Quotes of the Week/We're Screwed

Two quotes I've appreciated this week (one spoken, one written, respectively):

"The masses will be drinking Coca-Cola up until the day we're all living in tents."

"Who wouldn't want to wear dress shirts, watch television, and work in an office?"

The latter was a sarcastic (REALLY!) comment mocking the power structures that keep the "middle" class in dazed, thankless servitude when they attempt to perpetuate this way of life on other civilizations, or something worse. Specifically, the author was talking about Haiti's history and the US's oppressive involvement in it. It is from an otherwise unsavory article on eXiled online. There are some little nuggets there sometimes, though.

Take for instance their article on California's water problem, which will soon transfer into a problem for all of us. I've kept putting the monstrous issue of the privatization of water in the back of my mind because it spells disaster once robber barons not only control our government, but the water we need as well. I recently found out how close it has personally come, too; a friend's monied grandfather has been offered an "investment opportunity" in Branson, Missouri's rural water system. Basically, private companies are making up paper money based on water that *might be* there in the future, and are selling it back to the citizens they stole it from. Will people finally march on the DC corporatists with torches and pitchforks once we no longer have access to water? As my first quote indicated, it's not likely. We are a broken people.

And that brings me right back to that sense of stifling dread I've been feeling that's been echoed elsewhere on blogs I regularly peruse. Everything sucks. We're fucking over poor brown people the world over, again, and it's certainly clear that this isn't a democracy. I'm sure I could hyperlink myriads of posts and articles that have fueled my demoralized anxiety, but I don't even want to bother. Every where I look, shit sucks. We're screwed. All of the headlines combine and form one amorphous reel of shit that plays in my head over and over again until I lose any ability to articulate the whole mess piece by piece. And now, why bother.

My options are to actually do something or sit and chainsmoke and despair or to keep myself occupied with cooking, reading, tending to my plants, writing, etc. And taking my meds to remain pliable and manageable. Hell, I opted to go to a chamber of commerce dinner tonight just to occupy myself. Get my mind off shit. This was not meant to be a "woe is me" article, but it kinda turned out that way, huh? I just wish I was bionic and had the capital to help make the changes necessary before everything implodes.