As the world population approaches 8 billion, America suffers “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”, climate change thunderclaps in everyone’s ear, consumers sift through soaring prices while sweating another possible recession, food and water shortages loom on the not-distant-enough horizon, and robots eyeball our jobs - we, all of us, attempt varying masks of sanity with appropriate regard.
George Orwell said, “We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” What mildly informed male, female, homosexual, transgender person- with white, black, yellow, red or purple-polka-dotted skin- would argue with this sentiment in 2019 America?
What do we know at this precise moment (forget Breaking News- it’s already broke)? We know an iceberg-sized chunk of American life has collapsed into oceanic depths of absurdity with the abandon of a GOP practitioner’s conscience. We know we’re arguably more divided than ever. We know people are (still) shooting other people and the media covers this fact with a previously unseen dementia (at the behest of whom?). We know natural resources are following the example of the Brontosaurus. We know we have a “selected” president that will hopefully find his way to the nearest EXIT door while you’re reading this sentence (or maybe take a stroll- unguarded and unarmed- in a neighborhood just south of Brownsville, Texas- over the border- totally alone- no cellular). We have a beehive of left-wing opponents- an East/West trade war- a surging flood of propaganda drowning the interweb valleys- an unnatural food production cycle that keeps everyone sluggish, foggy, static and unsure- an upper echelon of society that endeavors to consistently bend and break rules so they remain in possession of some 90 percent of the country’s wealth- and we know we have jails gorged with people who dream of having any noticeable utility again (able-bodied citizens locked up for reasons that defy reason).
So who is responsible for this mess- this world none of us want- this merry-go-round with the consistent recrudescence of mortal error? Who is mucking with the desired program? Something is, if not the primary cause- the uber-cosmic wave that sustains it. I’ve stretched my noggin’ over the years searching for answers. I’ve read more “world in peril” books than I can remember at this point. Devoured Orwell, Hannah Arendt, Morris Berman, Jerry Mander, Noam Chomsky, Nicholas Carr and the wonderful Chris Hedges. These guys and gals fight the good fight. And I always seem to arrive at the same point (as do some of them)- a single dirty word that has gained power and momentum since my mid-1970’s birth- corporations. Don’t blame our crippled government reliant on other nations- or the lusty, lost media- or the love and funds deprived institutions. We can’t even (sorry!) blame Fred Trump’s unfortunate son (he may have some cash and credit- but his fortune left the premises long ago). No. Blame the tentacles and the ideology of the modern incarnation of the “corporation.” The government is merely a handful of interconnected global corporate entities. We’re onto that. Old news. We saw Ned Beatty and Peter Finch’s speeches in Network (1976). We pay attention to some of those meandering Netflix documentaries. We’ve seen some of Oliver Stone’s films (wonderful) and a few of Michael Moore’s cinematic essays (also wonderful). The current entertainer-in-chief’s only job is to jostle his molecules around like the fantastically grotesque belly dancer he is and maintain his vulgar display of stunning fabrications and disorienting word salads for the desperate to swallow. His followers are attached to his titanic tit awaiting father’s poisonous milk. Trump is a cult figure with striking cultural parallels to Charlie Manson. No more feigned mystery. It’s the corporations. Here’s one definition of the word… “a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity- legally a person- and recognized as such in law.” It doesn’t take an oracle to see the inherent evils that bullet from the proper gleaning of that sentence. It should read; “a mob of depraved leeches authorized (by themselves) to rape, ravage and humiliate- as a single, privileged entity- obscenely accepted as such by laws they have meticulously altered.” Mobsters own and oversee the smooth operations of the Western hemisphere (and beyond). They set norms- smash all that’s new (unless it’s robotic)- rob short term profits while shrugging off long term consequences- and believe their kids will somehow avoid the science-fiction dystopia they work so (painlessly) hard to erect. They run the branches of government with the same predictability and determination a giant anaconda demonstrates on a cow.
If the colossal embarrassment in the White House is replaced with a radical liberal- the pendulum will undoubtedly swing in a less atrocious direction; but with corporate raiders modulating the frontal lobes of every political pundit in view- and the nerve center of the body Republic compromised by vested interests- how can we expect coagulation in the spots bleeding the most? I’ll take a good liberal blueprint over an eerie GOP scheme any day of the week (call it- sanity)- but if a more acceptable, suitable, knowledgeable man or woman is selected for commander-in-marionette following the graphic catastrophe we are enduring now- what can or will truly change if corporations still hold the strings? Corporations dictate, enact and draft all the nation’s laws. The Senate follows suit. Corporations say, “Jump.” The Supreme Court says, “How high?” The laws are “modified” to bow down in reflexive servitude to allied business organs. It’s the equivalent of a serial killer poking the only good eye out of his now completely blind son to protect him from seeing anything “potentially disturbing.”
The country is in an arrested state of shock. A swirling, unsophisticated mantra of self-hate is being fed to the body politic with an extremely large and willful silver spoon (more like a titanic diamond-studded shovel). And there’s a gaggle of corpulent, power-hungry, racist brutes counting on the fact that this nation never awakens to a single, solitary moment of exactitude. “Don’t look over there! Keep watching right here (and your navel)!“ We must never see things for what they are (some call it- vipassana). We must never discover fraud, thievery, sadistic exploitation and ill will. We must not lift certain rocks- alarm certain sleeping dogs- pull the curtain back- or practice informed dissent. We must not get healthy. We must not question the existing order. We must not go boldly where other men dare not. We are expected to, in short, shut our gobs and dance to the music.
But isn’t it sad to see such sadness? Man, oh, man. America is so broken-hearted (they say we all ultimately die of it- the ole’ broken heart). The world is watching and wondering when the United States will recover some dignity and the slightest indication of accountability. Can the Republic survive this blunt force trauma? We are a very resilient, forgetful, full-speed-ahead nation. For better or worst- this country’s track record contains countless examples of inadequately examined forward thrusts (agriculture, transport, radio, TV, space travel, artificial intelligence) that solicit accolades. These ambitious, faith-driven leaps into the super-unknown have always been one of our go-to buttons. We tend to just “go there”, man. And the velocity of our “progress” works to evaporate our blunders. I’d like to think we’re on our way to some “greener” pastures. Sustainable energy sources, health care for all, better income distribution, eradicated inequality in general, palpable elimination of poverty levels, and the merciless vetting of unqualified (mentally ill) leaders. Perhaps we’re ready to mine a new era of overdue rehabilitation? Look into America’s haunted past? Cultivate some distinct reconfigurations. Unload, rethink, build, aspire and emerge newborns? Crazier things have happened in the last two centuries on this continent. Mercy and generosity plan for tomorrow. Barbarism and avarice says, “What tomorrow?”