By Roland Michel Tremblay
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
The Marginal
27 October, 2009
Capitalist planning
Only do something if one can make a dollar
And certainly don’t do anything
If one cannot make at least a billion dollars
Isn’t it amazing?
For simple minded people
Like me, like us all
Living in a simple world
At a time when no one is working
At a time when no one is doing anything
Such wasted essential resources at hand
Such short sight from our leaders
Is amazing
Out of necessity
This one poem for human rights
Is going around the world
This is not 1929, or is it?
We will be heard this time!
The world is starving
The world has nowhere to live
The world can’t even buy a shirt
For a job interview
At a time when we
Can’t even get a job interview
Seems to us all
With so many desperate people
Struggling to survive
In such hard times
There should be plenty to do
To help ourselves out of this black hole
Instead
We’re all stuck at home watching TV
Thinking of doing something insane
Going into deep depression
Wondering how to find something to do
That could alleviate
The world’s pain and suffering
But overall to alleviate
Our own personal pain and suffering
There’s no damn job left!
What remains is already well dodgy
Promising hours going off the scale
Below the minimum salary
Abuse and exploitation
Sell us your soul
Without reward
And we can’t even get that!
No wonder many find
Going to the devil
Much more appealing
Who would not?
The criminal courts, the prisons
Are at full capacity
And yet
We should all get mercy in such times
That dying baby has got to eat something
One way or another
The only employer at this time
Who could afford to hire us all
To jump start the economy
Whilst helping so many desperate citizens
Is the government itself, meaning us
But the government decided, not us
To spend trillions on saving banks
With no thought left for any of us
Thinking somehow they would save the economy
Of an economic system that has already proven
To be fatal to us all, the people
You can only and always
Lose all your money to banks
We certainly lost it all forever at this time
Now is the time to cry
Now is the time to cry out
For such betrayal
There is no other way to define
This state of affair
Us the people
Should always be in charge of our own money
Lending it to ourselves
Never letting any third party making trillions on our back
Such basic things are so damn evident
Never let anyone on any government
Be ever bought again
To ever think otherwise
The government decided
To sack everyone instead
Early retirement and redundancy packages
Even for the ones under 25
Apparently even babies
Are ready for early retirement
There is nothing left to do for anyone!
We must find our way back to basics
And I’m afraid
The government must play a major role in this
This is a time of emergency
We’ll have to think of ways to survive
Or have we lost touch with realities?
Growing carrots in our minuscule gardens
Selling food to the poor
To survive ourselves
Here is a small mathematical problem, grade 2
How many carrots one would need to sell
In order to pay the taxes alone?
Can’t make it, there is no way!
Do not be surprised
By the essentials required at this time of misery
We all need to escape this reality
Forgetting food and survival
We’ll always find money somehow
For cigarettes, alcohol and drugs
Desperate times call for desperate measures
There is nothing more important
When one is already dying of inaction
Feeling so useless
When so much could actually be achieved
In this world
Do not wait until it explodes
Find something for us to do
And make it all worth our while
No exploitation needs apply
We’re all distressed, we’re all fed up
There is no way out
We cannot survive in any meaningful way
We can’t find a damn job
Whilst it is obvious
We are all in desperate need
Of just about everything
There is under this Earth
There should be plenty of jobs at this time of need
Simple, our priorities are just misplaced
Capitalist planning
Only do something if one can make a dollar
And certainly don’t do anything
If one cannot make at least a billion dollars
Who cares if there are no jobs?
Who cares if everyone is starving?
Who cares if no one can pay their bills?
Who cares if we’re all losing our home?
Certainly not the government
Certainly not the corporate world
Finding a quick way out of this world
Come back in 10 years
If you’re still alive
The economy might have picked up by then
There will be more
Marketing and Sales jobs then
Selling useless services and products no one wants
To a world who no longer understands
The most essential needs
Of a whole world
The primary needs of a nation
And how to go about providing for it
Whilst all the resources required are at hand
After all
No one is doing anything these days
And there are plenty of resources to go around
A virtual recession cannot and should never alter these facts
There’s plenty to go around
You can eat and survive this very day
Simple
Our priorities are just misplaced
Our ways of going about things
Are misguided
So simple!
Well!
There are billions of dollars to be made
At a time of recession
We’re all desperate
We’re all in need of something
We are all ready to produce what this world needs!
So what are you waiting for?
Somehow I’m sure we can pay for it
As long as we can earn something
To pay for it
Or did you forget about that?
You’ve got to develop a broader view man!
Of the capital markets
Help it and it will help you
Forget about it and you are dead
Forget about it
And a whole world’s economy
Comes to a full stop
Never mind any consequence
Capitalist planning
Only do something if one can make a dollar
And certainly don’t do anything
If one cannot make at least a billion dollars
I’m afraid
Such a way of thinking
Such capitalist way of planning
Can only bring this world
To an early grave
This is the end of humanity
Unless somehow
We can change our whole way of thinking
Our whole way of going about business
So what is it going to be?
I am ready to die
I am ready for the end of the world
Are you?
***
“Without irony, this life would hardly be worth living.”
Roland Michel Tremblay, Poet for Human Rights
http://poetsforhumanrights.ning.com/profile/RolandMichelTremblay
see
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Dandelion Salad 
Really good poem. The major problem in America, and the nations of the world, has been the progressive movement. The enemy is has not been at the gate for a long time now – They migrated into our schools and now sit accross from us in our very own living rooms.
They is something “wrong” with the Progressive movement? There is no “liberal media”; it is corporately owned and operated with one agenda: make money.
Turn off the TV forever.
Alas, all is not lost. There are many things to do in the world. When you can’t find a job, you can help people who are even less fortunatethan you are.
The love and compassion that you show will come back to you-hopefully in the form of gainful employment!