Aztec Ethics

In the museums we shudder With vicarious delight At the spectacle of the Aztecs - A high culture founded on human sacrifice, All the while not seeing - Because we don't want to - That the cult has never died; Only the name of the god has changed. Now we bend the knee in reverence Within our private cells Before the votive flame Of the flickering cathode ray In service to the great god TECH, The Iron Form That Has No Face. He sends his rain of bombs on foreign soils That we may reap Renewed Economy, Responding to their madness with his own. He sends the check that our children may eat, While those of others learn to scream at the sound of planes. Yes - we see The Need. Yes - we understand The Reasons. - But we don't have to like it. Our revulsion is still something we may call our own. Oh, what of it? This time let's do the honors ourselves. Let every mother, father, sister, brother, child and friend Of tomorrow's "Disposable Resources" Take the knife from the withered hand of one of TECH's High Priests, Those Four-Starred Ones, Plunge it deep and cut To rip our own hearts from our breasts And hold them beating before us in our hands As we march en masse towards his temple, Staggering down his sanitized audience hall, As more and yet more come crowding to the doors, To pile the bleeding mass before his feet. And on that day, Let the heartless meet the faceless and scream to him as One: "IS THIS ENOUGH? IS THIS ENOUGH?"