By Rip Rense
It's lurking. It's salivating. It's breathless, waiting in the pandemic quiet. And at first opportunity, it will step out, roaring, spitting fire, devouring free will yet again as it commands you, you, you, and you to consume, consume, consume. All in the name of "returning to normal."
Well, I hate normal. I hate what normal has become in this society: addiction to low-common denominator "popular" culture, from empty-headed wailing pop "icons" to corporate sports to the smarmy Kardashian beasts. Greed, gluttony, self-adoration, arrogance, rudeness, willful ignorance, idolatry, acrimony, lack of empathy, compulsive consumerism . .are "normal."
Yes, the corporate Grendel is waiting, snarling and slavering, and it is coming for your head again. Chomp. Trump has the green flag in hand, as thousands continue suffocating with crystallized lungs. TeeVee will rise up as never before, commanding you to buy that new Mercedes SUV and iPhone enema app in the name of "returning to normal." Will you do it? Or will the ongoing lockdown and deprivation of beloved stimuli prompt the birth of something approximating empathy? A saner perspective? Will it (cue pious celeb versions of "Imagine") rearrange our priorities? Make us kinder, gentler?
Oh, yes, and Trump will acquire humility.
As far as I'm concerned, this "shelter-in-place" thing can go on for the rest of the year. Or longer. Gimme Shelter! I love seeing fabulously spoiled Amerryguns deprived of their fave entertainments, addictions, with their corporate masters in blind panic. It's the pleasant dream in this nightmare. Cynical? No. Moral.
Further consider American normality: racism, greed, amorality, greed, hatred, xenophobia, narcissism, greed, truculence, tattoos, Jennifer Lopez's gyrating ass, greed, NRA ensuring more mass-shootings, $100 admission to Disneyland, $250-$300 for a family of four to watch multi-millionaires play baseball at Dodger Stadium, $80-bags of groceries, Grammarly, BMW's built to roar like flathead hot-rods, greed, I was like, millions of polluting leaf-blowers, foodies, greed, Entertainment Tonight, The Bachelor, Flip or Flop, giddy newsmannequins, vocal fry, "influencers," homeless tent cities full of TB and MRSA, greed, gluttony, obesity, apathy, entropy, and pee in the streets. And greed.
Re-start the economy? I would rather see fabulously spoiled millennial tekkie princelings standing ragged in soup and bread lines. I would roll on the floor in ecstasy to watch Giant Beardboy designers of "apps" and "start-ups" pitch pup tents outside trendy Venice buildings where they once made millions. I would tap-dance naked in the street to see developers and investors who have raped L.A. with thousands of hideous cool/awesome apartment/
What of the poor? Well, they were already poor. And now they would have more company.
Der Trumpfuhrer is currently crying that he has to make the "most difficult decision of his life," regarding "re-starting the economy." Bullshit. He makes decisions the way people involuntarily belch. He is losing allegedly billions of his personal fortune, and is in deep re-election sh*t, and that's the bug up his giant white ass (his defining feature.) Pardon my French.
Difficult decision? It's the easiest decision imaginable: health over money. Verrry simple. Health over money. Chant it with me, now, health over money, health over money. How can there be any argument? Answer: the economy is predicated on hypertrophic luxury and titanic, flatulent avarice, and in recent decades has become a vulgar, stinking send-up of capitalismwhat with sterile, ticky-tack cement hives renting tiny units from $2500 to $5000 and higherand the crummiest old 800-square-foot 1940's houses in Reseda and Compton going for nearly a million bucks. I mean, I give you: ten-story cruise ships. Shitbuckets from hell.
The economy is insane, tongue lolling and eyes rolling, and long has been only a stooge for "venture capitalists" and "private equity groups" (legalized criminals) to exploit for supernatural gain. Why should they care about: crazy-making density, more air and noise pollution, destruction of green space (and attendant birdies, squirrels, insects who enjoy it), housing prices driven to levels affordable only to tekkie royalty? It's un-Trumpamerican!"
For the rest of this article contributed to ThisCantBeHappening! by Los Angeles writer and journalist Rip Rense, please go to: https://
(Article changed on April 17, 2020 at 21:45)
