The
Naked Lunch: when that bit of whatever is at the end of every fork
becomes fully understood in all of its particulars. When the veil is
parted and the truth is made clearly visible. That's what we need
around here.
There
are events unfolding around America and around the world that
require our immediate attention. I mean of the “or else” variety
of attention. You could follow what passes for the news media in a
lot more detail than I do and still only see passing shadows of
useful information on certain no-go subject matter. Things that
“they” don't want us to notice. I saw a brief note the other day
explaining how the number of oysters in British waters has gone down
ninety-five percent in the last, what was it, say forty years. That's
a temperature issue, a detail that the small article cleverly left
out.
This
morning I read about that huge “wind storm” that devastated a
wide swath of land on a north-easterly diagonal beginning in Arkansas
and ending up in Ontario, Canada. There were something like forty
tornadoes involved, and the damage was impressive, to say the least.
“Scores” of people were killed. One news aggregation site took
the bold step and wondered out loud: could this storm be related to
climate change?
That
reminded me of a cute creature-feature, black and white, early 1960s.
“The Swamp Creatures.” At one point, at about the 70% mark, when
all of the human characters who remain alive are quite familiar with
the titular monsters, a small group of men must make a dangerous
passage over swampy ground to get somewhere. They know that it is
what German troops used to call a “Himmelfahrtskommando,” (A
“trip to heaven mission.”) Sure enough, they hear the distinctive
clicking/ moaning sound that is associated with the creatures. They
all look concerned. One man says, “do you think it could be the
swamp creatures?” Viewers reacted as one, I'm sure, in thinking,
“yes, asshole, I think it could be the swamp creatures.”
The
problem is not always climate related. I've seen numerous scholarly
articles in the better magazines for twenty years now about the mass
disappearance/ extinction of flying insects, songbirds, and
amphibians. Related events, by the way. The new neurotoxin
insecticides are lighter than air, so wherever you spray them, they
just float off willy-nilly. The cloud of those chemicals now coats
the entire world, and there go the flying insects. They are very
sensitive to the poison involved. Songbirds' and amphibians' diets
consist of, you guessed it, flying insects. No one seems to notice,
or care. We are in the middle of a mass-extinction event that is
being closely observed by scientists, and totally ignored by everyone
else.
Many
of these massive crises involve political and geopolitical events.
The attention that they receive from the American government is
generally limited to economic sanctions, the formation of a
committee, or vague military threats that are usually implied by a
movement of forces. These announcements are most often made by
officials from either the State Department or the Pentagon. The rest
of the Washington political establishment remains fixated on either
making fun of President Biden and promising to oppose everything that
he does, trying to undo the election of 2020, or, in the case of the
Democrats, trying to appear to be doing something while sabotaging
themselves and carefully avoiding anything that might help them to
win any future elections. It's enough to make you sick. They act like
the rest of the world were comfortably resting with its head on a
rock in about 1958.
If
geophysical events are involved, committees are formed and
discretionary guidelines are set. These guidelines are not intended
to be met. They are for show. There are meetings. And nothing is
done, because the money people want nothing to be done. Burn coal;
wind farms kill birds; solar doesn't work when it rains. Oh, now I'm
going to be sick again.
If
they are social events, like the random, casual murder of a black man
by police somewhere, there may be demonstrations. People of all races
will get very angry. Articles will be written, and perhaps
legislation will be suggested, although none will be passed. There
will be little or no follow up. In time, it will all settle down, in
spite of the fact that the incidence of such police murders has
really been reaching a crescendo. There is no apparent notice taken
by our representatives or public officials; it all gets very little
coverage from our media. If the social events do not involve murder,
people in general may gloss over the whole thing, or laugh at a
topical joke on a late-night talk show, but there is no deeper
concern. Most people fail to take any notice at all.
Pop
Quiz! Raise your hand if you think that more than fifteen percent of
congress could find both Taiwan AND the Ukraine on a map. Fifteen
percent is being generous. Fewer than that could speak one coherent
sentence about those boiling crises. Both of those countries are
recent creations. How many congressmen could explain both origin
stories? How did they get to this point? Are there colorable
arguments on both sides, or are they both simple land-grabs?
Wake
up! Come on! It's all-hands-on-deck time!
The
Parties
Are
all races, nationalities, and demographics equally clueless regarding
these challenges? Why no, they are not.
Prosperous
white Americans will overlook anything as long as the government
keeps their taxes low and overlooks their off-shore tax havens. They
adopt the corporate party line about things like climate change,
COVID-19, police behavior (misbehavior), and pretty much everything
else. The most desperately poor white Americans do not have any
energy left after navigating a moneyless world with little or no
government assistance. There were over one hundred thousand opioid
overdose deaths last year, so it's safe to say that a great number of
the helpless, hopeless poor are self-medicating themselves to death.
Include meth in your calculations.
White
Americans in the middle somewhere are busy trying to keep their heads
above water. Have you seen what's been happening with rents in the
last few years?
Black
Americans bring their customary hypervigilance to many issues, but
most often to issues that affect them personally or brush up against
their own issues. They can't be bothered with the shrinking
population of flying insects, but on many social justice issues they
can be trusted to take the point. I am thankful for them.
My
hunch is that Hispanic Americans are very concerned with climate
related issues. They, after all, are much more aware of crop related
issues than other groups. They are big on the social justice front as
well.
Self-described
Republicans can be trusted to be on the wrong side of any issue. The
only anti-vaccine individuals in my family are avowed Republicans.
Climate change is a hoax, etc.
Self-described
Democrats are, as usual, a mixed bag. They may be NIMBY* liberals, or
they may follow the money, or they may only have the feeling that the
Republicans are pushing this hard right wing thing a bit too quickly.
More likely they are just decent people who love justice and
diversity, but who will not do anything to risk one iota of their own
personal money or freedom.
Regarding
education levels, it is enough to note that both the scientific
community and the majority of academics are firmly on the liberal
side of the scale. Highly educated conservatives are either
hypocritical, corrupt, or evil.
The
Government
How
about our esteemed public officials? Our tireless representatives in
various legislatures? Our precious democracy! What are they doing to
help us in these perilous times?
Old
Joe Biden still has his get-out-of-jail-free card from me, so I won't
be complaining about him. The LOSER, no, I won't be complaining about
him either. There is plenty of complaining in the air about both of
those guys already, so really, what's the point? No, my major
complaint today is that almost all of them, damn near everybody
involved in government as an administrator or as an elected official,
are a bunch of selfish, self-interested, immoral, totally corrupt
assholes. The waste of so many good educations is a crying shame.
None
of them give one smooth shit about anything but keeping the money
stream flowing, maintaining their status as prosperous members of the
investment class, avoiding taxes, and finding new ways to invisibly
launder money.
It
is most unfortunate that this money-disease has spread to the flag
officers in our vaunted military. The hurricane of money that swirls
around the heads of top Pentagon officials creates a steady rain of
money that falls on the shoulders bearing stars. This is why we have
been cursed with bottomless money pits like the F-35 and littoral
combat ships, and it is why we see the endless, fruitless pursuit of
future-weapons like the rail-gun, and laser weapons.
America's
security establishment has certainly mastered the art of collecting
every single phone call and e-mail in the world, but what good does
it do anyone? They collect it at fabulous cost, and then comb through
it for key words, names, and phrases. The effort is colossal and
expensive. They claim to be the masters of modern cyber-warfare, so
why is it that China can remotely influence American warships into
believing that they are occupying GPS coordinates that are false?
Remember these stories? Strange ship handling mishaps that should
never happen on U.S. Navy ships? That got hushed up PDQ. And why is
it that lesser players like North Korea, and Iran, can make it seem
easy to hack into sensitive, heavily fire-walled American computer
networks?
That's
the next war in a nutshell: someone, Russia, let's say, takes over
and re-purposes all of our military satellites. Then they shut down
our electrical grid. All of it. Goodbye Internet, banking, mass
communications. And then the old-fashioned phone rings. That'll be an
interesting phone call. This is while every single one of our
politicians is ignoring the danger, instead devoting 100% of their
efforts to pushing agendas of personal power and self-enrichment.
Statesmen?
In name only. Diplomats? Sorry, Trump fired all of the diplomats.
Money
prevents anyone in power from even briefly considering things like
the supernatural levels of poverty and misery in places like
Suriname, or Malawi, or the bereft conditions prevailing in failed
states like Venezuela, Afghanistan, or Syria. (Those unfortunate
countries were chosen for the sake of brevity from rather long
lists.) Average temperatures are certain to continue rising. That
includes surface temperatures, shallow water temperatures, and deep
water temperatures. I'm no meteorologist, but even I know that
oceanic water temperatures are where the weather comes from.
Droughts, floods, crop failures, these are our new normal, and
certain to get worse.
Hey!
Space station! How're those ice sheets looking?
Many
of these potential calamities will not happen. The volcanic activity,
for example, is very difficult to predict. But the strange,
hyperactive weather has become a sure thing, and many more horrific
events could happen very quickly. Suddenly, even. As I have mentioned
previously, all of this does take the sting out of imminent death
from old age. I would hate to see my grandchildren go hungry.
I
would suggest that younger people take a hint from that Greta
Thunberg. Get busy finding ways to bend the power elite to your will.
It could all be taken care of. Be creative. Think outside the box. Be
fierce.
It's
up to you.
*NIMBY:
Not In My Back Yard.
