The Wild West

by Gene Splicing

The New West is far to the Eastern Front. The new ‘Break-away Republics’ now wander, drifting Westward in the New World Order. Somewhere in those medieval coal belts the school children are rounded up once a week and taken down into coal mines to breath filtered fresh air. Thick billowing clouds of future death spew from industrial smokestacks and float into the farming river valleys, settling on and covering the trees, houses and people. Everything begins to take on it’s color. Industrial pollutants gush from drains and leaking pipelines to poison the air, water and the land itself.

Post police-state market extortion and crime (what’s the difference?) rise with the degree of freedom granted. Post-war countries without the war. The New Cartel managers sharpen their flensing knives and move in for the kill.

Westward still, France’s train dives into the Queen’s tunnel - back and forth. Germany’s 4th Reich rears it’s ugly head, sending it’s tentacles throughout Europe. A war rages in Serbo-Croatia and nobody wants anything to do with it. The Irish keep bombing the shit out of each other.

In New York City, Detroit and Chicago corporate CEO’s are issued ‘golden parachutes’ for their idiotic management while their soon-to-be unemployed faithful workers are given lead ones. That ‘huge sucking sound’ out of the South grows louder.

A brand-new rash of sure-fire hit television shows assault the airwaves with comedy that is reduced to insults, adventure which is reduced to car-chases and explosions, and drama which always involves some kind of abuse.

Is it possible to buy a product that doesn’t have text on it? Is it legal? Is it possible to by a product without some kind of chemical in it? Why does it cost extra to not put that stuff in my food?

The Drug Hysteria out of Washington has turned into the Welfare Queen Hysteria. We’re sick of handing out $600 a month for people to raise their families in luxury when that money is desperately needed by Corporate Agri-business to be paid to not grow crops, government bailouts of railroads, airlines and car manufacturers and tax credits and ‘incentives’ for big business and for the bloated contracts of the dead-beat and corrupt defense contractors.

Politicians consult public opinion polls, demographics and political contractors while shunning reality.

Closer to the edge of Western civilization is the land of the ‘Food Stylist’ and ‘Color Therapist’. This is where an evening of edible art, and irritating music are considered a cultural night out. Where pessimistic cynicism is a national state of mind.


Way Out West © 1993 Martin Scherer. Venus & Mars © 1995 Martin Scherer. E-mail: Scherer@tesserak.net