Category Archives: Economics

May 7, 2022 · 3:09 pm

Tax Deductible – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: theindependent.co.uk

“International aid is just another praetorian business enterprise.” Arundhati Roy

Tax Deductible 

The paralysis of the west is its deep,
unspoken anxiety of imposter syndrome,
that it is a living lie of heroes and bare 
trinket chests covered in cheap, gaudy
promises of solutions wrapped in dreams
of self-serving outcomes pretending to
be hope, masquerading as moral piety,
offering platitudes chained in addiction.
The anxiety of the west is rooted in its
narcissism.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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April 17, 2022 · 2:26 pm

Freedom Is A Crime – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: image.freepik.com

“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. it is your spirit, or it is nowhere.” Ursula K. Le Guin

Freedom Is A Crime

The reign of soft comfortable terror,
the reign of necessity is upon us,
everything defined by power is suddenly sacred,
democracy is consuming itself in a frenzy of 
suicide, all freedom is referenced to protecting
money, but never ours, only that which is taken 
from us because what is given was never actually
given in the first place.

Our institutions are proverbial frogs boiling,
they have duped us in their complicit duplicity
with the vanities of politics, so much is  now
don't, everything must be authorised, you shouldn't
behave that way, everyone must conform in order 
to perform life, the sheep bleat, but woe betide they 
should bark; to challenge, to dissent, is to know that 
paradox, ever old, that freedom is a crime.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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April 11, 2022 · 2:20 pm

It Begins With Me – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: from goodmenproject.com

“A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window.” Gilles Deleuze 

It Begins With Me

In the search for nothing,
which has become a search
for everything at great cost,
where people are left behind,
where nothing and no one
matters very much, and 
some are even erased,
non-existent by dint of race,
gender, or creed, then there
is a beginning, a leaving,
when some have seen the signs,
declaring, no more, it's time
to leave, to stop, to change
the awful things, the broken ones,
the hurt and the pain, to take our
leave of hatred, jealousy and greed,
it begins, and
it begins with me.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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February 5, 2022 · 10:55 pm

The Careful Erosion – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: History.org.uk Then British PM Neville Chamberlain returning from his meeting with German chancellor Adolf Hitler in 1938 where an agreement was reached that Britain and Germany would not seek to go to war. Chamberlain was an appeaser who was played by Hitler. The photo is iconic as it defines Chamberlain’s speech which includes the now infamous line “I believe it is peace in our time.” which was never true. The iconic photo is a signifier of believing what you want to believe even when all evidence points to the opposite.

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our mind.” Bob Marley

The Careful Erosion 

Once, the beast was contained in
civility and the piety of naivety which
held the line against fearful things
potentially foisted on us all by the 
well-meaning midwives of decay,
who carelessly fling open the 
overton to the highest bidders of
necrotising freedom, and thereby, 
we fall for all the carefully manicured 
spiracies birthing our nightmares,
while never noticing the careful
erosion of what it means to be human,
to be a person, inviolable, and where we 
descend  into a catabolic, zombie
existence, all the time believing it is
for our own good.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

Note: 'Overton' is a reference to the theory of the Overton Window which is a model that helps us understand how ideas change and shift over time and influence politics. The theory accepts that politicians are limited in what policy decisions they can support and that policy decisions that are not generally accepted will cost support for the politicians if they choose to pursue them.

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February 2, 2022 · 11:42 pm

Defining Moment – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: from therugbygroup.sandler.com

“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.” Dante Alighieri 

Defining Moment

We are never so defined as by our crises,
the irruptions of pressure force change,
suddenly malaise transforms to purpose,
individualism rediscovers its malignancy.

The irruptions of pressure force change,
denial is the most useless safety helmet,
individualism rediscovers its malignancy,
slowly but surely we leave our cocoons.

Denial is the most useless safety helmet
while ignorance is the tightest kevlar,
slowly but surely we leave our cocoons,
the dividing line of transition now drawn.

While ignorance is the tightest kevlar,
suddenly malaise transforms to purpose,
the dividing line of transition now drawn,
we are never so defined as by our crises.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

Note: in this I am deeply influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre’s dictum that the French were never so free as when Germany occupied France – meaning that it suddenly gave purpose, called forth identity and action.

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January 26, 2022 · 10:12 pm

Whose Time Has Come – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: From acmstravel.com a view of the Whanganui River, NZ which in 2012 was recognised in NZ law as a natural entity with legal rights equivalent to humans. This followed on from the first landmark case in 2008 in Ecuador when the Vilcabama River was protected by granting it rights at law.

“Nature cannot be seen solely as a resource to be owned, exploited and profited from.” Suzanne Benally

Whose Time Has Come

Global never thinks local,
only to its own lusted desires,
but among the suited ties of
the mean sx landing barges
comes the conscienced 
resistance of the locals, 
whose time has come to speak
of cousins as rivers and trees,
whose rights are sacred and
who now wait to sue the suits
off miners who would euthanase 
every breath of life in an irony
of futures doomed.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 21, 2022 · 10:49 pm

Someone, Something, Somewhere – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: by skitterphoto at pixabay.com

“All choices are fraught with peril, but inaction is the most perilous of all.” Frewin Jones

Someone, Something, Somewhere

Sitting with our eyes closed in a dark mediation,
we're not painting slogans,
not marching or gathering,
we haven't written much at all,
no rallying call lingers on our lips,
just sitting, waiting, hoping
that someone or something,
somewhere, will cause a spark,
meanwhile we're
sitting with our eyes closed in a dark meditation.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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November 6, 2021 · 2:51 pm

What Comes Next? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: images.dailykos.com

“Any system that values profit over human life is a very dangerous one indeed.” Suzy Kassem 

What Comes Next?

Who welcomes the stranger at their door,
how sacred is this finite threshold of
interwoven beliefs hanging so thinly,
a bulwark against the damp demise,
reinforcing  our carefully curated fantasy,
which, like a paper bag in the rain,
causes us to dare consider its collapse 
into someone's reality, an insecure
subjectivity we might cling to as if
to a child eagerly seeking a parent 
in a sea of discordant confusion, 
something might make sense.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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July 21, 2021 · 2:54 pm

You Cannot – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Art work: found at notbuyinganything.blogspot.com

“The new slavery is consumerism.” Bryant McGill

You Cannot

You cannot make a silk purse from the isms of life
though many have tried and succeeded for a time,
wrapping them in beautiful magnetic attraction,
only to reveal an emptiness of meaning as crisis.

Though many have tried and succeeded for a time,
too soon the facade faded to its skeletal menace
only to reveal an emptiness of meaning as crisis,
the very dust we are returning to laughs at our surmise.

Too soon the facade faded to its skeletal menace,
a harbour of jaundiced, unrepentant misery,
the very dust we are returning to laughs at our surmise,
thinking we could trust the gratuitous laminate-life.

A harbour of jaundiced, unrepentant misery,
wrapping them in beautiful magnetic attraction,
thinking we could trust the gratuitous laminate-life,
you cannot make a silk purse from the isms of life.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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June 12, 2021 · 2:05 pm

Swallowing Whole – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: images.wisegeek.com

“Violating human rights is integral to the project of neoliberalism ….” Arundhati Roy

Swallowing Whole

I'm bemused that so many people are fooled,
swallowing whole the telegenic performances
given by those who consume our lives
before they ultimately consume themselves.

Swallowing whole the telegenic performances,
so disingenuously masked by the greedsters 
before they ultimately consume themselves
on the vain, rude altar of corporate sacrifice.

So disingenuously masked by the greedsters,
opiate bait for the masses to be offered 
on the vain, rude altar of corporate sacrifice,
hoping for meaning among future generations.

Opiate bait for the masses to be offered,
given by those who consume our lives,
hoping for meaning among future generations,
I'm bemused that so many people are fooled.

Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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