This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

Somehow, it’s almost to be expected in these days of night. When nothing but an absurdity will fit the bill. Imagine paying tuition for four years or taking out predatory student loans. Long nights of study, all in the attempt to better yourself. Then the big day finally arrives, and you graduate. It is clearly one of the biggest days of your life and you will remember and cherish it forever.

Then as you wait anxiously in cap and gown, the commence speaker takes the stage. A famous personality? A General or an Admiral or a Captain of Industry? To give an inspiring message of your future.  Your commencement speaker is a puppet/Muppet. Don’t get me wrong, I like Kermit the frog. I just think a puppet as a commencement speaker is a complete debasement of a graduation ceremony. I guess Howdy Duty is in retirement and Punch wouldn’t appear without Judy.

Was this warm and fuzzy or cute? In dim-witted America it was perfect, just perfect. But it could be worse, the Naval Academy graduates got shady J.D. Vance. Just back from brown nosing the Pope. But ever since Disney purchased the Muppets franchise, times have been lean. No more TV specials or feature films, just the occasional TV commercial and now a commencement address. Disney only bought this franchise to chloroform it. The Muppets were competing against Disney films, so Disney bought them to put them to bed.

Maybe in light of Disney’s recent box office disasters, a resurrection is called for. Or Kermit needs to go to college himself or learn a trade. Come on, if a puppet can give a commencement address, why not a tax advisor, plumber or airline pilot? “Good Morning, I’m your Captain, Kermit the Frog and our flight to San Diego should take about three hours or so, if I can find the map. Or “I’m afraid it’s cancer, and we’ll have to operate. Nurse Piggy, administer the anesthetic.”

Has graduation now become so trivial? Are the intelligent and successful in such short supply? Maybe it was Artificial Intelligence which chose the speaker, unable to understand the difference between a human celebrity and fantasy celebrity. Maybe the Kardashian’s were too busy looking at themselves in the mirror and didn’t need the money or want the trouble.

Maybe it was just the pointlessness of the affair which prompted triviality over substance. Give them a piece of candy, kick them in the ass and move them on out the door. After all, what could a serious commencement speaker actually tell them?

“As you leave these hallowed halls of learning and enter into a Fascist American workforce. Remember these times, for you were educated BEFORE the Great Dictator took over. Most of you face limited prospects and eventual replacement by machines. Because machines need no supervisors. Monopoly’s need no creatives. And if you didn’t study law or medicine, most of you have just wasted four years and a ton of money. You are the non-essential generation.” Maybe it’s just easier to hear it from a celebrity frog.

If you studied Business, you may have learned that every paycheck eliminated is profit saved. And so how can you start at the bottom and get your foot in the door, if there is no longer a bottom? They can hire ten of you from China or Mexico or Vietnam for what you might ask as a starting salary. One big boss runs the show and two or three or four underlings manage the various regions around the country . Don’t call us, we’ll call you. Underneath that is a warehouse supervisor/ forklift driver.

If you are graduating with a degree in Journalism, God help you! One job for every fifty graduates paying next to nothing. Are you sharp and subservient? Are you willing to say anything to get a job? Are you willing to train the machine for your eventual replacement? And soon, the computers will be able to program themselves and programmers will be needed like barrel makers, ice wagon drivers or streetcar conductors.

I had a friend who was a sales representative for a major Spark Plug company. His territory was three states and then six states.  Then as the layoffs continued, all of the United States east of the Mississippi. Then when the other surviving representative west of the Mississippi quit, due to the grueling conditions and travel. My friend was certain a promotion was in the offing. He got the call to come to the home office for a strategy meeting. Where he was told after eighteen years of employment, his services were no longer needed.

Too young to quit and too old to start over. That young graduates is what you face. The company has no more loyalty to you than to a chair or a desk. You are completely non-essential. You will struggle to find a job all of your lives which will never pay you what you are actually worth. Forget your ideas and idealism; they are no longer wanted or needed. But back before Fascism came into vogue, and real thought was considered a fair and viable currency, a great man said the following.

“We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education. – Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1944

Remember these words and keep them in your mind because yours is probably the last generation ever to hear them again. We return you now to the frog, already in progress.