It's Always Darkest, Right Before ... It Goes Completely Black
by Phil Rockstroh

America now grows: paranoid delusions and wishful thinking. These are our national plant and staple crop, respectively.

A strange genus of the former has overgrown the land. It began as a small hybrid, a member of the Bush family, growing mostly in southern and western states. Some theories hold that its origins were in Connecticut; although, when it was transplanted to Texas, it spread, unchecked, due to the fact that there are few herbivores in the region to limit its pernicious growth. There, in the dry Texas soil, it grew dense and thorny, and thrived when watered with blood and oil.

Left unpruned and unregulated, it grew thicker than an ancient oak, larger than a redwood: It became a Paranoia Sequoia, growing ever larger in the hot greenhouse gases of global climate change; its massive branches spread across the world, casting a shadow of fear and revulsion beneath it.

And it has bore strange and terrible fruit, indeed – as well as proliferate assorted nuts.

Unfortunately, its oily wood limits its use as timber that might be used to built anything constructive: Its wood is mostly suitable for crucifixes and coffins ... Yet, due to its aforementioned oily base, it can be used to build a bonfire large enough to set the world ablaze.

At present, the people of the United States are lost in a dark woods overgrown by these sun-occluding trees. Some among us have taken to ingesting hallucinogenic mushrooms (the aforementioned staple crop) sprouting from the forest floor. Upon ingestion, they tell of having strange visions involving a covey of Democratic dwarfs who will fell the dark forest with their K Street provided axes.

In addition, borne of our desperation, many of us dream, two years hence, Prince Biden the Bland or St. Hillary, mounted upon her triangulating donkey of war, will come to our rescue and lead us from this dark and terrible place.

Such foolishness is understandable within the context of American culture: Our decaying empire has become an over-the-counter culture for legally medicated Lotus Eaters. Yet the effects of the meds are palliative. Prozac poops-out. Rush Limbaugh's Oxycontin certainties transmogrify into detox deliriums. The Republican Woodstock of the so-called "Clash of Civilizations" becomes the Altamont of Guantanamo.

Moreover, the comedown is going to be a real bitch ... Heads will throb; stomachs will churn, when the realization arrives: we've become addicted to a corrupt system, rigged for the benefit of a few, ruthless corporatists -- and maintained and enabled by both our political parties; accordingly, the lives of us ordinary Americans (who are dependent on this system because we have no choice in the matter) are no longer in our control ... Somewhere along the way, our freedom to chose went missing -- was waylaid -- as we were pimped into wage slavery for the profits of the corporate class.

I must confess: I wish there existed drugs that provided an effect powerful enough to allow me to hallucinate visions of hope.

Instead, I will proffer this stark fantasy: I believe, at this late hour, the second best thing that could come to pass in our crumbling republic is for the total destruction of the Democratic Party -- and then from its ashes to rise a party of true progressives.  

Now, I believe the best thing that could happen for our country would be for the leaders of The Republican Party -- out of a deep sense of shame (as if they even possessed the capacity for such a thing) regarding the manner they have disgrace their country and themselves -- to commit seppuku (the act of ritual suicide practiced by disgraced leaders in feudalist Japan) on national television.

Because there's no chance of that event coming to pass, I believe the dismantling of the Democratic Party, as we know it, is in order. It is our moribund republic’s last, best hope -- if any is still possible.

Regarding this, I hope I’m proven to be dead-ass, Flat Earth Theory, Warren Commission wrong.

How have I come to this despairing conclusion?

First a caveat: While I harbor little affection for nor feel any affinity with the corrupt establishment of the Democratic Party, I don't believe, as is the case with the present leadership of the Republican party, they're a klavern of insane, death-smitten apocalypticists. However, I do believe that a craven desire for power and privilege has transformed them into morally bankrupt, lickspittle, corporate stooges.

For this, I believe, they have disgraced themselves as well. Does anyone believe that the denizens of K Street have, as of late, begun enriching the coffers of the Democratic Party because the lobbyist class now harbors a secret desire to create a system where a greater diversity of views can be promulgated? Yes, and Jack the Ripper stalked the streets of East London because he wanted to draw attention to the wretched plight of underclass women in class-stratified Victorian England.

Ergo, regardless of which political party controls congress, the empire will continue to unravel. Corporate "leaders,” like feudal lords, will continue to ruthlessly wield power and have dominion over our lives no matter the outcome of the midterm elections of 2006.