187 Minutes...

 

Image source: Chicago-Sun Times

© November 1, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

187 is the California penal code for murder.

It’s ironic,

As a fascist, he’s not intelligent, but he can count.

 

187 minutes passed,

A malignant narcissist sat on his ass,

Watching the stochastic terrorist pyre, he lit,

Like a pyromaniac getting his hit,

On the psychopathic destruction he inspired January 6th:

 

He did nothing for over three hours.

 

Fascism is the ultimate con game,

The Übermensch by Nietzsche,

Appropriated by the Nazis,

 

“Beyond-Man,” “Superman,” “Overman,” “Uberman,” or “Superhuman,”

 

In his fictional work Thus Spoke, Zarathustra

 

The superhuman: a goal for man to set for himself,

 

That description does not describe the mop head nincompoop we just experienced,

 

Evolution gives advantage only to assets that ensure survival,

Superior intelligence need not be one of them,

See the prescient comedy, “Idiocracy,”

 

Their definition of who counts as “human” is a chief concern,

 

The basis of this dark evolution,

Is pseudoscientific eugenics,

Breeding the Übermensch at the sacrifice of everything else,

Charity, empathy, humanity,

Banning books on actual history,

“Alternative facts” instead of reality,

Treating other human beings like pestilence,

Followed by extermination,

When fascists can’t win elections,

Their devolution to violence follows a script:

 

Demonize the “others,” usually weaker politically,

Attack the media as lying, or call it “fake,”

Replace it with an arm of propaganda to serve the coming totalitarian state,

Separate children from their parents in concentration camps,

(Just like we did in slavery)

Make it difficult for citizens to express their descent,

Threaten the First Amendment with the Second,

Don’t let certain people cast a vote,

Since they’re not likely to vote for you,

Hold elections as symbolic pro forma public rituals after the coup,

WWPD: what would Putin do?

 

Homo Erectus, to Homo Stultus,

“Sapiens” was never a metaphor for us,

What wild beasts hoard supplies from the rest of their kind in a remote part of the forest?

Amazon, the business, has more “personhood” than the natural Amazon forest!

The lungs of our planet are on fire,

From deforestation, greed, and mismanagement,

Mail-order-on-steroids is

Putting out of business mom and pop enterprises,

And builds castles, moats, penis rockets, and exclusive Cul de Sacs for sociopaths!

 

Do you see any pack of wolves doing this?

Did the Buffalo spoil their [own] lands and commit suicide in the process?

The dinosaurs can’t be faulted for the Chicxulub crater: they didn’t have scientists!

We seem determined to club ourselves with self-inflicted meteors,

To see the most dangerous predator on Earth: find a mirror!

We are in a soulless condition,

Spelling doom for the climate and the planet,

 

187 is the California penal code for murder.

This classism, fascism, homophobia, racism, sexism are all connected to our pitiful response to the pandemic,

The G20 was whiter than the Oscars,

Because Southern Hemisphere (browner) nations haven’t received any life-changing mRNA vaccines to ARGUE about,

Because of the continuing taxonomy of “us” versus “them,”

Vaccinating the species takes a backseat to corporate profits,

We can’t keep doing this,

And arrogantly expect to continue to exist,

On a 187’ed planet!

 

I’m tired of writing missives like this,

We don’t need to go to a dead Red planet to save humanity: we can do it right here!

 

The essence of Gene Roddenberry’s message in Star Trek is this: it won’t be warp drives and replicators that save us, but cooperation.

 

In the words of Umair Hague, we need a “new enlightenment,” one where we value one another’s existence, where the “wealth” is in how we cooperate.

 

Lastly, that we value each other so much:

 

That we value our total history, learning from our mistakes as Santayana said to not repeat them,

That every human age gracefully,

[That] health challenges don’t lead to financial ruin and poverty,

That everyone knows the dignity of work making living wages,

That the prison-industrial-complex moves from profits to rehabilitation,

That the homeless is a bitter memory of our previous moral bankruptcy,

And no one faces their final moments without being embraced by friends and family,

This poem is my spiritual and secular prayer for the survival of humanity.