4.02.2014

Affluenza and the Rise of the Phoenix (Again)

"The sun is on my side
Take me for a ride
I smile up to the sky
I know I'll be alright"

Pocket Full Of Sunshine--Natasha Bedingfield


Somewhere in these ramblings I said that I'd love forever the person that would write me a poem. I really thought no one would hear me. I do ramble for the sake of rambling. This blog has become more ramble-spot than anything, which is why I don't seek bullshit professionalism and (pretty much) say whatever I want. However, someone did send me a poem. The poem came from Alabama (shudders). What is it with my being surrounded by places like Alabama and Tennessee and such, lately? I don't have anything against them, I suppose. The places. Many of the people, though, have a thought process that is alien to me. I can't waste time on people who seem to want to run around telling others that they are somehow innately 'less' for this reason or that reason--whether its the bible, racial make-up, or sexuality. It's all the same pain for everybody, no matter how the world's been set up. And no matter the rules put in place to assure that some stay tormented and on the bottom so the one's on top can feel a little bit better about their own shit. 
Anyway, as an honest person, I have to say that the poem was written rather beautifully. I sincerely wish that the person who wrote it had taken the time to extend their efforts toward something more positive. Beautiful things, wrapped in ugliness, are eclipsed by that ugliness. The poem was about a phoenix. We all know phoenixes rise. It is their sole talent. The phoenix in this poem had risen again only to be slaughtered again. It was going to do this over and over. Rise and die. Rise and be murdered. An endless loop. Forever. 
Deep shit, huh?
The poem faulted the phoenix for being mundane about its necessity to rise. I fault those who slaughter the creature every time it extends its wings and tries to fly. To the poet, I say, "Tell your  psychopathic, murderous, pompous, asshole, friends to leave the fucking thing alone."
But thank you for thinking of me.

____________

A while ago, I wrote about a new word. The new word was Affluenza. I said that we'd be hearing that word again because, frankly, the world has changed. Recently, Robert Richards IV (heir to the DuPont fortune) was convicted of raping his daughter and infant son repeatedly. There's some blah blah blah about what, exactly, he penetrated the little girl with, but he did penetrate her with something. It's still rape whether you use your fingers or a baseball bat, right? I believe this kid was three years old, the female. The boy was simply called 'the infant". Billionaire Richards screwed his kids and got caught. 
The judge presiding over his trail said: "He will not do well in prison" and gave Billionaire Richards probation (and some rehabilitation) only for the years of abuse his children suffered at his hands. Who the fuck "does well" in prison? Does anybody who goes to prison do well there? The people who rape kids go to prison and they are not expected to do well. It's long been known that the rehabilitation rate in prison is, pretty much, zero. So, why does anybody go to prison anymore? And why does Billionaire Richard's child molesting ass get to sit at home when other people have to be incarcerated for the same crime?

Affluenza. Say it with me. Roll the Z...

...And let's do the math...
You can kill people if you're wealthy and get away with it. You can rape your kids if you're wealthy and get away with it. Now, none of this is exactly new, but, before, it was all cloak and dagger--deals done in the dark and shit like that. Currently, this stuff is right in your face, shiny new word and all. 

Affluenza + Victim = No Crime. 

Add this to the fact that poor people are being locked up at an accelerate rate in America to be the fuel for the private prisons of this nation, and shit's looking pretty damn bleak while we all stare at our overpriced Iphone5's and play Flappy Bird. The cops are beating the living shit out of people and raping people and, generally, running amok on the poor. Did anyone see that poor tiny young bystander at the University of Arizona? Was she even five-foot-two? Did she weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet? A riot cop barreled into that poor tiny woman like she was William the Refrigerator Perry and he had to take her down in order to score. What was she doing? Walking. Talking to someone on her cell phone. She hadn't done anything. Personally, it was stunning for me in this case to see a grown ass man so ready to hit a woman with such force in the first place. Once upon a time, behavior like that would have been frowned upon. Those days are gone. 

I do not expect a perfect world. My answer to the ancient question of whether people are basically good or basically bad, is the latter. More than anything, I think most people are fucking stupid, lazy, and have little to no empathy anymore. Whatever's easier is the way to go. Believe whatever the television tells you to believe, etc. Do. Not. Think. 

The police shot a homeless man recently. He was probably schizophrenic and needed to be in one of those mental institution we don't have anymore. They told him to put his knife down. He refused. They shot him a truly ridiculous Terminator-Schwarzenegger amount of times with automatic rifles, and when he went down they sicced a German Shepard on him for awhile to make sure that he didn't get back up and come at one of the ten or so of them with that little knife he had. Of course, he couldn't do that because after about twenty or so rounds of heavy artillery, he was, very much, dead. 

It didn't have to be me to understand that what happened there was wrong as hell. I don't have to have a degree in psychology to know that there was something mentally wrong with that man and he needed help, that he felt threatened and afraid. All he had wanted to do was sleep somewhere where someone couldn't hurt him. And he died for the audacity 'not to have' in a world where what you have makes you more or less a human being. 

And it's getting worse and worse and worse and worse...

We have lords and ladies people, an upper class that is not bound by the same rules as they rest of us. They're coming out of the shadows and stepping into the light, done with pretending that equality-bullshit-dream. 

Our prison plantations are flourishing. 

And Flappy Bird on my six-hundred dollar phone is still fun as fuck...I have forty six. What's your score?

___________

Dusts off the wings you broke...


 photo phoenix_zpsbc95fb81.jpg
Fuck you.


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