Some called it the incorporation of America, U.S. Inc. The freeloading rich determined the country's ills were due to too many freeloaders. In this they were correct. But they failed to correctly identify themselves as the problem and instead blamed their victims of whose wealth they legally stole. No matter the pain, the power, or the poverty, America's corporate precepts were her final holdout for hope.
Regions were divided up and given over to corporate overlords. We were stuck in Amazonia, encompassing the southwest where unlimited warehouses were to be built and residents are liable to be forced labor within them. The only way to be safe was to buy your way out. "We're putting those lazy bastards to work!" decried President Crook. "We're going back to the old ways and values to make our country great again." Greatness had eluded us the entirety of the 21st century. Every fool had a plan to change that.
We were a motley crew of rejects: busybodies, do-gooders, the hopeless, the blindly naïve - we were all illusioned one way or the other. Have to be. How else to fight that which is beyond your control? How else to fight the will of the people whose rising tide of anger needs to be fed constant scapegoats? We, of course, were rebel scum preventing corporate paradise from coming true.
On a distant desert highway outside of Terilingua we waited on an eighteen-wheeler to come rumbling down the road. If we could choke off the roads to the warehouses we'd disrupt the entire chain of supply. That was our thought. We created a road hazard on the highway, lighting it just in time as the mammoth truck struggled to stop its massive inertia. We cheered in victory then descended into the cab.
No one was there.
No one to conquer. No one to convert. Just the empty technological heart of the beast. We looked at one another in dismay, defanged and defunded of hope. It was like being in a boxing match fighting air, hit all you want but you only lose yourself in the end. Once the flames died down the truck restarted and rumbled over the ashes onto its programmed destination. As we watched it drive off we couldn't help but wonder who we were.
We all hear the stories but only the Official Story counts. People waking up too late, joining forces with us. "I thought they were only going to hurt other people, not me." Others escaped from the Guilt Camps, laboring night and day, only to realize their lives had meaning after all. "Bad things are happening to other people. Why should I escape that?" And of course those who were openly persecuted for speaking in defiance of the corporatocracy. "They come at night like the Nazis but the Official Story is Nazism can never happen here so everyone looks away."
We'd been made voiceless by the will of the self-frightened people. No one wants to be next on the hit list, so those who know better stay silent and the betrayers who do speak grow bolder every day. We are forced to live on the edges of society, the last remaining remnants of civilization. Yet they believe with fire in their hearts we must be extinguished at all costs lest their way of life be threatened by a truth we may utter. As if God doesn't already know the truth.
It is they who wage the worst war against that which they cannot control. They know the futility of it, hoping only to delay the outcome a little while more, keeping their window of hate open as long as possible. Of course, to do that they need only let us live but the flaming hell in their hearts is unbearable so they seek resolution even at the price of their own final fate. Their bodies will be nothing more than burnt tinder left to be swept away into the dustbin of history never to return. But that only makes them hate us more.
This world is godless and guideless. To fight it is to be like an autumn leaf fighting the wind to stay on the tree. We in the resistance yearn for satisfaction, no matter how fleeting. That is our food. For many, the only stand we can make is simply to disagree, even if we are like pebbles against an ocean wave. At least we are not part of the destruction. Sometimes that has to be satisfaction enough. Many of us want to organize and coordinate but we are not suited to that. No person finds paradise without following their own path.
Sometimes as we wander the wastelands during the day I think back to all the wars mankind fought and claimed victory for only to end up like this. I glimpsed a TV couple of weeks back showing a war movie and it looked totally different to me. There weren't two sides, only one. And they were only fighting for the chance to one day live in times like these, worse than mankind has ever seen before. What did we win? What did anyone win? Poor dumb bastards hid their feelings of not wanting to fight in mutual insanity.
Ten years ago - incredibly referred to now as the good old days - a dumb movie came out. It was called "Silence" where the director complained about God's silence as Japanese Christians were crucified en masse. But - like now - God has always been silent, making Her presence known once then no more. What about the silence during the holocaust? What about the silence of persecuting the weak, grinding them into dust? The injustices committed daily in open daylight have become unbearable in number and treachery. I too asked why God is silent about evil under the sun. "God damn you, God!"
Then it hit me: it's we who are silent. What stops us as a people from admitting the truth? What prevents us from choosing life? Nothing in the universe. The dead hate the living. They will not stop until everyone is dead. If these days are not ended, our time here will end in infamy. I just can't believe that will be allowed to happen. But for now we must cry as we watch the insane cheer those who lead them to doom.
We stopped to rest in the afternoon and I felt the pain of a flower in the field. I could feel the inherent beauty of life as I watched it sway in the breeze, so confident of its own justification. This is what life was meant to be, finding the harmony within and enjoying the treasures given us. Can it really be so easy? Why am I afraid to believe that? It certainly means we've made a mess of things - and for no reason.
Live first and ask questions later. If I can die with that in my heart, I will know victory that can never be taken away. God bless God for that.
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