Libertarian Policy at a Glance

I’ve been going in heavy on the politics for the last two months, because it matters.

Sometimes I feel as if this little project – trying to help tear down the lies and myths of US national identity – has been overtaken by “events”.

It’s like setting-up an information stand on a beach, only to look up and see a seismic wave approaching in the distance.

I suppose most people would scream, run for their lives, or simply collapse in a heap of fear and dread.

But the time I spent in Hawaii during my teens taught me there is another option.

Grit your teeth, and grab a surfboard.

J. D. Vance and his svengali Peter Thiel (and other similarly-aligned billionaires) seek nothing less than complete dominion, turning the USA into a technocratic oligarchy – a system they like to call “Libertarianism” in order to disguise a rapacious “dog eat dog” mentality with a fig leaf of “political philosophy”.

Before you dismiss this as the ravings of a conspiracy theorist, just remember that a failed Austrian art student with a chip on his shoulder was able to burn half the world down a few decades ago…

I’ve thrown some lyrics to a largely forgotten song below.

What is life after all, without art to temper the gravity sometimes?

*****

Last Great American Whale

Lou Reed [1989]

They say he didn’t have an enemy
His was a greatness to behold
He was the last surviving progeny
The last one on this side of the world

He measured a half mile from tip to tail
Silver and black with powerful fins
They say he could split a mountain in two
That’s how we got the Grand Canyon

Last great American whale
Last great American whale
Last great American whale
Last great American whale

Some say they saw him at the Great Lakes
Some say they saw him off of Florida
My mother said she saw him in Chinatown
But you can’t always trust your mother

Off the Carolinas, the sun shines brightly in the day
The lighthouse glows ghostly there at night
The chief of a local tribe had killed a racist mayor’s son
And he’d been on death row since 1958

The mayor’s kid was a rowdy pig
Spit on Indians and lots worse
The old chief buried a hatchet in his head
Life compared to death for him seemed worse

The tribal brothers gathered in the lighthouse to sing
And tried to conjure up a storm or rain
The harbor parted, the great whale sprang full up
And caused a huge tidal wave

The wave crushed the jail and freed the chief
The tribe let out a roar
The whites were drowned, the browns and reds set free
But sadly one thing more

Some local yokel members of the NRA
Kept a bazooka in his living room
And thinking he had the chief in his sights
Blew the whale’s brains out with a lead harpoon

Last great American whale
Last great American whale
Last great American whale
Last great American whale

Well, Americans don’t care for much of anything
Land and water the least
And animal life is low on the totem pole
With human life not worth more than infected yeast

Americans don’t care too much for beauty
They’ll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream
They’ll watch dead rats wash up on the beach
Complain if they can’t swim

They say things are done for the majority
Don’t believe the half of what you see and none of what you hear
It’s like what my painter friend Donald said to me
“Stick a fork in their ass and turn ’em over, they’re done”