The Reality Manifesto

She didn't want to do it but they made Her, it really wasn't Her fault. Look, if you don't get this, then you won't understand anything. It was a matter of conceptual conquest, a hijacking of homelands. She was a war prize. To the victor go the spoils. They raped her then, each of them in their own fashion.

An assembly line generating engorged genitalia.
Rendering the victim a reconstituted replica.
A derelict waste.
Submissive.
Succumbed.

Lately, Sam decided to give it a go.
His lust was uncontrollable.
But it was all for Her own good.
Sam knows best.
Sam always gets to decide.

Sam eats meals he never cooks, off of dishes he never cleans.
Sam flies first class to Costa Rica every weekend so he can pay eighteen dollars to smear feces on the bare-chested dark-skinned natives.

A self-made man, a venture capitalist.
Religious as any polygamist.

A gambler, he made a bet to a triumphant Trickster dwelling in the drilled-out deserts. The Trickster could borrow Her, just for a time, in exchange for a taste of the dark nectar dripping from putrid petals, compressed slivers of cellulose buried far bellow. Mined and exported.

The part that everyone forgets to mention, is that all along, Sam knew it was coming. It was all part of the deal. In the early morning the initiates would wake Her violently, twin explosions of eroticism on replay, badly damaging Her, knowing that they themselves would die.

You can't complain if your tongue has been ripped out.

You can't think straight if every angle of every evangelical broadcast forces you to face the fearsome fact that you are being attacked. Sam knew just how to work things to his advantage; he was already poised for pre-emptive invasion. It was a paint-by-number playland, and somehow he would twist things around, make things fall into place, little by little, as he litigated his authoritative legislation under the guise of pursuing freedom.

Oh, and the Trickster, he made off silently into nocturnal refuge.
His brothers and sisters were juxtaposed, superimposed as scapegoats in his place.
The perfect patsies for a premeditated plan to instate power structures indefinitely.
Ironically enough they would still flock to his callused cause.
Ironically enough they would continue to revere him even as they were besieged.
The Trickster has become a graven image.
Invoked whenever Sam feels the need to appropriate approval.

Everything is going according to plan.

Sam was never one to care for children.
They were no more than a nuisance, and that's where the napalm came in.
There isn't room in his heart for compassion.
Future generations will just have to deal with the depleted uranium.
All that matters to him is materialism.

And now that he has Her right where he wants Her, he's doing quite well for himself. Constantly aggregating wealth, and developing superior strength through supply-side economics. Mergers and media consolidation go hand in hand with the polling of public opinion. Masterful mandates are handpicked, pre-plotted productivity charts, harnessing the power of electronic ballot initiatives.

Sam has Her locked in the trunk of his machismo sport utility vehicle, bound like some kind of family fetish, gagged and mutilated for short term gain. Generations are drowning in deficit spending, while he fulfills his deranged desires like some kind of penthouse prepubescent punk.

Sometimes, Sam's good friend D. Jones comes over, inflated with anticipation.
Giddy over the increase in arms production and resource exploration.

They let Her out of confinement long enough to violate Her last semblance of sexual sanity. Their dehumanizing actions are motion captured and video edited, a spectator sport glamorized and exported, channeled through primetime prisms, repeated oceans away, emulated by fanatic fans on hooded and wired prisoners of war.

Sam always denies the results of his actions.
Sam forgets that to some he's still a role model.

All around, the tell-tale signs of Sam's decadence are taking their toll. Species going belly-up, extinct, and being granted endangered status to no avail. Icecaps melt, adversely affected by his habitual gluttony. Violence intensifies as the wicked are weeded out, enemies multiply faster than he can exterminate them. Poverty rises, throwing its lot in with famine and disease. Population continues to explode like a plague, perpetually eliminating diversity, damaging ecosystems. Without Her guiding hand, everything is falling apart.

And somehow, despite all this, Sam's domination only continues to expand.
He celebrates with D. Jones, popping corks, and lighting cigars with hundred-dollar bills.
Deluding everyone into believing that he is holding Her hostage for their own safety.
The paradox of simultaneously defending and destroying Her is lost upon him.
But then, Sam was never one to closely examine the complexities of an issue.

Bruised and beaten, She cries alone in the dark, waiting for someone to come to Her aid.
Those who knew Her long ago, they called Her Liberty.
And after all the abuse, this is all She can remember.

Sam still claims that this is all in Her best interest.
That he is carrying this all out in Her name.
Sam knows best.
Sam always gets to decide.

It is easy to grow arrogant when you've convinced everyone to call you Uncle.
And if he gets away with it, it will be no one's fault but your own.
And if he gets away with it, you'll have no one to blame but yourself.

Written by Ramla Alethea

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