Abstract:

our democracy has become like some horrible board game 
having lost its direction(s) (and all purpose and meaning)
with its chewed-up mangled pieces moving round and 
round and round and round with no specific end  

Specifics:

people out here, out there, always seem to have the compulsive need to ask all these absurd very simplistic sweeping questions about what one thinks about the recent state of affairs in america, or in one fell sweeping generalization to just define it as if it’s its own planet or 'island unto itself' (idealized, glamorized) while in my opinion that can honestly only be opined by a person or population of 'ethnocentrism or exceptionalism' (both forms of isolationism or thought pattern that has no concept of anyone or anything around them, or surrounding topographical and geographical boundaries; do you think, for example, they ever ask such things like in france? switzerland? spain? italy? germany? belgium? england with their brilliant ancient cultures & civilizations and century upon century of history (with our hx of violence & violation & internment & incarceration one wonders if turning numb and convenient amnesia can be considered a clinical conclusion for the collective unconscious?) as opposed to our very efficient pristine strip malls of mcdonalds & home depots, as i think the only real true way to answer such ridiculous, objectified questions is to maybe go back to those science experiments we used to do in the middle of middle school for such dynamics as osmosis or the supersaturation point, watching particles penetrate fragile membranes or all fall out when just one more part is added or maybe even some poor teenage girl who suffers from border-line disorder so insecure and lacking in identity one day will make you their savior and the next the cause to all their problems; my point being, america really just seems to be (with its convenient disconnect) all these leftover shattered (self-centered, impulsive) pieces no one really noticing or caring to pick up and put back together again, while if really intellectually curious, in my opinion, the most clear and concise image is simply those classroom assignments we used to do as kids when we were just asked to shade in all those different sections of the map being like the appalachian mountains, the smokies, blue ridge and rockies, the louisiana purchase, 13 colonies, all those brilliant tributaries and rivers running through the great plains, the black hills, heartland, separating texas and oklahoma all the way up to the great northwest when you used to runaway desperately from port authority as a teenage runaway from new york city really trying to dig and find out what it was all about (with a ticket stuffed deep in your pocket like some old scroll made out of printed-out papyrus or origami paper accordion stretching from cleveland to kansas city to cheyenne to california knowing you're far better than all of them put together) taking those  long, impossible, nonstop, on-the-run trips, vacant, bleary-eyed on the back of greyhounds through all those dusty towns day in and day out through the never ending desert until you finally made it to gleaming san francisco suddenly rising majestically like some lost atlantis out of the misty, miraculous pacific...