General Discussion

“There’s a black granite wall in Washington DC that bears 58,260 names on it. All of those whose names that are carved on that wall are dead. For what? Freedom?

“If this country had listened when kids were screaming to stop that slaughter, that wall would have been one hell of a lot shorter.

“Yet we as a nation still wage wars of choice. Wars encouraged by plutocrats who never have to fight them.
“Peace is never discussed. Peace has somehow become a perjorative.

“Peace is no perjorative. Peace is essential to the survival of the human race. And those who advocate for war are a dangerous and fearful group who should be marginalized and disavowed.

“War is always the last choice. The dirty fucking hippies … were right.

“Now the oceans have been rising. The polar ice is melting at alarming rates. The climate is changing in irreversible ways. Our survival as a species on this planet is on a precipice.
“The science on this is clear. Humans are now in trouble. Because of our reckless stewardship of what we dominated, we have polluted this fragile jewel that hangs in space – our only home.

“The food we buy is contaminated. The toys we give our children as presents for Christmas are tainted with poisons. The water we drink is rife with carcinogens. The fish in our seas, lakes and rivers are so full of mercury that it’s only recommended that we eat them once per week.
“We have now come face to face with our own extinction.

“I hate to say ‘I told you so,’ but the dirty fucking hippies … were right.

“We’ve elected sociopath after sociopath for the last 30 years, to every level of government. – many of them slaves to corporate parasites that gorge themselves at the public trough, while the most vulnerable people in our society – the sick, the young, and the elderly – go wanting.
“Billions of dollars of profits are being snitched up at the expense and suffering of our neighbors by the jackals that comprise our pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies. Both of which pipe their diagnostic wisdom and their fake concern right into our homes via TV and radio commercials.
“These legal drug dealers now sell their wares with impunity. And the insurance gamblers perform a slick game of three-card monte right in our living rooms.

“Most of these drugs have a list of caveats that would make even the most dishonest used car salesman blush. And the insurance hustlers change the rules of the game just when it’s time to pay up – profiting from the suffering and pain and others, profiting from human frailty.

“Universal healthcare? ‘It’s too expensive,’ we’re told. Gasbags talking heads on TV and radio have been complicit in this deception, while being handsomely compensated for their assistance.

“I’ll say it again: the dirty fucking hippies … were right.

“Big box discount stores descend upon small towns in America like alien ships, filled with cheap products bought at low prices from countries that pay their workers slave wages. Plutocrats love this business model!
“Mom and Pop shops can’t compete with prices set by these huge corporate parasites and, to no one’s surprise, many small businesses in these tiny hamlets fail, leaving small towns filled with empty storefronts and even, in some cases, forcing these same small business operators to go to work for the very people that ruined their livelihoods.

“Small-town America is subsequently decimated by this invasion. Often helpless in stopping it.

“Wall Street has cannibalized itself. Still hungry, feeling the pangs of their greed, they’ve now come to the government for their daily meal. And still, without a hint of irony, a spokesman for this ravenous tribe mounts his soapbox and has the temerity to rail against the ‘evils of Socialism’.
“Turns out the Socialism is for them. The Capitalism is for us.

“Abbie Hoffman once baited these banksters by throwing cash onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. To no one’s astonishment, they demonstrated their insatiable greed. The gluttons couldn’t help themselves – they stopped trading, got on their knees, and swept up the free loot.

“Wall Street should have been reined in long ago.

“I’ll say it again: The dirty fucking hippies … were right!”