Politicians of the New Fade

this one will be different,
will try and point toward the future
rather than rest in the mouldwarp
of the New Fade

and here it is,
my concept of campaign finance reform:

candidates should join the modern age,
promote themselves on YouTube,
in magazines, and on the news,
rather than raise millions from
supporting corporations to speak
before crowds of the already-converted
and meaningless ads of dubious merit
that don't bother to support credentials,
but rather pander
pander
pander

politicians don't pander;
if your does they're a bureaucrat

politicians respond to the will
and best interests of the people

that is all

Critical Mass in the New Fade

this is what defines the New Fade:

fundamental
systematic
psychological
failure to comprehend the nature
of reality

but other than that, not bad

Critical Thought in the New Fade

i'd like to teach the world to sing
in synchronicity!

and by that i mean that i'd like
more people to understand
what other people are thinking,
so that there's more logic
to the logic we all live by

if we better understand the rules
of science in the New Fade
then we'd better understand
the rules of logic, too,
so that the Metaphysics of Value
can be appreciated,
and Value is no longer defined
by Metaphysics, the unknown
quality, but rather something
we can all identify, even if
we voice it in different ways

The Big Wet in the Middle of the New Fade

the bigger picture is of a wasteland
where the best of us wander in search
of purpose, our best talents spoiled
by the jealousies of others and
an indeterminate disaster of the past
clouding the present and future,
something everyone knows
but refuses to acknowledge
because it's too damn obvious
that many don't even recognize
it anymore, where shamans are
shackled, politicians once more
believe themselves to be gods,
and caravans lead to an oasis
of hope in the middle of the desert,
where there is no rain

The Adventures of Stanley Milgram in the New Fade

stick me in a box
and make me do it
and maybe you will believe
that you get what you want
but the truth is not always true
bright lights don't always shine
and the eye of the beholder
is not always in focus

Contradiction in the New Fade

you're supposed to be happy all the time
but if you're not there's something wrong with you

The New Fade Will Pay You Not to Work (Some Exclusions Apply)

no, seriously

there's a strong impulse
to believe that
"every member of society
must carry their own weight"

but wouldn't you know it?

the more money you make
the less work you have to do

the idea is responsibility,
that the "more" you have
the more you're worth

and no, i don't understand
that logic either

responsibility to me
is a privilege and therefore
something that should
be earned and not simply
rewarded

responsibility is an abstract concept,
since those who support
responsibility have as much
responsibility as those
who are supposed to have
responsibility

we live in the 21st century
in the time of the New Fade
in which virtually everything
is recorded and even John Doe
has a name and so yes,
it's very hard to say that
there are now definite and
impenetrable divides between
those who have responsibility
and, well, those who have
responsibility

we don't live in times that
so easily bend toward the will
of dictators, no matter how small
and inconsequential,
except in the power they
are allowed to have

i'm not talking unions
or communism

i'm talking about basic
human
dignity

so yeah, it's a little stupid
to say today that everyone
must work and that some of
those who do should be paid
more for doing less
just because of responsibility

or rather

the illusion of control

because at the end of the day
it's the end of the day
for everyone
and it doesn't matter
how much money you have
you need sleep and you will
in all probability dream
and that's something we all do

so just maybe, you ought
to indulge a little more of that

because no two dreams
are the same

Snobs of the New Fade

the powerless find power
through artificial means,
treating others
as if they don't matter,
so that rudeness,
sometimes couched in polite terms,
is a virtue
and the order the day, and
you can pretend that
you didn't hear them

all of that is actually supposed
to make sense

but of course it doesn't

The Self in the New Fade

uniformity and conformity
are the two words you
will not hear anyone say

but they are the order of the day

if you propose something new
or attempt to voice some
new perspective

you'd better have a collective

if you don't you'll be ignored
shunned and despised
until you are miserable

all to keep the coffers full

to be yourself in the New Fade
is to embrace a contradiction,
or in other words

it's for the birds

Frustrating People in the New Fade

Catch-22 suggests that
horrible side-effects
cannot be avoided, and
the New Fade has embraced this
principal  in spades

for your convenience,
Catch-22 is a fact of everyday life
in the New Fade, so that
the order of the day is to
frustrate people for no good
reason, other than that you can,
for a thousand increasingly
unnecessary reasons, most of them
disguised as necessity

and for your further convenience,
most of them are always
compounding on each other, so
as to provide maximum misery

the New Fade is defined as making
life easier by making it more miserable!

Rephrasing the New Fade

the New Fade is a moment in time
where things are in constant flux

the New Fade exists to push the limits
of human development, yet for
every step forward there's
an equal and opposite call
for a push in the opposite direction

messengers of the New Fade
are lionized and they are demonized;
they are celebrated and lampooned

according to the Advanced Genius Theory,
that's just the way it is, and maybe it'd
be nice to give these champions
a second look, just so we don't forget

there is fallibility in everything, because
in everything human there is
human fallibility, yet it is only
intellectual fallibility that accepts
great accomplishments must be ignored
by great people who are not always great

the New Fade is not a period that
demands great intellectualism,
but it is a period that only
great intellectualism can comprehend

great things are accomplished
every day, yet most of them
are ignored in the rush to condemn
great thinking as an affront
to populism, which is itself
ill-respected, so that only
minor triumphs can be
recognized in any regular sense

then again, maybe the New Fade
isn't so new, and maybe all this
is how it has always been, and it's
just the rush of technological steps
coming in so many small increments
that confuses the matter

we record more of ourselves
and so we assume we know
so much more

well, maybe our successors
will know better

Cannibal Competitions of the New Fade

you can accomplish your dreams
but you will need to stomp
on the dreams of others

you can accomplish your dreams
but you will need to pretend
that you believe in others

Serfing the New Fade

the essential existential
question for the thinking
person of the 21st century
is:

do i exist to produce
for society or to consume
for it?

because there is a question
here not easily answered,
because the one goes hand-in-hand
with the other, a forced servitude
without appreciation.

the serf in the New Fade belongs
to a system that ensnares
those without privilege to
a retrograde existence.