032: A Summer of The Poison Pyramid

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">During most summers in the U.S., one can expect soundtracked montages of pure Americana: music festivals, camping trips, BBQs, an onslaught of smash’em’up Marvel movies, beach parties, and 4th of July fireworks. But this summer, the world over, regardless of nation-state hallucinations and the petty borders carved by ancient violence, Mother Earth coughs up plagues, spits out wildfires, and vomits forth hurricanes. It’s been a nonstop clusterfuck of catastrophes. Doomscrolling through our social media feeds, paralyzed by anxiety, we see how millions face unemployment, healthcare loss, and eviction. The entire West Coast of North America is now threatened by the largest conflagration in modern history. We live in a time of great calamities. But those calamities have an origin story that must be identified, criticized, and undone in order to build a world of The Golden Square. The origin of these calamities lies in the toxic designs that Jesse</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">&</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">Matt collectively call The Poison Pyramid, a rotten triptych composed of hierarchy-producing machines: 1) Religion; 2) Capitalism; and finally, 3) Celebrity. We are living in yet another summer of this Poison Pyramid—best illustrated in a stunt orchestrated by amerikkka’s greatest huckster: Donald J. Trump, a raggedy pastiche of a man who trolled his way to the presidency. On June 1st, this flabby but unflagging con-artist directed police to deploy tear gas and violent tactics of domination to cleave through the George Floyd protests along Lafayette Square, so that he could stage a photo-op in front of St. John’s Church. Waving a bible haphazardly in the air, Trump became the pure apotheosis of The Poison Pyramid run amok—the toxic fumes of religion, capitalism and celebrity enmeshed in an expensive, violent,</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">&</span></em> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">vacuous nonevent. A fundamental matrix of domination,