This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy Assassination, 911, and the Trump tariff debacle. Things you’ll always remember tragically. Remember when the Stock markets melted down Chernobyl style last Friday? Dow futures for Monday, murderous. I don’t even want to tell you, but it looks to be starting right up again where it left off with no bottom in sight.

In the wake of a financial crisis the King headed for Floriduh to play golf with the Saudis and the rest of the team pointed to their watches. Huh, huh, I’d love to talk more about it but it’s five o’clock and it’s Friday. The Administration just set the world on fire. But now, the work day is done and it’s quitting time. See ya Monday!

Nobody knows nothing! The Administration tried half-heartedly to defend the crash as a temporary adjustment, stay the course! Yadda da, yadda da. See ya Monday! But the Administration can’t hide it. The most unsuccessful program roll out…ever in recorded human history. Blow up the whole world and now, it’s Miller time! Their silence means they don’t know and can’t say. Nobody knows and until someone does the slide will continue.

Growing up as the youngest child, I’m cynical and suspicious by nature. But I feel like Pollyanna when reading what the “experts” are saying. Land Rover and Jaguar are considering locking the doors and leaving the American market entirely. The less expensive option just wait for the crash to end and Trump to be gone and then in a decade or so. Then if anything is left, come back when the sun comes out again.

The King looks to the Federal Reserve. Help me out here buddy! I just burned down the economy and I need an interest rate cut. I just burned down the house, can I borrow your car? The thorny issue at hand is the tariff scheme makes no sense. Like they threw 10% or 25% darts at a map of the world on the wall. Kazak, Kazakhstan 25%! And this is only the lightning and not the thunder. When the thunder starts to rumble, look out!

Huge crowds all across America expressing their displeasure and you couldn’t find a Republican politician with an air tag. The crowds forced them all underground into the bunker, but I fear it won’t change their ways or their plans. Their plan is all or nothing. Only one side will walk away here. It’s win or die. They plan to take all and leave you with nothing. How dare they in the midst of a potential bottomless world-wide stock market crash. Vote in the middle of the night to cut taxes not just the rich, but for the richest of the rich. Under the Republican plan for every dollar of tax relief you get. The millionaire gets $5,000. Sound fair? Paid for by taking food out of the mouths of hungry children, farmers and taking medicine from the sick.

I want to be very careful about what I say from here on out. These aren’t my desires or wishes. To have any effect on government policy those peaceful rallies would have to double or triple in size. As long as the crowd is manageable and remains peaceful, march your heart out! But we’re still doing away with your pension, your Union or your healthcare plan.

I have wondered at times, which really changed things in the tumultuous sixties. Was it Martin Luther King’s non-violence and soaring rhetoric or was it the race riots in every major city in America? Who do the politicians listen to, a noble preacher from Alabama or the angry insurance company executive? The preacher or the Chamber of Commerce?

The Stonewall riots happened because the oppression would stop no other way. Please Mr. policeman! Please stop beating me! The French stormed the Bastille, but they didn’t need to. It was a symbolic violent victory over the King. The people had remained peaceful for hundreds of years and nothing changed or got any better. I’m not advocating for violence I’m warning that violence it is the way of the world for the oppressed, like it or not.  It is difficult in history to find an issue of threat and fear to the common man which does not descend into violence.

You know, Caesar fed the poor in Rome. Not because Caesar was a great guy or a liberal or was running for reelection. Caesar fed the poor because he feared their anger. Hungry people riot and start fires. Fire protection being what it was in Rome in those days. It was cheaper to feed them than to let them burn down the town. Every nation is three days from Revolution.

Public violence is the end product of oppression. Riots don’t spring from the contented. Nobody riots for sport or because they just want to riot.

Our forefathers asked the English King very nicely for some financial accommodations and were entirely dissatisfied with the King’s answer. So, we did what? Remember the same people telling you to remain calm and peaceful are the same people trying to rob you. If one more Tesla dealership gets attacked! We’ll get you! Boy! We’ll put you under the jail! See how quickly they react to violence?

“THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.”  – Mark Twain