This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

A funny thing happened on the way to the apocalypse. Our King declared he would end the war in Ukraine in thirty days. He shouted over and over how Ukraine didn’t have the cards. Zelensky must accept that Crimea is now Russian and would remain Russian. The King cut off military aid to Ukraine. The King’s demands amounted to surrender for Ukraine.

Peace negotiations were going nowhere. NATO allies began to whisper they wouldn’t accept the King’s solution. Meanwhile, the King extorts mineral concessions from Ukraine. Stupid is as stupid does. The Rare Earth minerals the King sought aren’t really rare at all. They are filthy to refine and manufacture. That’s why China leads the world in Rare Earth production, the Chinese don’t give a shit about the pollution, just the money. The King bought pyrite, fool’s gold.

It soon became obvious the Russians have been jerking the King around and just playing for time. The US expresses frustration. Then throws up its hands, if at first you don’t succeed quit, quit again! Suddenly, the King is angry and declares Russia is going to get it! More sanctions and in the King’s own words more weapons than Ukraine knows what to do with.

Here’s the funny part. The King’s official position on Ukraine now mirrors the policies of one Joseph R. Biden’s exactly. The King took the long way around the block just to end up right where they started. All the tough talk, blarney and bullshit, and here we are. I guess that it means old Joe was right all along. I bet the King would be upset to hear that.

But the negotiations with Iran seem to be going much better. The King declared Iran must denuclearize completely, or else! But that’s not going to happen. Iran will be allowed to enrich Uranium up to 3.6 %. Now, did they just pull that figure out of the air? No, that is the figure allowed in the nuclear treaty signed by the Obama Administration. And our negotiators maintain that treaty is the basis for current negotiations. Once again, threats and bellicose warnings only to end up right back where they started. Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour.

It was during the Administration of Bush, the stupid, the Neocons had big plans to attack Iran. The generals in the Pentagon tried their level best to explain why that wouldn’t work. Finally circulating a petition threatening mass resignations if they went ahead with the plan. The Neocons had this idea to take ICBMs and load them up with conventional explosives. No need for B-52s or aircraft carriers just push a button and boom! Once again, like trying to explain quantum physics to children. The Pentagon struggled with chalk and blackboard to explain why that was a terrible idea. Our nuclear adversaries had no way of knowing what was loaded on those missiles headed their way.

Do you know what the major topic of conversation is around the world today? The end of Pax Americana. The end of US world leadership. Ceding all we have built and trading it away. All of our advantages for two hands filled with fool’s gold.

The Republican ideology sincerely believed the key to a bright future was to cut entitlements for the useless eaters and the handicapped. Change the tax structure to a consumption-based tax system. Like back in the good old days of the gilded age. When the wealthy weren’t being bothered by the tax man. And all they really needed to do was to get the rest of the world to go along. Their plan was simple, make it a fait accompli. Just bum’s rush the financial markets before they knew what hit them.

Hence, the Trade War. They truly believed the world would just have to go along. And maybe they might have gone along too, except for the King’s outrageous remarks about Canada and Greenland. It signaled to the world this was an outlaw and irresponsible government which could not be trusted or responsibly dealt with. They were certain our former allies would just go along. And our former allies will go along. They will just go along without us.

In Europe, our former allies have never been more united. They held a conference in France to discuss what they will do now, now that the US is considered an untrustworthy ally. In Asia, China smiles ascendant. All they need to do is to wait and bide their time and all which they desire will soon come to them. Either that or a nuclear war.

The King in his absolute abysmal ignorance comes right out and says what everyone already knows. “China is our adversary!” Everybody knows that but for the King to say it out loud with his mouth is a warning and a shot across China’s bow. The tariffs and trade restrictions have a clear message to China. The war has already begun.

Now, if you are China and you have a long-held national goal of conquering Taiwan. And the only thing really holding you back from achieving that goal is the fear of sanctions and the disruption of your economy. As WC Fields put it, “Never give a sucker an even break.” If you sanction and punish China anyway and disrupt their domestic economy. What’s to hold them back? How will they be punished then? Just the other day, China invaded and militarily took an Island belonging to Vietnam. Do you know why?

It was a test balloon, like when the Nazi’s reoccupied the Ruhr or took the Sudetenland. What would the world do? Test complete, the world will do nothing. Plus, it was also good military practice for invading an Island. A China in economic distress and unemployment will need a good domestic distraction. How about a good old fashioned patriotic war?

Amateur hour exclusively focused on greed and how much they can make by upsetting the apple cart. But if you break it, you’ve bought it. And the King and his clowns haven’t just broken it. They have shattered it beyond all repair. A desire by those with much to gain just a little bit more, at the risk of  destroying the whole world.

“The post-totalitarian system touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on. This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his or her ultimate liberation; depriving people of information is called making it available; the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom.” – Vaclav Havel