Vox Populi
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature with over 10,000 daily visitors and over 9,000 archived posts.
Kim Stafford: How to make money
Sell munitions to nations at war. Sell relief supplies
for distribution at war. Fly diplomats around to talk
about war. Pay speech-writers to equivocate about war.
Drill for oil to burn the sky. Design a whole economy
based on oil. Talk about energy independence instead
of climate chaos. Invest heavily in the short view.
Pump sugar into the food chain. Flavor the food chain
with sugar, corn oil, and salt. Make junk food. Market
junk food. Sell junk food. Sell medications for people
who eat junk food. Put films online telling how to mitigate
effects of junk food. Pay lobbyists to convince legislators
not to legislate against war, petroleum, or junk food, not
to curb prices on medications required to mitigate the effects
of junk food, not to question greed. Pay writers to arrange
beautiful words to put on packages of junk food to convince
victims to keep buying more. Send junk food to war zones.
Put out press releases that are basically junk food. Make
political speeches about politics so people don’t think.
Keep telling people they need more. Make millions killing
people. Buy votes to install judges who let millionaires
keep killing people. It’s amazing how much you can make
killing people. And we haven’t even started on guns. Really
big money there. But why not you on the gravy train? Why
not get your share? It’s so easy. To learn how, click here.
Copyright 2024 Kim Stafford
Kim Stafford is Emeritus Professor at Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. He writes, teaches, and travels to raise the human spirit through poetry.
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Kim Stafford–a fine poet (and musician), son of poet William Stafford, both professors and devoutly anti-war–including opposition to systems of economics that war on the healthy human body…
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I agree! Philosophically, Kim and Willam are similar, and yet stylistically they are very different.
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oh pitiful for toxic Skies for modified fields of grain for satellite covered mountain tops above the parking Lanes America America God shit his blight on thee enslaved the folks from coast to coast calling it democracy
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“We” have made money (or gained other advantages) killing people as long as sapiens turned up. It’s mind-blogglingly depressing.
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Oh it is. Must get out of bed but there is so much that makes me want to turn over and sleep
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Wow! Yes! Of course. Sometimes poetry is a feather, sometimes a hammer. Sometimes a hammer isn’t enough to save the world. Ask Pete Seeger.
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yes, sometimes poetry is a hammer.
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