Aquarian Weekly 7/23/08
REALITY CHECK

THE SUMMER OF SURVIVAL
A Realist's Guide For A Doomed Economic Future

Anything which is a living and not a dying body will have to be an incarnate will to power, it will strive to grow, spread, seize, become predominant - not from any morality or immorality but because it is living and because life simply is will to power... 'Exploitation'... belongs to the essence of what lives, as a basic organic function; it is a consequence of the will to power, which is after all the will to life.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Beyond Good and Evil

To those still fiscally solvent enough to cobble together a buck-fifty for an arts and culture weekly or have not already hocked your computer or chosen to disconnect your high-speed to feed your family rather than receive my thrice-monthly wisdom, I say it is high time we panicked.

The American dollar is a sick joke. The stock market is at best a three-team teaser. The banking system hangs from a thread. Food prices are at record highs and the price of fuel or any energy for that matter has taken the form of abject thievery. The job market is so desperate recent college graduates are burning diplomas like draft cards. The government, both federal and local, laughs at us.

Panic.

But I don't mean cold cocking corpulent housewives at the gas lines like in the late seventies, or shoving sticks of dynamite into ATM machines, which was all the rage during the terrible summer of '02, or even attempting the wildly effective communal leaps from Fifth Avenue high rises in the autumn of 1929.

This is the year of change.

Let's get creative.

I say from this moment forth, let this be known as the Summer of Survival.

Give the Summer Of Love and the Winter Of Discontent a run for their money.

Let us cast aside decorum and scoff at the rule of law to better embrace our simian roots; the deepest part of our humanoid id -- the feral, bone-gnawing, knuckle-dragging ancestral primate who managed to best nuance the vagaries of this Darwinian treadmill we bi-pedal daily.

Thus, I humbly offer that we listen to our president's call to stop driving so damn much. Traveling, the great 20th century American chime of freedom, celebrated in song and story from Woody Guthrie to Chrysler jingles, must cease. Stay home. Lock the doors. Reject all forms of energy. Live in the monastic style of the Rabbi's of Masada. A sedentary life will gain you savings in the here and now and earn you important self-flagellation/denial points in the hereafter.

We must assume the supine. Breathe as slowly as possible. And for the sake of God, do not answer your phone. Unplug the damn thing!

Blackberries and other forms of mobile texting and e-mailing should be used sparingly and in many cases only when sending messages of dire consequence, like when celebrities give birth or monthly magazines depict presidential candidates as cartoon terrorists on their covers.

Next, we must stop eating so much.

We're the fattest nation on the planet. The tier of southern states alone consumes half the planet's food supply. The spike in sugar carbs has rendered its populace incapable of making reasoned decisions on matters of philosophy, religion or politics. Let their terrible epidemic in mind-numbing obesity be a lesson to us all.

The gorge stops now. If nothing else it will cut down on the rash of salmonella poisoning ravishing 80% of the contiguous United States.

And no more spending. Period. In fact, ignore all debt. The authorities will bail you out. The free ride is coming. All aboard!

Why not? You didn't try and get rich on bloated property grabs. Why should the rapacious hordes get all the breaks? Fuck the banks, the lending institutions, and lord knows, the greedy little shitheels demanding a monthly stipend for your land. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, whatever the hell that means. Damn, let's find out. Let 'em come and kick us out.

In fact, burn all your bills, especially credit card and mortgage statements, utilizing the blaze to heat your water and cook your meager game.

Up here in the mountains we're back on the gold standard, off the grid, and boycotting the super market teat already. Beneath the fluttering majesty of our Don't Tread On Me flag we've taken to the foraging of berries and edible plant life for sustenance. This has caused a nasty civil war with the black bear and wild turkey, which has allowed the carnivorous among us to utilize the fatalities for our dwindling dining choices.

It is just as well we face the call of the wild. We're already deep in the midst of hunkering down, as if a devastating nor'easter were nigh. We've begun to manifest our destiny by stock piling weapons and old 78's of Knute Rockne speeches, which we blast dawn to midnight from a loudspeaker mounted just outside of the second floor hay bale window of The Desk's headquarters. It livens the blood of the hearty souls digging trenches and constructing crude barricades, which began when the clock struck twelve on the summer solstice.

We, of course, in the great American tradition of ingenuity and opportunistic foresight have been using slave labor to cut costs. Children, particularly of the pre-teen/middle school variety, make excellent beasts of burden; just old enough to huck but not savvy enough to whine, fight back and/or take up litigation.

Soon we will fortify our numbers by capturing the older ones, who foolishly speed their cheap cars past our fortified compound at all hours of the morning with little regard for rationing of gasoline or feline noir pathways. Following another American tradition during times of national crisis, we shall suspend habeas corpus and detain the zit-addled potheads in holding pens until their wills are broken. Then, and only then, will we remold their undernourished and newly propagandized teenaged brain matter to do our bidding.

Teach the next generation what patriotism and sacrifice is all about; enough mucking around with glue sniffing and video games. It is time to carry the weight and defend the territory. Young hormones can work in our favor during the Summer Of Survival. I should know; I was a disillusioned youngster during the ugly malaise months of 1978. Back then we took crisis as a challenge to exploit and pillage and we will expect nothing less from these lazy, sexually-depraved temperamental pissants.

This will not be easy, but it has long passed necessary.

Design the bumper sticker, call Philip Morris, find that bleating symbol of Pollyanna madness, Phil Gramm and string him to a rail and ride him out of town.

It is the Summer Of Survival.

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