[Newspoetry] The Future

[gillespie william k]

Yes, things can be statistically demonstrated to be moving in a certain
direction, and the obvious assumption is that an object in motion will
remain in motion unless stopped. In this manner, all your worst
expectations can be proven to be true, and you won't even need to use a
pocket calculator. 

Anything bad is evidence of everything bad.

The statistics will whisper to you any lie you want, your most perverse
nightmares, in the rustling of newspaper leaves.

The fact that we have access to this information is enough to make me
smile. Things could be, and won't be, worse.

Without any hope for a better future, there is no hope for a better
future. And so hope is a great thing to do. Not the only
thing, maybe not the most important thing, but a frail thread of hope is a
pencil sketch that can someday be marked up in black ink, a wisp of smoke
describing a future architecture. Hope can lead to expectations, even
plans. That thread could point the way. Will the world get any better if
nobody really expects it to?

We are all suffering from a refusal to remember the future. We've blocked
the whole thing out of our minds.

The system will break down unless you expect the worst of it. A cynical
outlook is neither a rebellion against the false smile of consumerism nor
a bold ability to face facts squarely, it is an implanted emotion, a
manufactured consent. You have given the apparatus permission to continue
to strangle the world. Because the apparatus has produced a briefcase and
withdrawn from it a few basic charts demonstrating the spread of poverty
and environmental devastation. It shows you a photo of a war orphan, you
nod, you write an angry poem, it nods. You and the apparatus have a thing
going.

And you can have the last laugh because you won't be disappointed, not
having risked hoping. You told me so. Me, I'm just going to surround
myself with the cozy cocoon of a steady income and fester within like a
rotting butterfly. This world holds its endangered species hostage,
murdering them one by one just to hurt me personally.

When the chance comes to build a better world, will you be ready? Will you
notice? Or will you see the breakdown of the old order as another problem
with the old order? 

It's not a butterfly, it's a dead caterpillar. 

It's not a pregnancy, it's an illness.

It's the end of the millennium, not the beginning.

The bee rapes the flower.

The muse of anger just got fired. 

Muse wanted. 

Revisionist fortune teller.



"Don't bring me down." - Lennon/McCartney


On Mon, 20 Dec 1999, Bill Wendling wrote:

> WiReD magazine has an issue dedicated to "what will happen in the future"
> where they ask everyone remotely famous what they think will occur. I
> thought we should do the same. I'll start:
> 
> 	The ozone layer will be all but gone by the middle of the next
> 	century. The rate of skin cancers trebles overnight. People still
> 	refuse to believe that they are responsible for it happening.
> 
> 	Crime will continue to fall as police all over the country use
> 	gestapo tactics to keep the people in line. The citizens in
> 	American will have long since given up most of their basic rights
> 	in the wake of media induced hysteria over crime and will, thus,
> 	be powerless against it.
> 
> 	Corporate sponsership of politicians becomes so blatant that the
> 	politico will no longer deny that they are bought but use it as a
> 	sign of pride. "Vote for me! Pepsi(tm) believes in me, so should
> 	you!"
> 
> 	Species diversity will continue to decline, due in no small part
> 	to the continued destruction of the rainforests, the absense of
> 	an ozone layer, and human overpopulation. The only animals left
> 	will be those breed specifically for us to eat or to keep as
> 	pets.
> 
> 	The inner cities will decay even more than they are now. They
> 	will literally be lawless zones where even the police won't go.
> 
> 	The CIA will introduce more drugs into our society as well as
> 	other to fund more of their covert activities. These drugs will
> 	be more addictive than crack.
> 
> 	The United States will be even more dominant than it already is
> 	in the world. More and more, third world, and even some second
> 	world, nations will be enslaved to us literally.
> 
> 	The US will continue its bombing campaign against any country
> 	which does not cave into our more and more inhumane demands.
> 	Biological weapons will be used. These weapons can kill very
> 	slowly and painfully. They will be developed by Monsanto.
> 
> 	At the end of the century, the Amazon rainforest will be
> 	virtually gone. The world starts to suffocate and oxygen becomes
> 	something only the very rich will be able to afford.
> 
> Happy New Year/Millenium!
> 
> 	Bill "the optimist" Wendling
> 
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