Carne Asustada

 ‘Frightened Meat’

You see it all around these days, from them wasted drive-thrus down to the unemployment bureaus

Mumbling their migrant Spanish shivering in the temp lines on dirty streets in the early morning smog

Wading through the fecal muck in the feedlots where they are jammed together like $XMAS shoppers

You hear it on talk radio and see it down to Wal*Mart, always suffused with this vaguely fearful odor

Hear it sizzling as it is forked and flipped on hot coals by overpaid and cellophaned talking heads

Then a whispered fear runs through the crowd, a pitiful moan that’s picked up all across the herd

They low and stamp their feet, tossing heads and twitching tails, edgy but unable to move at all

Yup, here’s your carne asustada smothered in fear-mongered propaganda with a side of singed hide

Hear it scuttling through the dark voids behind those paper-thin walls in that shoddy apartment

You can see their wide eyes follow it even as the microphone picks up their soothing fantasies

It’s also in that smell of fear that hangs in the air with all the poisoned dust thrown up by the herd

Naturally there are pitches for lots of stuff they claim can make it all seem a whole lot better

It echoes in the trite and postured catchphrases our canned Leaders use to signal a political intent

The kids pick up on it right away at a deep and non-verbal level and it stays with them for life

Steers call out, crowded single-file into filthy chutes, all leading without exits to the killing pit

Oppressed by the darkening uncertainty, they often snap savagely at their accidental brothers

The sound of disturbed creatures scuttling off underfoot in the fetid darkness does not reassure them

Driven harshly towards the noisy, smoke-belching slaughterhouse, a black, faceless terror fills them

Spiked reports of sinister plots directed at their families keep them too alert, for far too long

Promoting a prideful ignorance nurtures the irrelevant anxieties created to hold public reason at bay

Trapped beneath their crumbled house of credit cards they still faintly hear talk show voices above

Terrorist boogeymen haunt implanted thoughts which are remotely adjusted via clever pitchmen

Too tightly packed to look down, they can only guess at the awful liquid their hooves now slosh thru

Spiraled down with lowering living standards, they decay in the clogged sewer lines of poverty

They haven’t the energy to care where fastfood comes from or where their poisoned wastes flow

Standing cheek to butt together, they are driven through dark nights in loud and filthy trailers

They never know who they hate the most: their neighbors, those who control things or themselves

Their empty footfalls resound off littered streets where the grimy pall off their lifestyle never lifts

Surviving on machine-chunked and formed meat byproducts, they strut a programmed libertarianism

Their aged parents languish on open bedsores, over-medicated and ignored by illegale caregivers

Bovine death and dismemberment is minutely analyzed by efficiency experts and cost accountants

Elders are kicked aside for financial bleeding by EndOfLife care and BigFuneral corpro parasites

Even the greatest sales events and lavish sports extravaganzas cannot completely calm them now

Inexorably prodded closer to the sound of their co-workers packing up as they are offshored forever

Awakening me at 3AM, sweating from a bad dream, slowly twisting back to the real nightmare

Carne asustada still sensing that something must be wrong, even given all the pills and propaganda

This Aint No Recession

It aint no double-dip, it’s a multi-dip: And each dip lowers your living standard

Recessions end and stuff rebounds but now we lead a group known as the Undeveloping Countries

The MultiNationals behind globalization are herding everyone to a uniform level of barest subsistence

The Pakis and such are real good with it, but if you’ve ever known any better, you aint gonna like it

You’ll keep paying more and earning less with fewer benefits until we’re all globally competitive

This aint no recession: This here is a permanent fall from the artificial economic grace we once knew

And all the politicians demanding God Bless America after every speech aint gonna change it one bit

It wont be so bad, your kids have already adjusted their expectations by becoming mumbling slackers

We can probably start a patronage system for plum government jobs - like they used to have in India

But be careful of going in debt for overpriced education with the real prospect of never finding a job

Drop the cherished myth that your kids futures are always brighter than your own…It just aint so Bud!

Get ready to take on a real tax burden and simply forget about then promised entitlement programs

Just save some memories of the good old days for your grandkids – They’ll know you’ve finally lost it

We’ll read of a ponzi 3% GDP growth, but it’ll be swallowed by deliberately underestimated inflation

Get used to failing bridges, unstable power grids and a degrading environment – It’s all we can afford

But, wait: Gutlessly sociopathic, closet corporate leaders will get even richer, successful or not

For this aint even a depression, it’s just the New Normal: Work more, get less, pay more, die younger

Forget about cruise vacations, new cars, faux mansions and such treats – That’s so like 20^th Century

Deal with it – You’re downsized permanently, you got no savings and your Medicare is going away

This aint no recession but rather living the new reality of being undeveloping former firstworlders

Them greedy foreigners aint gonna finance your home equity loans and credit cards no-mo, no suh

Arent no jumpstarts, quick fixes or kickstarts gonna get you a job or stop the middle class shrinking

You can safely default on all your loans and cards cause you aint gonna get no more credit anyway

You’ll laugh at the crap about finance, realestate and consumers being the engines of our prosperity

Look, we won’t tax-and-spend or budget-slash and de-regulate our way from under this just decay

Oh, and dont get any attitude or you’ll be quickly culled from the hundreds of applicants per bad job

But dont worry, they wont stop subsidizing creating of your diabetes, hypertension and heart disease

And theyll keep making the jobs worse so you wont take them, but their disposable illegales still will

This aint no business cycle, the good jobs aint comin back and thats Alabama not Whateverstan on TV

But you can still pledge your fictional soul as collateral in their imaginary-paradise-for-nothing scam

The population’s too large and cheap resources are too depleted to power more extractive prosperity

This decaying and antiquated infrastructure is still good enough for any rapidly undeveloping country

The elite will keep flying overhead, driving by with their windows up and living under tighter security

They'll keep media puppets pumping crap about how freeing markets could solve all of your problems

And, oh darn, they cant hire you now cause you been out of work too long, not cause you’re too old…

This aint no downturn, this is a nosedive: into the infectious dirt of an ignorant and 3^rd world future

Its OK, your kids will accept the benefitless, peasant wages of a globalized world in economic flatline

Arbeit Macht Frei

Work Shall Free You – Auschwitz Camp Motto

I really wasn’t ready to be retired at 50 for now I can see how work lent a real meaning to my life

Anyways, I got no savings for healthcare issues and my social security is fading like a union pension

So, I’m doing what I thought I always wanted to and it’s part-time, minimum wage with no benefits

I’m serving my community and I must ignore the fact that the good working folk take me for a fool

Giving back and paying it forward, it’s all on my stairway to eternal freedom in that promised heaven

Sure I was outsourced with no benes into a forced, early retirement from my real career, but so what

I overcame that costly, uninsured, depression-induced coronary to assume a voluntary leadership role

Maybe some of those still working snicker at me, but I, too, wake up early every day with lots to do

Got more time to spend with friends and family - It’s really too bad they’re all just too busy for me

Finally organized some household messes, the garage and really got my photo albums together

The wife’s still working and they’re having a tough time dislodging her, but they’ll win in the end

Always thought I hated my jobs but I see they were anchor points in my careening, out-of-focus life

Going to work got me out of the house, dried up the alcohol and cleansed my bleary guilt

The banks let me leverage my pitiful income stream with credit cards and liar home equity loans

But none of the cool ads are aimed at me now, just those nonstop, identical Ask your doctor abouts…

Though I pissed and moaned about work, it was really much more stable than my so-called family

No Sir, I aint bitter over being out on my ass with no savings, let alone even one single job interview

I see it’s just that the omnipotent free market has replaced off-shored careers with Wal*Mart McJobs

Anyways, I remain on the righteous path, comforted in a decaying poverty by my personal savior

Im not even counted among the unemployed since I finally stopped looking for those nonexistent jobs

Should be going back to school but I cant qualify for even more new loans at my age, with my debts

Learning to seek truth in the menial household tasks I always viewed as being so far beneath me

But the awful loneliness and fear arising from being left out of the work herd still tugs at my gut

Heard of one job that suited me to a tee but now they say I’ve just been out of work for too long

Arbeit Macht Frei, and yup, now I could find meaning shoveling mass graves, if they provided benefits

Thought about becoming a consultant but of course as an ordinary failure, my market is pretty small

Got a tight online career network going and my robo-resumes fill auto-emptied email inboxes daily

Staring down 30 years of increasing poverty and deteriorating health is now just my cross to bear

Swallowing Personal Responsibility for my unemployability keeps me quiet about entitlement cuts

I’m quite stimulated spending hours playing dodge-em phone tag with my many outsourced creditors

But I know in my exceptionist bones that God’s blessings to richer Americans will trickle down on me

Wishing I had the selfish vanity to pursue the steady, secure, artificial work of the career politician

Monday mornings I still feel like I need to be somewhere even though I always thought I hated it

So ashamed that I don’t need to save time, got no deadlines and that my schedule isn’t even full

Simply want to always be looking forward to all the lost weekends and forgotten holidays once again

Oh, for the joys of wasted commutes, wolfed fast food, crazy schedules and well-earned couch time