crime and consumption inside the pyramid of limited growth

Welcome to the end of 2010 AD, the hottest year on record where climate catastrophe expresses itself in ice storms, blizzards, tornadoes, droughts, massive displacement from record floods, the unleashing of the Gulf Stream, the death of our oceans and slaughter of sea life, as the manipulators of the markets trawl the planet for hidden treasure.  The wars and threats, the sly turns of phrase concealing nefarious intent, the untying of entire social fabrics into homelessness and penury, human against human, the survival of the most unfit with imitation mullahs, Jesus theme parks, the celebrated Sarah Palin gaffing with the stars ...  Next?

I had to get into town yesterday, prepare my mind, stagger my lists of our most dire needs, the idea was a quick turn around, the vision: brief inconveniences, but a zoom-thru. I was wrong. Every day is Black Friday now, every retailer anticipating the every need of the breathless consumer, too consumed in consuming to gift wrap the items being purchased. Thus, gift wrapping service is back, restructured in prototypical style for today's overworked workers - such as men's plaid pajama pants prewrapped for your convenience in a matching plaid flannel, gold-corded drawstring bag. "Just throw it under the tree".  Many people will.  (Then why bother to wrap anything at all?) I looked at them briefly, in sideways glances appearing to look beyond them, wondering what their lives must be like.  I wondered now that unemployment benefits are on hiatus again, WHAT were they thinking standing between the cashier and the card reader, ashen-faced, waiting for approval.  Approval.  And believe you me, this place was not Neiman's.  No, this prefab aluminum freestanding HVAC'd energy whale was only one of millions dotting the face of our tortured planet providing an all under one roof multi-aisled mall.  You may call them by their brand names, but they bear little separation from their engineering department's prototype illustrated in the engineering manual belonging to the mother ship.  That is why they all look alike and feel alike.  The little guys just can't get on board unless they are too absorbable to fail, meaning they statistically clocked-in with a profitable niche and bear AAA rated potential for mass consumption suitable for whichever targeted age and income demographic is most available for pocket picking.  Enter the Marketeers. This too is all in the manual as a No Child Left Behind sort of thing.

Everything out there has its place in someones shopping cart, maybe not ours, but someone who doesn't know when enough is enough.  Oh, I'm sure they mean well, but they have no, not even a basic low-level unacknowledged passing concern, self-awareness or grasp of free will to hold themselves back from dubious decisions.  You could surmise they've operated on auto-pilot throughout eternity. Such is the round scripted lifestyle of which the human being is but a square peg on which minute-by-minute the chisels work to make us fit the prototype.  The model. I passed children's dresses trying to find an exit and overheard the clerk tell a customer, "I'm taking this off the model because I have to have it, but come back later, we're restocking tonight."  Actually, I was amazed I heard anything above the roar of gnashing consumption.  It has a sound of its own like a sports stadium filled with puking migraine sufferers and crying babies.


Since it is impossible to shape us any more than we already shape ourselves, it chafes - some a great deal more than others (those in particular who go along to get along, the incurious) as we see in the almost daily, once  infrequent, bizarre crimes against other people they inflict as if their actions are fully justified by helpless lapses into sheer irrationality.  I hate to say this, but these home grown crimes are becoming commonly more gruesome as they unfold.  Fact: Too many rats in a cage will fight to the death.  We now expect stealth plotting, preplanned multiples of misleading illogical excuses, gang rape, death and dismemberment as another extension of WWT (worldwide terror).


For this many people populating our dying planet squeezed under unbearable restrictions growing stricter, like a house where the windowless rooms grow smaller, tighter, in every dimension, the unbalanced, the beaten-down, the confused, well, somethings gotta blow and many are blowing now.  In the Culture of Extinction (Charles' title), the tight lids "always-misfits" hide under are coming unglued.  They seem to arrive from diseased (dis-eased) roots, early on find solace in imitation, but poisoned by BGH and weed killer, never fitting into any mold whatsoever.  They grew misanthropic over time except for what survival for themselves could be appropriated through innocent others, whether in a volcanic release of roiling under the surface pent-up energies or a pure expression of hatred of humanity manifesting through acting-out a perceived satanic part in the great comedy.  Couple this stark void of self-awareness and lack of free will with all else happening environmentally and politically throughout the globe, sprinkle on stubborn chemtrails, the unpunished crimes of political criminals, increasing indebtedness and a representative-self dictating survival by any means within immediate reach and you get deformed, crippled behaviors that by their very grossness, further infect and upend everything surrounding them never to return to anything resembling even remote stability. Prison and programs are mere placeholders because the thing unrecognized is the healing required to eliminate these crimes against the innocent comes only from within.  As long as everyone going along to get along appears to survive in the Culture of Extinction, the example from on high set in stone and widely approved, the crippled mannequin, the failed prototype, still imitating, sees himself as deserving his role in that culture.   Giving vent to his rage is just a small part of an evolving malevolent philosophy likely glimpsed during the formative years with self-inflicted unhealthy and repetitive doses of pcp tranched with speed.

Ambient abuse turned to domestic violence is always wildly exacerbated by money issues.  Its like cremating a simmering pot. The slightest and most unexpected thing sets them off.  Thus, sitting directly under our noses we have a huge violent domestic crisis drowned out by apples and androids and yet, why this is so is rarely questioned. Every cultural trigger still exists.  The safety remains on off.


Somehow, in the immediate aftermath of 911, I came across a plastic flag pin and wore it.  I participated in the lights on all night solidarity of the masses.   I stayed online, seeking information while the TV alternated between hurricane warnings and Bushisms.  This went on for about two days, soundtracked by hammers slamming up storm shutters until hurricane pundits were all that was on 24 hours straight, drowning out the bullhorns and crazy pilots.  And then the power went out.  The winds howled, the foundations shook, the trees were breaking, sheets of rain beat its way into every crevice, the animals racing around the interior, horrified.  It came to me our present was all that mattered and would always be all that matters.  Everything else is extraneous manufactured prototypical stuffing except for the fundamental basics, our loved ones peace of mind which means of course, we have to be there for them in whatever way is possible.  This is why, especially in these harsh times, we dutifully get up every day and square off with dragons so that our loved ones will not have the same struggle.


We know just by observing the direction daily drastic events are heading, things are going to get worse.  Again, adjusting your program in support of your loved ones is priority.  Some of us do it naturally as we've always done and some of us will need to force the effort.  If you should find yourself feeling like rusty brillo, short and abrasive, swallow your pride.  A great love of my life, a brilliant orphaned, highschool dropout with a remarkable sensitivity to the complex nuances of jazz once said "Revolution begins at home..."  I would only add that revolution first begins with self-awareness.

I am thoroughly depleted by the bickering, contradictory Sopranos and their spiteful, worshiping errand boys so we won't even go there this week.  There are other more helpful and compassionate places to be.