This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

The event didn’t make headlines in this country. Because it wasn’t in this country. We love to admire ourselves in the media mirror pretending to be objectively flattering. But over in Moscow they had a sort of a Russian election. Person or persons unknown voted to remove Vladimir Putin from office by explosive automobile. Yep, the old bomb inside the car trick.

Putin has a large fleet of cars and was nowhere around this one went boom. It was perhaps a Russian telegram expressing displeasure? Practice makes perfect? The explosive package was too small. I’m no expert on car bombs, but I did live in Cleveland for a time. It barely lifted the hood off the car. Just a message? We could have and maybe next time, we will. You can be reached Vladimir, sleep well.

In this country it is a tale of two Shities. Wisconsin proved the schizophrenic like cheese. Always a choice between polar opposites in Wisconsin. Sometimes they vote for Ming the merciless and sometimes they vote for Mary Poppins. You just never know! But one thing you can know and take to the bank with you. If you want to publicly destroy a politician or a product. Connect them with Elon Musk.

Boy! Was I ever wrong! I had predicted it might take Elon ten years to become half as unpopular as he has become in just one! Elon dumping his money shit into the Wisconsin election made it a no brainer. They lost and lost big time. Next time you want to help someone, Elon, go home. Good job! Have a cookie. You connected the King to a state-wide election and lost…big time! But don’t say referendum.

It is  becoming an administration in a permanent state of stumble between trip and fall. Still smarting from Blabbermouth gate and now cheese curds in Wisconsin. But the sun still shines among the unbright. Republicans in Florida voted for their own eventual self-destruction. Hit us again! We like it! The old adage says A fool and his money are soon parted (reprised version) …in Florida.

Floridians voted! We don’t want FEMA anymore! We ain’t afraid of no little hurricane. We don’t want government assistance prestationing heavy equipment and truckloads of food and water. We’ll be fine! We’ll just run down to the Winn Dixie and stock up. Let the private market work. Free market Republicans dependent on state property insurance programs as the private insurance companies evacuate a sinking Florida insurance market. And yet, they can’t get enough. Hit us again!

Highest insurance rates in the country and the largest insects too. Hit us again! But push is coming to meet shove for breakfast. As building replacement costs make it impossible to anticipate future storm damage costs and therefore rates. We don’t care! Hit us again! As a former Alabamian, I resent Florida muscling in on our national stupidity title. They’ve got oranges and the Gulf of America too, leave stupidity to the experts in Montgomery. Denial is a river in Florida.

Win! Win! Win! The King’s peace negotiations have gone so well. The Russians are mobilizing an additional  150,000 new soldiers and threatening the US with war. The King attempts to scold Vladimir like a child. Vlad breaks off the negotiations permanently. The King back peddles wildly answering, Vlad’s a great guy and I didn’t mean nothing! The King has been putting B-2 bombers on Diego Garcia as a threatening message to Iran. Now Russia says in no uncertain terms, “You’re not going to bomb Iran!”

Now if you were spineless jellyfish, what would you do? The King is sort of up the spout here. He must now either attack Iran or slowly crawl away humbled and humiliated. But only on the world stage, not at home. Never at home. I’d wager few even understand the King’s tariff gambit.

It has nothing to do with trade or international fairness. It is the Republican wet dream of all wet dreams. Changing the tax system. From a system which taxes wealth to a system which taxes consumption. Let’s do the math! You and I live on approximately 100% of our income. Therefore, we are taxed at the rate of 100% Now a billionaire is only taxed on what they consume at a rate of around 1/100^th of 1%. Sound fair? Now you can call it a tariff if you like. Or you can call it a value added tax. You can blame it on evil foreigners if you like or you can call it what it is.

Funny how only the things being taxed (tariffed) are the things which we little people need to survive. Cars, food, electronics. But their greed is unrelentless and insatiable.

I read this story years ago, about a band of merry Crusaders approaching the castle of a German Princeling and ringing the bell. “Say, we’re merry Crusaders on our way to Jerusalem to fight for the Holy cross, wanna come?” I would stammered the prince, but I’m pretty back up here and can’t away that long. “That’s cool” they offered. “We know it can’t be easy living here in this big castle with all these servants. But say, since we all love the lord, and you would go if you could. (Bone spurs) I’m sure you would like to make a generous donation to our cause.” Well, I would said the prince, but… you kind of caught me at kind of a bad time.

“That’s cool,” the Crusaders answered, “How about instead, we sack your castle and put your head on a pike?” So that’s what they did. And they found a million pieces of gold buried in the basement. A prince living in a castle with more food than he could eat or fine clothes than he could wear. Every luxury, every need, satisfied one hundredfold. Yet so greedy as to prefer death to sharing even a fraction of his fortune with a cause he claimed to wholeheartedly agree with. An insightful warning for our times.

Don’t expect common sense to impair greed.

Capitalism is an illness, the more you have the sicker you become.

“We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt