Happy belated New Year, even though everything is the same as it ever was, year in and year out: corporations trump human life; Republicans can't be bothered with truth, facts, or logic; labor and the middle class have been cold-cocked and are down for the count. Money still shrieks out the rules.
Happy belated Earth Day, while we're at it, even though nothing's changed over here either, even after 40-plus years. Oh, sure, there have always been engaging science fairs, well-meaning bazaars, contests using various arts and crafts, and nice ideas we try on as if playing dress-up for an hour or so.
Wish we could take credit for altruism being a standard part of human nature. It's just not so. Instead, we all get back into our fossil-fuel eaters after the Earth Day show, and go roaring away somewhere else.
And all the jets flew and spewed, same as ever, and we herd our fossil-fuel eaters, en masse, in twice-daily migrations, at the least -- back and forth, back and forth.
Yes, we really do know we need two or three planets filled with forests to scrub out the pollution we belch out on this planet every day, but, well -- we're not in charge of planet creation. After all: We're only in charge of our own pollution. Sort of.
Darn shame there's no Plan B. Or Plan C and D, for that matter. And, we could really use a Planet B, C, and D, when you come right down to it. Especially right about now.
But, you know, come to think of it: We could give evolution a hand, and we could learn to start breathing methane and CO2 right away -- we should start today! It will take our lungs a while to adjust and adapt, but this approach will be a lot easier than learning to do without fossil fuels, and our cars, and our planes...
That global-whatsit-change? Nah, nothing to it. We've always had weird weather. Sea ice comes and goes. The oceans always ride high this time of year. There have always been heat waves and droughts. All this snow proves there's no global warming...
The collapse of our onionskin-thin atmosphere will prove climate change, even to the final satisfaction of its deniers, who will only then know they've been wrong the whole time. Only then will they realize the ultimate meaning of final. By then, of course, it's too late. But, the rest of us might have time enough to shout, Told you so!
Yet, in all these crises and more, we insist on looking -- when we do look -- for earnest, meaningful leadership in confused and confounding places: We look for leadership in our leaders. That's an idea as fully lunatic as Daffy Duck on speed and meth -- but, hey, it's human nature.
Happy belated July Fourth, by the way: Today, we look for liberty by giving up all of our freedoms. We seek longevity of country by learning to immediately obey insane orders. We seek freedom of expression in blistering hate speech, propaganda, and flat-out lies.
We yearn for law and order, and personal safety, by squeezing the bejesus out of our triggers and our constitutional rights to settle anything with a gun. Human nature again.
Separation of church and state are still wildly popular among Bible thumpers -- just so long, let's be clear, that it means it's fine to foist my personal beliefs onto everyone else in the entire nation, and force them to live MY way, goddammit.
Hey! Maybe we can get working altars inside all the public schools and government buildings and offices by Christmas! Mandatory Pledges of Allegiance twice a day! Re-education camps for minorities, Democrats, independent thinkers, agnostics and atheists -- for a start!
* * *
We now present Exhibit A, almost completely extinct -- like most species on this planet, owing to human activity and inactivity: Statesmen and stateswomen, selflessly guiding the national ship of state away from the jagged reefs and rocks in a thundering midnight storm in full howl.
Time warp: Sorry, they are from 1958, back when even Republicans were still mostly sane. This is now 20 and 12, in the continuing era of The Great Asylum Putsch in this country, first struck on 12-12-2000, and still striking us today. Over and over.
Instead of altruistic guardians and statespeople braced against the gale today, we have self-centered, howling banshees in suits straining against sanity's splintering leashes. We have spiral-eyed lunatics in teabag-mobiled, tricorner hats spilling all over the helm, whooping and mewling, taking random, excited spins of the rudder control like a Las Vegas wheel of chance.
They busy themselves, these captains of the People's government, taking a page from their masters in corporations, by taking random actions that benefit only themselves and their sponsors, then check the reactions of anyone watching, and the polls, before determining any next steps -- and to hell with the sway, bounce, and smash of the national ship.
* * *
The point can be easily enough made: The time for well-reasoned arguments, thoroughly-researched articles, humble and honest speeches, earnest online petitions, and dire pleading with politicians is long past. Well, whatever.
We will do nothing to change things, and we should admit it, rather than holding out unreasonable hope the masses will soon awake from their collective coma, realize they've been dumbed-down and duped, hypnotized and sold a bill of goods -- and a towering amount of crates filled with snake oil.
There is not, for example, a regular Republican American alive who will not vote for the GOP this autumn, even while completely and fully aware that doing so is suicidal, and as lethal as dragging a broken bottle across their own throats.
The pendulum will swing back after a while, eventually -- just not in our own lifetimes, and certainly not that in our grandkids' times, either. Or theirs.
As humans, we should admit it: We are toast.
Our natures dictate we ride our ignorance and petty squabbles over money and power right into the abyss -- but not right back out.
* * *
Wonder who humans will have turned out to be when reason and sanity finally do return to this country? Will it still be a country? Will anyone notice if reason and sanity has returned?
I wonder how long that process will take, if it happens at all.
I also have to wonder if humans will still exist then, when some semblance of sanity has returned to the planet again -- or if it will just be the Earth, gliding silently through space, flying solo, without us as the perpetually killing-and-dying dead weight, grateful to have shrugged off all humans, at last.
* * *
Oh, and Happy belated Halloween frights, from last year, and here we go again -- almost, already... some more, soon. It's always the season of scares, in the real world inhabited by adults. It's always Halloween -- just played for keeps.
The horrors and frights never stop. They never will.
It's just human nature.
