This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

Some days are harder than others. Seeing as how I hate more than half of you out there right now. (You know who you are!) I know, hate is a coarse word, so let me explain. It isn’t the kind of hate where I want to go all Rambo on you and burn down your house or run you out of town. It’s a bitter disappointment, “I sent you to the store to get daddy a simple bottle of whiskey and you wrecked daddy’s new car and didn’t get the whiskey!”

Forgive them fadder for they don’t know what they’ve done. Maybe they don’t, but we do, and we also know we will all have to suffer through this little adventure in Science Fact. When I was about fourteen, I bought this paperback from a thrift store for a dime. Sensationally titled, “ I Survived Hitler’s Ovens.” The story of a woman, Olga Lengyel (Not Jewish) who survived Auschwitz and how you went about accomplishing that remarkable feat. The book shocked the living shit out of me. I couldn’t believe humanity could ever reach such depravity with such single-minded determination.

Her crime? Her husband was a doctor, and he was accused of intentionally not using German pharmaceutical products. He was sentenced to a camp, and she was offered the opportunity to go along. If she could be at the train station in forty-five minutes with the children. The last time she ever saw her husband. When they arrived at the camp, they asked how old her children were. Thinking they would be put to work she lied and said they were younger. They were immediately sent to the gas chamber instead. Welcome to day one! Any lingering questions left over from the orientation?

It ignited in me a desire to understand how that sort of thing could ever happen. World War II led me to World War One, and grievance politics in Germany. Germany was bitterly divided politically, and governments came and went with barely a notice. So, when the NSDAP came to power a lot of Germans paid little attention. Assuming, “Ah, they won’t last.”

But then they changed the judges and changed the rules. If you were charged with a crime, your trial was only a formality. Just so they could say you were lawfully convicted. Everything they did was perfectly legal. Not one person was executed by the state illegally. And if you discovered a defendant was completely innocent? Are you going to gum up the works? Are you going to ruin your bosses 100% conviction rate with a 99.99? For what? For this road trash, you’ll risk your career? Read the room Sylvester.

Are you ambitious? Are you looking to get your foot in the door? Are ethics and character just high-falluting words for losers found in the dictionary to you? (In the what?) Does your personal wellbeing and fortune mean more to you than the wellbeing of millions of your fellow human beings? We need you! Apply within! Police Departments, Boy Scouts and the youth ministry often attract the wrong kind of people for all the wrong reasons.

Now, let me show you what I mean. Would you accept the job as the Slum King’s Chief of Staff? He went through them like lunch last time around. But I’m sure this time will be different because there is a greater understanding of the King’s wishes. The King wants strict servility. Don’t ask questions! Do as you’re told! Would you accept a job someplace where your predecessor was disbarred or sent to prison? Okay then, you begin to understand the sort who would put themselves in that situation.

Maybe I’ll get rich and powerful or maybe I’ll end up in jail. Rich and powerful! Powerful and rich! A celebrity, a big shot. “Dancing with the stars! Nazi night moves! Those other guys were just idjets and fools, I got this! The youthful ambition of the servile to please their master. But things are markedly different this time around. The King never has had full control over the government before.

The King can piss on the Constitution and the Republicans in Congress and the Courts, will ape along joyously praising his holy simian name. Already Republicans in Congress want to suspend the rules and let the King choose whoever he wants for his rump cabinet. The King doesn’t like it when his choices are being challenged. So, don’t make him mad, and he’ll call us when he needs us to give him some more money. “Sleep little baby don’t say a word and daddies going to buy you a mockingbird.”

Boy, if you thought they were corrupt last time! Just wait till you don’t find out anything about anything this time. You know, those newspapers and the media are all owned by billionaires, aka close personal friends of the King. Maybe the New Yuck Times will do an expose! “Migrant’s happily say good bye to North America on their way to the Trail of Tears, David Duke Memorial National Relocation Center and Holiday Camp! Located on the site of a former Japanese Internment camp. Each migrant is provided with one bottle of water, one regulation snow cone, one condom and or tampon (Gender Specific). One American flag pin made in China and one copy of “The Art of the Deal”  and one good swift kick in the ass to get them started. “

Now come January 20^th the United States will cede its position as leader of the free world, moving over into the rogue state category. And if you’re planning that once in a lifetime trip to Europe, you might want to consider lovely Yellowstone or maybe sunny Panama City. No longer will it be American foreign policy to defend the Truman Doctrine. Weee! Might makes right! Fuck you little countries! If you can’t defend yourself from an aggressive neighbor, too fucking bad! What do you want me to do about it? We just want the perks and privileges of leadership without the responsibilities or expense.

We have decided to just let the free world free wheel for a while, and see how that works out for us. It probably won’t fall apart. Technically abdication of responsibility has never worked before. And has most always led to war, but we shall see, won’t we? “I have here a note; signed by Herr Hitler!”

“For in the final analysis our most common basic link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish or children’s future, and we are all mortal.” – John F. Kennedy Aw, shut up!

Because the Slum King doesn’t want to do that anymore. Fuck you little people! We’re going home to count our money. Who wants to buy a Buick or a communications satellite? Why not? Why are you buying an Airbus? Don’t you like American products anymore? You know, Rock & Roll, Levi’s, Coca colas and Authoritarian Fascism?  

“Thus, it is that no cruelty whatsoever passes by without impact. Thus, it is that we always pay dearly for chasing after what is cheap.” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn