the process of manufacturing
is just business carried on by other means.
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