no more

i've seen a lot of hate in my life
and i'm sure you have too.
hate is a given.
hate is a common thread that is bound in ignorance.
what we don't know will harm us.
it will harm the people around us.
it will harm what we stand for and
who we love.

when i talk about them, i'm talking about
those with ignorance and hate and bigotry
and homophobia and racism and greed
and... and... and...

they are everything i don't stand for.
since you're reading this, those are ideas you
probably don't stand for either.
sometimes it feels like i've been hurled into
an alternate universe where the bizarre has
taken precedence over logic and reasoning.
i can't believe that ignorance of this caliber still
exists. in this day and age where communication
is just a touchscreen away. in this day and age
where information is so readily available. in this
day and age, how can stupidity still thrive?

it is the ignorance of a greedy America
where education, health, hunger, and logic
take a back seat to profit margins and capitol
gains. we are a great country held hostage
by corporate kingpins, hellbent on creating
a nation of slave labor.

we are an America more concerned with ratings
and catch phrases than we are with sheltering our
homeless or tending to our sick. we are a nation
driven by sound bites and conflict rather than the
need to educate our children or providing nourishment
for our hungry.

i often feel like this is a cruel joke perpetrated by
the most ironic, twisted comedian to ever hit the stage.
it seems so ridiculous that it has to be a prank.
but it's not. the atrocities we endure are very real.
the world we live in is not a joke. it is a place where
we have given up reading for easier entertainment,
where we have allowed our food to be poisoned with
chemicals to retain color, add bounce, and inflate us
to bloated proportions. this is a place where we are
actually debating whether love and marriage between
two consenting adults should be regulated. this is a
place where we are forced to choose between two
candidates with an equal agenda that only profit those
who are currently in business to make profit.
we live in a country where housing was made affordable
with a twist that would ensure Americans would lose their
homes and be forever in debt to a system that fails us.
we are broken but not beaten. but when education costs
more than the employment it renders, when homes cost more
in interest than we will ever be able to pay for in a lifetime,
when debt is the norm based on invisible money that is conjured
out of thin air and solely based on faith and good will, we are losing the fight.

it is directly related to ignorance and complacency.
the world we live in is a world that we have allowed
ourselves to live in because we refuse to take a stand
against ignorance and complacency.  it begins with
loving what we have and not being concerned with
what we cannot afford. it begins with each and every
individual taking a stand because they are tired of being
kicked to the curb. it begins with a single word: No.

no more hate and bigotry
and homophobia and racism and greed
and... and... and...

no more ignorance and complacency
and fear and paying debts we cannot afford
and... and... and...

no more talking about secret societies
building wealth to own the planet for their own
wicked greed.

no more suffering for the sake of suffering.

no more twisted truths.

no more ignorance.

no more.

or we can stand by and wait until our planet is a giant
pile of shit and our children can't get a job because
they lack the education and skills to perform and our homes
have all been taken away to rot on empty lots owned by big banks
and everyone is hungry for just a crumb from the pie that
the rich have taken for themselves and no one is allowed to love one
another freely and the difference between hate and acceptance
are one and the same.

maybe we should buy that shiny new iPhone
we've been wanting
that costs a nickel to make in some foreign country that is
quickly becoming
just like us.