This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

It is sometimes hard to imagine that perhaps someday; we will all look back and remember this as the “good old days.” A mottled time of the wet dog. Instead of inspiring history, shaking off water on mama’s clean floor and leaving muddy tracks behind.

Growing up in the 1960s, you just had this sense that things were moving, and things were going on all around you. The Kennedys, the Beatles, the moon landings and Bob Dylan. Rock bands were discovered in clubs and not created by a committee in boardrooms. A sense that good things happen sometimes. Janis Joplin didn’t need flash pots or need to dress in her sequined skimpies to get attention. But all depends on the relevance of time. Am I moving slower or is the world moving faster? Young, wide eyed and gullible versus old, tired and cynical.

I can’t imagine growing up today in the age of the wet dog. Where nothing ever seems to go quite right. The day after man landed on the moon in 1969. Werner Von Braun presented NASA with his plans for landing on Mars. We didn’t go, but it was the feeling that we could go if we had really wanted to go.

In the 1960s, we built the Apollo Command, Service and Lunar modules without ever having seen one. Today, Boeing is tragically over budget trying to build one while having one to use as an example. All the hard questions are already answered for you. You just have to build a new one using new technology. Nope, just can’t get it done with these tools. All these computers and 3D modeling and all, just can’t do it.

Donald Trump’s chosen boy LOST the Republican primary in blood red Texas. Lauren Boebert is running so far back of the pack she can’t be found on Google Earth. Trump Lawyer Jenna Ellis is disbarred and that’s just this week and it’s only Wednesday. Donald Trump’s hush money trial nears its conclusion. Donald Trump is said to be very angry. Oh what a shock, he hardly ever does that, huh? He’s always angry about something.

Vice President Spiro Agnew pled no contest to his crimes and quietly left town. No muss and no fuss. Vice President Mike Pence does the RIGHT thing, and the Republicans ran him out of town on a rail. The Republicans literally hate the man for following the Constitution. “Houston, we’ve got a problem.”

There are Republicans and there are Trump Republicans and there are also people who would like to be Republicans. The Nikki Haley Republicans and Mitt Romney Republicans who will never vote for Donald Trump under any circumstances. Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party organs has been down right Stalineske. Any dollar now given to the Republicans is Donald Trump’s to do with however he pleases. (Any Questions?) Not surprisingly, campaign donations are way down.

For Republican down ballot candidates it means, “You’re on your own fellas!” Trump had suggested candidates who use Trump’s likeness in their fund-raising ads should kick 10% back to the boss. Not only will the “Boss” not help you in your campaign, he wants to wet his beak from your haul. No word yet on how those donations are rolling in.

The landscape is littered with fallen Trump associates as far as the eye can see. Donald Trump has the Republican Party/Patty Hearst locked in the closet. Saying, “she’s fine! Trust me! She’s fine.” Okay! What do we stand for fellas? “Trump, Trump, Trump!” What’s our economic policy? “Trump, Trump, Trump!” What’s our foreign policy people? “Trump, Trump, Trump!”

Inside the cult it is an easy enough message to swallow but outside the cult, there is little room for growth. Like 1984, “Until they become conscious, they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled, they cannot become conscious.” ― George Orwell

They can’t wake up until they have woken up and their cult-like authoritarian behavior dampens the parties’ positive outcomes. Starved of money by the appetites of the mighty pavock. Starved of ideas by the Emperor’s flashy new clothes. All the cult knows is itself and is immune from all other competing theories or intervening ideas.

If you were a banker or money lender, would you invest in the Trump cult? Could you trust them? At this point you’d have to be pretty dumb to not know Trump would, at worst, throw you under the bus at the first opportunity. At best, Trump might not actually represent your interests. If you are a bible thumping Christian Conservative, how dumb do you have to be to put your eggs in a basket with Donald Trump? Oh sure, he’s godly man! All of his ex-wives said so! Get your Trump bibles! The only bibles with a real glow in the dark Constitution right inside! As seen on TV!

The Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten so pissed off the public after his death they erased his all of his images and defaced all of his plaques. See, old Akhenaten got the big head and thought he was a god. The folks got pretty tired of it and removed all traces with vandalism at the first opportunity. I’d never publicly condone vandalism only in this case, I’d understand.

And maybe someday that famous wall chart of all the President’s pictures we are all familiar from school. Will have a blank spot between number 44 and number 46. A time we don’t want to look back at. A time we want to look away from and forget about because it smells like wet dog.

“He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.” ― Groucho Marx