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Once the orgasm at the climax of philosophy,
“democracy” now connotes
lawyers, tobacco ads, CIA-choice cocaine,
and atomic bombs in your own back yard.
“Workers” are read as stereotypical rednecks
driving pick-up trucks,
stopping for a beer, gay-bashing, or rape
on their way home from a vanishing job.
The other 90% of us are now termed
“employees.”
Freedom flies on wings of Virginia Slims,
streets with armed guards and gatecards,
and just-say-no,
while wet dreams become the holy grail
of a postmodern sensibility
out of touch with sense, freedom,
workers or democracy.
They have stolen the beard from Marx’s cheeks,
the tongue from Luxemburg’s mouth,
the words from our imaginations,
the hope from our gray-matter eyes --
until tomorrow, when a few million
stereo-non-typical
non-existent
workers
discover that we have been here
ever since whenever,
and our power, democracy, freedom, sense, and sensibility
are realer than the Internet’s pulse.
-- Sam Friedman
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