I have not brougt any verse to Gather for a while, no reason except I lost interest in the site. Anyway, I decided its time to up my visibility so here we go...
Whenever our leaders make a mess
they tell us we should welcome progress,
moving forward, embracing change,
though the world around us grows more strange.
Always the propaganda makes us
meekly follow where the machine takes us.
From recession to dotcom bubble
we knew the world was heading for trouble,
knew we ought to hedge our bets
buy the system said "increase your debts
and fuel and endless spiral of growth,
moving faster no room for sloth."
Work and spend and spend and borrow,
consuming like there's no tomorrow.
Energy prices, sub - prime crisis,
all the time the pressure rises,
war on drugs, war in Iraq,
war on the poor, no turning back,
technology overload, obsession with youth,
the great divide between north and south.
Half the world starving, half obese,
homeless people on the streets
while bankers all grow richer yet
buying and selling bundles of debt.
Forests burning, nature in retreat
corporations and nations must compete.
Carbon footprints in the sand,
everything available on demand.
People sick and dying of stress
and yet they tell us this is progress.
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Comments: 45
Maybe you should add a picture of a handbasket.
How about galley slaves -- "row, row, row your boat" wasn't always the hit it is today.
The whole thing is great, but these lines especially hit me:
Work and spend and spend and borrow,
consuming like there's no tomorrow.
The foolishness is compounded by the facts that we are encouraged to do this, and that many people get so lost in it that they forget to enjoy life.
This line hurts because it makes me feel ashamed: Half the world starving, half obese
Danielle S,
Well if you send me a picture I'll put it in.
Good record but I had to think of the lyric. Actually, when I was tweaking Progress I thought in one or two coplets it was reminiscent of Billy Joel's "We didn't start the fire."
I would not argue that things had ever been great, what I am lamenting is the missed opportunities of the last 50 years. Here is the UK eleven years ago Labour, the political party currently in power was deriding their opponetnts during the run up to an election for creating conditions in which 90% of the disposable wealth was in the hands of 10% of the population. After ten years of Labour's version of progress, 90% of the disposable wealth is now concentrated in the hands of 3% of the population.
To clarify, disposable wealth is that which can easily be converted to spendable cash.
The hundred years war? That was not a mess it was par for the course in the fourteenth century. The past is a foreign country etc.
Can't agree the Crusades were a mess in the sense that globalisation is a mess. The Crusades were a cocku - up.
Yeah but... no -one expected The Spanish Inquisition :-)
And Witch trials are often misreported. Most women accused of being witches were aquitted. You see the witchfinders worked on the principle of The Devil helps his own. So they would throw the accused woman off a church tower, fill her apron with stones and throw her in a lake, put her on a fire or torture her, and if she survived it was because The Devil had protected her so she was executed.
If the did not survive she was innocent and was free to leave the court without a stain on her character although there were usually quite a few on the follor of the court.
I agree, leisure suits were a mass in fact they are probably responsible for the mess we have got into since.
We are heading towards another global conflict and Bird Flu could jump the species barrier any time. Things have just gone in a big circle.
You just like to watch me working hard don't you?
If the Cherokee had not allied with the cursed Hanoverians (My family lost their land because they supported Bonnie Prince Charlie) they might have kept their land, the Hanoverians could have been deposed, a fair and equitable regime under a celtic (Stewart) monarch restored, the War of Independence avioded and now you would all be happy and contented British citizens.
How's that for a getout.
The Black Plague ended the form of slavery known as the feudal system in much of Europe so don't be too hard on it.
Aztecs? As a character in a British sitcom once said, "you can't have freedom without killing a few people."
And the did build nice landscaped gardens though I prefer the less formal look of Stonehenge myself.
Galley slaves,
The drum beaters on those quinqueremes invented the backbeat on which all rock music is based so the oarsmen at least had great music to work to.
Neanderhals, don't feel sorry for them, they did not become extinct, simply morphed into Neo-cons.
I just get into a groove and you go and post a serious reply....thanks.
Ian
Are you telling me this was not an original Bush statement?
Here's an "A" for rising to the challenges, since I already did the rating bit.
Yes there are good things, many of them, but our leders are determined to throw them away. One of those things was the change in our lifestyle offered by computers. If we had used technology properly we could all be living comfortable lives but without the burden of debt imposed by consumerism only working two days a week.
The failure of government and the creed of capitalism have made us all work harder in order to obtain dubious material benefits but overall be less happy.
I like modern medicine and some other things. I'm not sure there's such a thing as "moral progress." That one is a Hydra problem. When you cut off one head...
Well put. Technological advances are not the same a social progress. As for modern medicine, you must remember the Druids were doing Brain Surgery around 500 BC. And most western medicine has its roots in Ayurvedic healing which can be traced back over 5000 years.
The character in the British sitcom was Alf Garnett, I believe the show, called Til Death Do Us Part here was remade in the US under a different title (I only looked it up 5 minutes ago and forgot it already) with a central character called Archie Bunker.
But Bush could not have originally said "you can't have freedom without killing a few people" as it was a long time ago before the evolution of neocons. So Bush was still a Neanderthal at the time and Neanderthals could not speak.
I was planning to set it to music, to a ska or reggae beat.
I still think that there's a general tendency, an in-built cognitive bias, for us to see all the things that have changed for the worse and ignore those that have changed for the better. This sort of thinking is a major force behind conservatism and all the golden age myths, rants about the youth of today, etc. Seeing things clearly is probably even tougher on a shorter time scale than comparing to the Middle Ages.
The Black Plague ended the form of slavery known as the feudal system in much of Europe so don't be too hard on it.
It certainly did cause increased mobility and contribute to the process that in Western Europe lead to the transition to a paid labor system and capitalism, but this effect was strongest in England and Holland. Unless you don't consider Southern and Eastern Europe (including much of what is now Germany) to be Europe, "much of Europe" is way off. In those places, serfdom was alive and well and enforced (with fluctuating rigor, depending on many circumstances) long after the Black Death.
Your Neanderthal theory could certainly explain a couple of things.
"Present day medicine has more to do with the scientific merthod."
Science, from the latin scientia, pp of scire, "to discern." I have argues with sscientists here in the UK about this mysterious "scientific method because many of them preach its efficacy with the fervour of religious zealots. "But there is no scientific evidence for (whatever)" they will whine before dissing some widely held view as superstitious and delusional.
Well all the scientific evidence proves the bumble bee cannot fly. And migrating whales have been recorded diving to depths of over 1500 feet to find rich food sources yet all the science says that beyond around 800 feet the pressure would crush the whale's skeleton.
You see the scientific science of scientists may say one thing, the reral science, that which we discern through observation and experience very often says something completely different.
Don't rely on what scientists tell you, a lot of the ones I used to work with were as loopy as religionists.
I gues if you had lived around 500 BC and needed brain surgery you would have been glad of the local Druid. There was nobody else. And don't let my friend Viki, an endocrinologist and qualified Ayurvedic healer. hear you question Ayurveda. She has just been part of a team that has achieved a breakthough in treating diabetes by adapting an ancient Ayurvedic technique.
Thanks for those witty and thought provoking replies.