There’s no way around it, I’m a progressive liberal hippie. I drive a Subaru. I meditate on being. I’m a free-range, gluten-free, fat bike commuter. I follow my heart, look for the good in people, and reach out to those I disagree with in order to nurture mutual understanding and build common ground. On most days I join the New Age rank and file, diligently reflecting on love and justice. But today – I’m so effing angry I could spit deck screws into my hippie meditation pillow like a g*ddamn pin cushion.
How is it that the establishment elite has been allowed to dumb down an entire nation to the very edge of consciousness? It’s a reasonable question; so I beg you, get off your ass and look around. The answer has been surreptitiously stitched into the fabric of our nation. I say, ENOUGH!
It’s time for us TO WAKE. THE F#CK. UP.
Subjugated by a narrative that keeps us in conflict, suppresses free thought, and mandates a legal system that enforces a self-serving agenda, we’ve become the sugar-addicted, distraction-obsessed zombies they set out to engineer. In spite of the growing evidence swirling all around us, their propaganda has stayed the same: “We’re the greatest nation on Earth, so go ahead and get comfortable. Here’s a bowl of sugar, a sports team, a pop star, some plastic shit made in China, and an assault rifle. We’ll take it from here. Trust us.”
Congratulations, America. We’re Wal-Mart. Collectively, we prioritize mind-numbing entertainment over a contemporary education system commitied to creative problem-solving. We uppress health and wellness in order to profit from disease. At unspeakable expense and under the guise of liberty and justice for all, we send the young men and women of our armed forces to execute the profit-seeking orders of the military industrial complex. We peddle poverty and then profit from privatized prisons at the highest rate of any industrialized nation on Earth. We gorge ourselves on processed empty calories, cooked up by the world’s largest poison company. We’ve made sustainable organic farming a novelty for a fringe population committed to feeding our children real food. We sacrifice our individual freedom for jobs we hate, in exchange for money we use to buy stuff we don’t need. By rejecting science, destroying innovations in sustainable energy, and maintaining policies that promote the exploitation of fossil fuels and nonrenewable resources, we’ve nearly made planet Earth uninhabitable for humans. WTF!
By keeping us sick, poor, and distracted by frivolous horseshit – a small handful of deceitful con artists have been manipulating our demise. And, my friends — word’s out. We are spiraling into oblivion. Here’s the worst part: we know.
Has America lost its f#cking mind? Tuning into the evening lies on CNN, it’s increasingly easy to think so. This election cycle is the culmination of our time. Look around. Take a deep breath and familiarize yourself with the odorous stench of complacency. When a misinformed nation of shop obsessed consumers becomes disengaged, apathetic, and treacherously betrayed into believing we’re “number one,” we end up with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton – the best our country’s leadership has to offer.
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Don’t look at me, I wanted Bernie Sanders. I wanted Jon Stewart!
The revolutionary in me believes there is hope for a better future; my personal life and professional practice reflect those ideals. But the conspiracy theorist in me suspects otherwise. I don’t talk much about it because those who challenge the mainstream narrative are labeled ridiculous – and worse. There’s no need to digress into far-fetched supposition about extra-terrestrials, secret societies, and New World order. Largely, those things don’t matter anyway.
What matters is the sudden realization that we can side-step the insanity of those pulling the strings. We can choose to unplug from the propaganda and begin to think critically about what matters most: who we love, what we do, how, and why we live. We can pull back the curtain, open our eyes, and see that we have been manipulated into believing a systemic fiction designed to control how and what we think. That system is built on a pervasive lie: Your happiness is on the other side of your next purchase. It’s time for us to wake up, become more mindful of what we think and question the motives of those perpetuating the lies. Individually, we must need less, shop mindfully, consume responsibly, promote free thought, and encourage a more cooperative approach to our sustainable survival on this planet. Connect the dots; this is the ClutterFree Revolution!
I found it difficult to write this and reached out to friends for perspective. Some said, find the humor in the absurdity and focus my thesis on the ironies of our nation. Others said, write it more reflective of the anger you feel as the father of a six-year-old daughter, distraught by the ignorance, blatant racism, and grotesque misogyny characteristic of pop culture. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The good in the world comes from individuals and families committed to integrity, decency, generosity, and making a contribution to the greater good. So, I say the answer is in what we choose to do at home, in our own communities. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” –Margaret Mead