culture fix

1.

in my parent's lifetime, my country has become an empire.
we have, once again,
taken over where the british left off.
as the sun sets on british dominance,
americans become the enforcers of submission
in an increasingly
rebellious
and unrepentant world.
men my father's age have made it their life's work
to do 'whatever is necessary'
to keep their bosses
boss of all.
their careers comprise a web of stories
so intricate and brutal that
it's yet to be told.
and i am a child of their aspirations,
and achievements.

2.

surviving the unraveling of
life-as-you-know-it
is an art.
you may know that people
have legitimate reasons to be furious
as a result of your actions,
and still you must set about to destroy them.
most us will never begin to comprehend
what has been required
to keep things the way they are.
our system has been imploding,
and assaulted from various directions
but still lands on its feet
due – in large part -
to the heartless perseverance of a small handful of mercenaries.

3.

in the moments when our struggles
bubble up and overflow
in dozens of places throughout the world at once
(which is, luckily, virtually always)
our rulers frequently know better than us
the connections between them.
for us, connecting to struggles internationally
is a strategic advantage.
for the powerful,
it's a strategic imperative.
a few good things can be said about marxism.
one is that they encouraged generations of thinkers
to consider “international solidarity.”

4.

each generation grows up
with the propaganda of their times,
and precious little else.
if we're lucky,
the generation that came before us will,
in re-evaluating their own lives,
tear cracks in the clean uniformity of our world.