By Dr. Gary Corseri

It’s a hard day at the trough-shop sucking up to the snot-nosed kid-boss with his M.B.A. thanks to Grandpa’s Trust, and you’re back home late and the wife’s cheesed off cause little Johnny’s flunking Math and Alie’s off with the trench-coat Goth, and you wonder, “Could it get any worse?”

You’re one missed payment from losing the house, and the bums on the street have your color skin, and the wife’s making eyes at the guy with the prize, and Sue-Ellen at the coffee shop gives you a wink, and you wonder, “Is Fascism really so bad?”

So what if they torture some sonofabitch, so what if some innocents get caught in the snare, that’s just how it is, and you don’t have to worry cause you’re on the right side, just keep your nose clean, don’t ask or demur, keep pledging allegiance and singing their songs, and Let Them take care of it cause Father knows best.

Your pimply nephew’s always complaining, reads all the wrong books, listens to Lennon, romantic and pie-eyed, quotes King and Guevara, goes to his meetings, marches and protests, parries with questions, and you wonder, “Is it really so bad?” So they shut him up and mind him his manners—water-boarding, skate-boarding, is there really a diff? He comes out saluting, and he’s jack for his country, and he’s off to Iraq, Iran or Korea—wherever they send him he’s strutting his stuff. Then he’s back in a wheelchair with vacuous eyes, and he spits and hisses like a cat in an alley, and he mumbles about some cross-fired kids.

Black/white, right/ wrong, legal/illegal, alien/native ... Born with white skin on the 4th of July, on right-sided tracks, why should you care about red men or blacks, brown-skinned “macacas,” slant eyes and yellows? So they got a raw deal. Slavery/knavery—who’s keeping score? Who gives a goddamn? It’s each for his own kind, for numero uno, and if you get lucky, a starched, white shirt waits in a clean metal coffin.

They know what they’re doing, they’ve got all the info, the Internet’s wired, the phones, and your auto, they know where you’re going, they know where you’ve been, who’s sleeping with whom, who’s lying with dogs, who’s ratting, who’s batting, who’s keeping tabs--and you don’t have to worry--so long as you … keep singing their songs and keep saluting.

It’s too far gone to make any diff, you’re a frog in the water and it’s getting too hot, but you’re numb and tired, too bleary to jump. It’s vicarious living, “Deal or No Deal,” dumb luck and precarious, hard luck and nefarious, but you’re not getting younger and the siren songs linger: give up … surrender … freedom … safety ...

Is it really so bad? They’ve got all the info, so what if they use it? So they slightly abuse it, why should you care? Shootings in Amish land, shootings next door to you—did the victims deserve it? Why weren’t they armed? Give everyone weapons and we’ll die with our boots on, with bits in our teeth, like horses on race tracks, while they cheer in the stands on this man-sotted planet hurtling into eternal sleep.
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Gary Corseri has taught in public schools and prisons in the U.S., and at US and Japanese universities. His work has appeared at WorldProutAssembly, Dissident Voice, Palestine Chronicle, TeleSurtv.net, CommonDreams, CounterPunch, The New York Times, Village Voice, Uruknet, City Lights Review, Atlanta-PBS, and 200 other websites and publications. His books include: Manifestations (edited); Holy Grail, Holy Grail; and Random Descent. He can be contacted at: corseri@verizon.net.