Atlas Fucked - Intellectual

Crisis beckons, finally I learnt to suppress these senses

Against intuition, against this electronic life sentence

‘cause this glass-eyed stare at that screen is theoretically never-ending

I was certain [?] that the proliferation of information technology meant that we’d exist in our own wee boxes with autonomy

But the machine stops, ask E.M. Forster

And the longer that we reside in thought, the more it’ll cost us

7 Billion and counting, a net growth per day of 4,000

100,000 smart phones will be sold today, as our collective consciousness atrophies

Never collect on the debt of society, the capitalist in us intrinsic

Sell off the natural resources, shit out the gas and electric

My ephedrine ethics, a perfect synthetic, unfetter the market, let’s get paralytic

So pathetic it’s somehow impressive, extreme wealth is my only objective

And there’s no hope for collective action

Party politics makes me feel alienated and abandoned

All cunts in suits have ever done to me is objection handled

And they are never reprimanded for their horrible actions

‘cause forests are dying and soil is eroding; there’s droughts that’s on-going while bombs are exploding

This cognitive ocean, I exist as an anxious consumer and fuck all else

Ya got fuck all wealth, on a relative scale, constant poor health for this thin white male

In society’s concrete jungle, the apex predators wearing shark suits, it's

Time to rip them out by their roots

In me you’ll find no conclusions, just collude and keep moving

Building social movements

Capital versus organization, that’s the one true fight we’ve always been facing

Media makes us displaced with sensation, to place us in our identity cages

But gave us no agency to change it, behave as though Sisyphus will make it

Social rigidity, so compete for your safety net

You’re free to chase social status, but never socialist emancipation

News at 6 headlines make you raging, sweet catharsis, shout at the television

Sign this petition, get a Facebook page, dine on the divisions, woe for the human race

Keep hands and feet in the political parameters, ’til you’re powerless and can’t do any damage

You are nothing but a hedge fund bet, on screens hanging up in Wall Street

When your mind’s nothing but real estate

You say, "Fuck it, mate, I’ve got attention deficit"

To not fit inside the box that society moulds for you is a revolutionary action

So seize that magick, push that praxis, abandon every facet of society’s madness

’til the last fossil fuel is extracted, ’til children born in poverty’s a thing of the past

’til the demands of organized labour translate to tangible action

The most important task

Don’t remain passive

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We’re living through the time of technological vacants

The age of self-awareness mixed with ecocidal patience

We’re living in a time where time itself is at a standstill

All logic exhausted, masters of all skills

What’s left, after the memetic evolution?

We search for solutions in a journey with no conclusions

And people talk of waking up while they’re fast asleep

Counting sheep and listening to their chosen pastors preach, past belief

We’ve commodified every value and judgement, antagonistic and ugly

What the hell is this? Fucking capitalism? Well, patent pending

No manifest destiny so much as chancing it to the getaway

This is what grows in the gap where clarity should have been

Glued to the screen, a lucid dream you cannot control

Pass go, work for a wage, praise or hate the nation state

Maintain the status game, will this shit ever change?

Just keep working, don’t rock the boat, you need that next pay-slip to keep yourself afloat

Well how true is that? I guess I’ll never find out, the system offers me just enough to hold me down

Never push the drastic actions, instead I sit with a scowl

Masses are growing restless, just threaten our pensions

Austerity tightens, lower the food prices, an epidemic of depression, extend everyone’s credit

We have to rip the limb that holds the hand that feed us from the body politic

The only effective actions left are the extreme

We can’t be discreet in the face of genuine defeat

Beliefs are neat but dreams can only exist against the backdrop of reality

Gradually we’ve forgotten the ground beneath our feet

Too busy caught in our egos that we’ve bought into deceit

The private equity and speculative investment probably won’t seem as relevant when they’re lying on their deathbed

So tell me, was your company really so philanthropic?

Work yourself to death, then they bill you for the coffin

It’s easy to believe your contribution’s important

Really we’re just cogs they can dispose of at any moment

Profits might be soaring but there’s a deficit of hope

I’ve heard far too many stories of folks struggling to cope

We’re tryna make ends meet, there’s no time for philosophy

So it’s in their best interests to keep us struggling with poverty

With the chance to stop and think we’d see it’s all by design

And it could all be dismantled with a little pressure and time

But they pray on our frailties, and they prey on our fears

Monetize our anxieties, kick it into high gear

Keep us focused on divisions, tricked to shun the community

Atomized individuals seeking retail therapy

Profit over people, and only power over profit

And this system we’re locked in rewards this hollow logic so

I’ma get fucked up, I’ma drink myself to death

Fucking technologies of the self ‘cause I meditate everyday and I’m still stressed ‘cause

Economics fucks you up, I’ma sell my labour to the lowest bidder

Pop a hundred pills, live in sin and pull the trigger

Be 57, living on a couch, no chance of owning a house ‘cause

I’ma get fucked up

But don’t pretend that psychedelics gonna help me earn a living

Fuck you hippy dippy cunts, your vegan communes

That is revolution sung, your maw and da’s tune like

I’ma get fucked up

‘cause all the world’s ethics were decided on amphetamine

Adrenaline is better than beliefs, never practice what I preach

Tangled in this slavery of speech, I can’t even breathe

Bleeding hearts but closed minds lack action, and when they do act, they don’t act transparent

I wish I could influence politics as easy as I influence my consciousness

I said I wish I could influence politics as easy as I influence my consciousness

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Broadcasting live from the end of humanity, feeling stoic in my last frozen moment of clarity

The irony bitter as it butters the daily bread, a consolation gifted from a Facebook thread

I heard our knowledge is but a drop in the ocean, acidified now, and left polemically impotent

I curse injustice despite being its benefactor, like a winner of a poker game upon the Titanic

It seems fitting, the results of climate change are climactic

Thought I was winning when they found that oil under the Arctic

Turns out infinite growth, it cannot be sustained

And now everyone’s desperate to point the finger of blame

But I’m a victim of this system, ignorant of my privilege

Innocent as poor folks and immigrants I incriminate

Don’t question the foundation, if you stay complacent

We’ll occasionally raise the minimum wage, mate

We’ve been given the right to be righteous, without the responsibility

Patching holes in the scaffold and acting like it’s a victory

Victims of a culture born of perceived scarcity

That no longer exist but we still code for genetically

Is there an enemy or is it just lack of awareness?

That smothers a few in gluttony and leaves the rest homeless

A cosmic vehicle but we can’t see over the dashboard

A mad horde runs the crash course, just has hope

That someone’s in control, that there’s a failsafe

That we can afford to bank on a last minute escape

In the meantime, we worship at the altar of profit

Not stopping the bombing ’til I leave in a gold-gilded coffin

And pass down the wealth, continue the cycle

Proliferate the problems for the sake of a title

Fuel the boom and bust, the movement of global capital

He who gives a fuck about others doesn’t stand a chance

So we pour gasoline on the fire to protect ourselves from burning

And think happy thoughts as the world ceases to turn

In this anti-economy, there is no autonomy

Even freedom and liberty are owned by corporate monopoly

Where do we go from here?

‘cause I’ll soon give into the fear on my screen

I want to kick up a fuss, make a scene

But I’m getting old, man, and this world’s too cold

Where do we go from here?

‘cause I could give into the fear on my phone

Atomized activists acting alone

Just passive targets in a global market

Where do we go from here?

‘cause I’ll be subsumed by the fear on my streets

I just take drugs, I don’t eat, I don’t sleep

Violence is constant, when folk are so lost

Where do we go from here? Informed by my hate and my fear I will vote

And those who once comfortably gloated shall choke

So content in their privilege, ’til the consequences aren’t so distant