America Has Left the Building: An Open Missive of Anger and Hope
by Phil Rockstroh

Recently, we've been plied and pummeled with the absurd proclamation that "the system worked" -- that our congressional representatives listened and took note of the collective, antiwar fulmination of the people, registered in our faux republic's latest, sham plebiscite … Yes, I suspect, the political classes of Washington did hear the people's thunder -- and then went running for cover within the comfort zones of their sheltering smugness, constructed of the brick and mortar of arrogant power and inequitable privilege. Just ask Joe Lieberman: He's the self-satisfied fellow seated comfortably upon the large, plush lounge chair, stuffed with campaign dollars, nearest the door with access to K Street.

But we must not let ourselves -- the true beneficiaries of empire -- off so easily: Our national tragedies (from all the corpses amassed, buried and forgotten in our imperial wars -- to our intransigence and denial regarding Global Warming) are a collaborative effort with our leaders: A joint and living lie of the mind -- made manifest by collective desire and remorseless pursuit.

Upon the occasion of our cultural confabulation of colonial hagiography dubbed "Thanksgiving," a tradition when we stuff our overweight bellies by devouring big, growth hormone-injected, flightless birds in order to celebrate, what in truth was, a Thanks-taking of this land by our ancestors from its original inhabitants -- (but a hearty salutation of "Happy Genocide Day" doesn't exactly stimulate the appetite, does it?) -- I will address the following missive to you -- my fellow unindicted (perhaps even unconscious) co-conspirators in the crimes of our country.

Let's begin with the things nearest to us: The structures and objects we see before us, everyday. And it's not a beautiful sight to behold.

Due to the banality, blandness, and flat-out ugliness of the stripmall/big box store/fast food outlet, prefab nowhereland of our contemporary landscape, life in the US under corporatism is as seductive as the glare of florescent tube lighting in a convenience store.

The architecture of the US looks as if Aldophe Eichmann grew bored endlessly calculating the human weigh capacity of death camp bound boxcars -- rose from Hell -- and went into the prefab structure design business.

Now, don’t get ugly, you admonish.

Tell me: What is truly ugly -- the composition and dissemination of a heartfelt, political jeremiad (or even an angry rant) – or the squandering of the passing hours of our finite lives within ugly suburban subdivisions, oversized, ugly-ass motor vehicles, soulless stripmalls and sterile office parks.

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