Things Are Against Us Quotes

“The United States of America has now reached a whole new level of patriarchal absurdity. You mean they massacred the Indians, enslaved the Africans, cut down all the trees, poisoned all the rivers, and extinguished or imprisoned all the animals for THIS, this hellhole of bombast and hamburgers and opioid addictions and cardboard-box houses and pretend ideas? You mean they used up all the oxygen on 4th of July firecrackers and forcing kids to pledge allegiance to the flag every goddam day, drank Coke till they choked, spat tobaccy till they puked, fought cancer (but only for people with lots of money), nestled in Nestlés, slurped slurpees, burped burpees, handed on herpes, Tasered the wayward, jailed the frail and tortured about a million billion chickens (then fried and ate them), just so people can drive around and shoot each other and create GoFundMe sites to pay the hospital bills?”
― Lucy Ellmann, Things Are Against Us

“What riches there once were, what beauties! Raindrops on roses and crop tops on cuties. Now it's just tear gas and water hoses, and Mexican children tied up with strings. These are a few of their favourite things. Quarry every mountain, wreck every stream.”
― Lucy Ellmann, Things Are Against Us

“Americans are acutely unaware of the past and the future. Also, the present. History is infinitely malleable for them. So is reality. Are they just undereducated, indoctrinated, chronically indifferent, hypnotised, or too damn busy makin’ a buck? Consumed by consumerism, they wallow in army fatigues and self-regard, coveting the next dynamite Apple doodad or an AK-47, plasma screen and some Nikes. They have worried everybody and ruined the earth, all so that they can prance around, effect insouciance, drink beer, watch football, guzzle Sloppy Joes and Oreos, wear pro-Auschwitz sweatshirts, make pipe bombs, absorb incessant rock music, object to positive discrimination and the public display of female nipples, wonder whether the mailman has shut the mailbox properly, and choose a new euphemism for excretion yearly.”
― Lucy Ellmann, Things Are Against Us