This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

“Deaf, dumb and blind boy lives in a quiet vibration land. Strange as it seems his musical dreams ain’t quite so bad. Sickness will surely take the mind, where minds can’t usually go. Come on the amazing journey and learn all you should know.” – Pete Townsend

The King shouts, “it’s not MY fault!” On the news the economy has contracted for the first time since 2022. The Port of Seattle is said to look deserted. The ship’s coming in have been chartered for months and months. But it’s all Joe Biden’s fault! Wall Street takes this news hard. The markets open down 2.5% and then by four o’clock, magically finish the day near even. How does that work exactly? How can it be terrible news at 9:00 AM but not so bad by 4:00?

Theoretically at least, the markets are supposed to reflect the economy six months down the road. The King says, American children will have to get by with fewer toys. Now, if we unpack this Trump Latin, what is he saying exactly? Your children will have to get by with less. Tough titty! Is Wall Street sleepwalking, numb and unaware? So excited Santa Trump is going to bring them tax cuts they can ignore the brick wall dead ahead?

We are starring down the barrel of largest self-inflicted economic suicide in all of recorded human history. And Wall Street says, “Ho, hum, tax cuts! Tax cuts! We’re all getting tax cuts! An authoritarian dictator violates the Constitution with impunity, and Wall Street says, “That’s fine.” Believing the rain might fall on someone else but never on them, they won’t get wet. The King tells them in his best monosyllabic language straight up, Christmas is going to suck! Wall Street brushes it off with, “not for us!”

The King naively believes he can kick China around and they will come to the table and make a deal once they’ve learned their lesson. But from China’s standpoint, if the King is going to punish them anyway. Roll with the punches and move on. Don’t give that Son of a bitch nothing! The King has declared economic WAR on the entire planet, but I’m sure it will be fine. But the orange man speak with forked tongue and his promises aren’t worth a tinker’s damn. The King throws out a trade feeler and China answers, who did you say you were with again?

If and a big god damn if it is too. The Republicans gut Medicaid to reward themselves with tax cuts for the rich, it’s all over. 1929 on steroids. Wall Street says, it’ll be fine. Will Rogers once said Americans would be the first to drive to a Depression in a new car. This time around, Americans will walk or crawl. Most Americans can’t afford a new car. Most Americans can’t afford to purchase a home. What? Did someone say something about an American dream? American consumers by and large are being priced out of life. But I’m sure it will be fine.

Try not to laugh. The CEO of Starbucks blames lower sales on? The economy? Financially strapped consumers? The King’s policies? Oh no, nothing so complicated as that. No, it’s expensive store remodels which have turned consumers sour. What is needed are new employee uniforms! That’s it! Eureka, that’ll fix it! And they put this guy in charge!

And why is the economy contracting? It’s all Joe Biden’s fault! Sounds like Kindergarten, doesn’t it? Good news is all me, and bad news is always the other guy.

But there is also the story of the sad little boy nobody liked. Everyone was invited to the King’s party except him. Every two-bit, half crazed Republican nut ball gets a big-fat job, but not Ron DeSantis. Don’t take it personal, but it is personal. Remember, reactionary Ronny ran for President without seeking the King’s permission first. That’s worse than being a sanctuary city.  

So, if you were petty and childish with hate, filled heart. What would you do? You’d try to show the public you were just like the King, even if the King doesn’t like you. The King deports migrants, but rectal Ronny doubles down and deports even more migrants. Trying to steal the King’s thunder. Alabama passed an anti-migrant bill (of course they did.) Already, farmers complain, they can’t get any farm help. Adios Amigo, those tomatoes will have to learn to pick themselves!

Floriduh goes one better by deporting 110,000 migrants. “Yeah! Cheers!” Who is going to pick the crops? Who cares? That’s a long ways off! Look at these Great headlines!

The former Department of Education owes the state of Alabama nine million dollars. But when they got there, the cupboard was bare. For the state of Alabama, that might be half of their education budget. But I’m sure it will be fine. A college shut down in South Carolina the other day, the first of many, I’m sure. But I’m sure it will be fine. Gutting the consumer economy of tens of billions of dollars and firing thousands and thousands of government workers won’t hurt anything. Will it? Is it denial? Comatose or whacked out on opioids?

Big dance tonight on the Titanic! It’s not so bad, the waters not so cold or deep…yet. It’ll be fine, I’m sure. Future headlines: Consumer Spending Stalls! Farm Crisis in the Midwest! China invades Taiwan! Auto Sales Plummet! Home Foreclosures Soar! It’s all Joe Biden’s fault!

“Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision, the people perish.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt