c'mon now

was anyone really surprised all this stuff went down? seriously?

i mean, did anyone hear these commercials by countrywide home loans and the like "it's the biggest no-brainer in the history of mankind!" bla bla bla bla---

"c'mon now! you know you need some cash. just a nice little teeny tiny loan, super duper low percentage rate, piece of cake!! nothing to it!! get some cash, buy some more stuff!! you know, you know you need more stuff!"

gadgets! ipods, electronic toys of all kinds, stereo systems, the latest lamp from pottery barn, plenty of nifty ikea stuff that's almost disposeable (though you'll have to bag it yourself)

at the grocery store? well, you're gonna get to do the work there too. everyone can pack his own groceries!! no more personal touch in ANYthing. everything mechanized! customer service phone trees that make you wait and hang up on you and switch you between departments and make you keep track of fifty bajillion little pieces of paper with passcodes or authentication codes or account numbers, until the information just spins and spins in your head til you can't keep track of it anymore, just numbers on a screen, nothing you can reach out or touch, and always that feeling like you aren't doing well enough, you aren't cool enough or fashionable enough or pretty enough or "stimulated" enough and the solution is going to be to SPEND money on something to make you FEEL that way!!!

so get that cash in hand, by god!

i mean, did anyone hear those countrywide spots? did anyone not think to himself, "this guy is the biggest crook in the history of mankind"? seriously?

everybody knows the dice are loaded
everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
everybody knows the war is over
everybody knows the good guys lost
everybody knows the fight was fixed
the poor stay poor, the rich gets rich
that's how it goes
and everybody knows

.....everybody knows that it's now or never
everybody knows that it's me or you
everybody knows that you live forever
ah, when you've done a line or two
everybody knows the deal is rotten
old black joe's still picking cotton
for your ribbons and bows
and everybody knows

and everybody knows the the plague is coming
everybody knows that it's coming fast
everybody knows that the naked man and woman
are just a shining artifact of the past
everybody knows the scene is dead
and there's going to be a meter on your bed
that will disclose what everybody knows.

everybody knows that you're in trouble
everybody knows what you've been through
from the bloody cross on top of cavalry
to the beach at malibu
everybody knows it's coming apart
take one last look at this sacred heart
before it blows.

everybody knows.

leonard cohen