We defend and bow to our corporate masters, rising up to defend them even as we are poisoned and sickened.
We privilege the so called 'job creators' and 'business leaders', our wealthy elite lords, dukes, and barons - even as they hoard the vast wealth of a planet and live in cultured decadence. When they mock us and whisper, perhaps one day, we might join them. We believe. When they turn away and laugh at us, we still believe. Oh we believe.
We cover our eyes as they rape our earth, water, and sky. Hoping as they divvy up and parcel out among themselves the heritage of all our children's children - of all humankind - hoping that we can see our present sons and daughters through school, into life, with at least food to eat.
We work hard, eyes closed to dangers shining brightly, ears shut to warnings from one another, mouths shut against truths that want to be spoken. Maybe one more year, just one more month. Dreading they pack up their soulless factories to despoil some other community, some other country, leaving us alone with the spoiled and filthy leavings. Hoping we'll be permitted to serve just a little longer before they see another vista to despoil worth more than ours.
We're taught to bemoan 'big government', regulators and reformers are branded miscreants, unions and workers-rights groups are slandered as lazy, the EPA and environmentalists tarnished as anti-human.
We're taught to reject and shun those charged and striving with trying to protect our environment, our health, our children, our lives.
We are taught this and we listen. Preying upon our insecurities to breed fears and nameless horrors. Preying on our selfishness and greed to deaden our empathy and shared pride. Taught to focus on our differences we keep our communities small and timid.
As our backs give out, as our bones and muscles fail us, we look at pillaged pensions and shattered savings wondering where we didn't work hard enough, smart enough.
We wonder if our children will see success, if they will enjoy a better life than ours. We know, deep down, that the odds are not in their favor. The opportunities are growing scarce. Even as our technology helps us do more with less, even as our productivity improves as we learn to work better, faster we see that fewer and fewer reap those rewards. The gains enjoyed by fewer and fewer of our neighbors and peers.
While those who robbed millions, thieves who nearly bankrupted our nation, golf and yacht, enjoy finery and rejuvenation as they toast the might of wealth. No prison for those who gambled a nation's future and lost. No penalties for those who hungered for dark profits and left a nation holding poisoned debt and burden. No justice for those at the bottom, gutted and trampled.
While those who covered up corporate and government malfeasance: lawyers, board members, executives, politicians, and generals. Each one with blood on their hands, teeth, and souls. They sit and rewrite the rules to make legal their crimes. No justice for those at the bottom, misinformed and kept ignorant.
We wonder if our children will see success, if we'll ever retire and enjoy fruits of a lifetime of labor.
We're slaves to masters who sweet-talk us as they slip on felt-lined shackles then threaten us with poverty and homelessness if we seek to loosen our chains. Better a slave than a pariah, we believe. Oh how we believe.
We worship at the altar of wealth and sing the praises of 'free markets' as our living labor, the worth of a human being, is devalued to next to nothing. Better a slave than a pauper, we believe. Oh how we believe.
We've been taught to see money in all things, monetary worth in nature, life, love. We let them call us resources! Fungible things to be exploited, refined, used up and discarded. They've taught us to think of ourselves as cogs and fuel. They've taught us that anxiety and dread are unfortunate facets of life. They've taught us that uncertainty and loneliness are just aspects of our modern age. Better enslaved than beggared we believe. Oh how we believe.
We've been given a pantheon of celebrity and glitz. Human demi-gods and demi-goddesses among us to project our unfulfilled dreams and aspirations. Fables and stories to distract us from shallow lives we wish were deeper, hollow friendships we wish we could help fill, we become clockwork to our families and friends when we wish we could come alive, and live, with them. This is how we live, rather than as outcasts. Oh we believe!
We're given bread filled with sawdust to make us feel full. Treats filled with sugar, caffeine, and fat to keep us burning. Food filled with unholy chemicals that are cheaper than real life-giving sustenance. We're fed poison in the name of profit and taught that it will make us strong. Obese, sick, and filled with honeyed offal - fine dining! Oh we believe.
We're fed crumbs and runoff at the palace gates then told to be grateful as they dine on ever more bountiful harvests. Our princes and priests live in comfort and excess as we work longer hours, take fewer vacations, swallow personal intrusions and piss in bottles. We're taught to hate those who fall in the fields, those broken, sick, worn down. As they whip us and take the food from our children's' mouths they point to those weeping and scream "There is the one who brings this upon you! You will _all_ now work harder to get by". We believe. Better a slave than the unclean goat, sent to die for our sins. We believe!
We believe. Oh we believe. We've swallowed those lies and defend them! We've tied our identities and self-worth to these falsehoods and shams. We've sold our souls for trinkets and petty bribes and we preach their message as our own. We've taken as God: money; profit the highest worship. Never to be doubted, questioned, or defamed. Capitalism and trade our gilded idols we pour blood before in praise. Corporations, businesses our living temples we visit in humility. Inside those holy edifices we must give all without limit and beg in prayer for small grace and petty miracles to receive. Oh how we believe!
The system is rigged against you, you can't win. For every trumpeted example of 'success of the American dream' there are ten-thousand living nightmares of those who fell aside - or were trampled or cast away.
We play our social and economic lotteries and they'll hold up winners and shout "this too, could be you" while bleeding us dry.
Every penny below a living wage they do not pay you is stolen from you.
Every raise delayed or withheld while corporate profits soar is theft from each and every working human being.
Every tax dodged or exempted to the wealthy is the rapine of the system and people that allowed that success, that allowed the wealthy to live as they do, to rise.
Every dollar hidden away in offshore banks is plunder of the American people.
It could all be different. We can change our world, our reality. We can stand together as people, with dignity, courage, and trust.
Human culture belongs to all of us, to each one, to all.
Human progress belongs to all of us, to each one, to all.
Human knowledge and wisdom belongs to all of us, to each one, to all.
We all, all of humanity, deserve the better life that is possible right now! The means are before us, within reach.
We all, all humanity, deserve to share in the bounties of progress provided by the toil of human hands, human sweat. Our toil, our sweat.
To reward those who push further, work harder - we do not need to let our brothers and sisters die from preventable disease and sufferings.
To encourage participation, fair effort - we do not need to let our fellow women and men go hungry or cold.
To promote contribution, working together - we do not need to name every comfort and desire: luxury.