This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

In his classic 1953 novel, “Fahrenheit 451.” Ray Bradbury painted a picture of the police chasing and killing the criminal Montag, live on TV. Only the police couldn’t find the real Montag, so they killed someone else who looked enough like Montag to fool the camera and TV audience. Not bad; only the best science fiction captures aspects of the future so correctly. Live-24 hour news coverage in 1953? But more to our point, the complete orchestration of the news.

The camera has to capture something, anything. The state can’t ever lose without embarrassment. And if there are no bad guys around? You make some up. From phantom North Vietnamese PT boats randomly firing torpedoes in bad weather from incredibly long distances in the Gulf of Tonkin. To drug runners disguised as innocent native fishermen going nowhere near the direction of the Untied Snakes on the high seas in an open boat. “We have the criminal Montag in sight!”

According to the recently signed Particle of Misunderstanding between Iran and the United States, aka, (the surrender document). Control of the strait of Hormuz rests fully and totally in the hands of the Iranians. Understand? Trump said it was a good deal! Trump signed it! Trump said we won, so don’t start your Trump mealy mouth now. Control of the strait means the Iranians are in charge. They say what’s what and what goes. When they tell you to stop, you stop! They are the cops on the scene, like it or not. [SEE: Surrender Document]

So when a cargo ship decided to disregard Iranian instructions and take the path via Oman, the voice on the radio said, stop immediately. They didn’t stop. The Iranians fired some sort of projectile at the ship causing minor damage. Gee, just imagine, you run from the cops in a war zone and they shoot at you! Go figure, wait until I tell their Chamber of Commerce about this. The only real question is: was it an intentional provocation? The US military responds! Who was left in sole control of the Strait of Hormuz again? Almost, like they had it all planned out and were waiting on it or something. Send the cargo ship, nothing too flammable. Testing 1, 2, 3?

By now the news has sunk into that over-tinted and hair-farmed skull that his Particle of Misunderstanding is about as popular as Jeffery Epstein buying Girl scout cookies. What to do? What to do? I guess Mr. Trump now has buyer’s remorse. The slow burn of that lousy deal and now everyone outside of his circle is telling him what a lousy deal it was, he made. They yelled at him! The nerve! Bringing back his PTSD from childhood memories of Daddy Fred, and he didn’t take it well.

“Oh yeah! I’ll show you, Daddy! I’ll start another war. An even bigger one! And, and, we’ll win it this time!”

Well, they can’t just drop out of the sky and start shooting at the Iranians, like they did that last time. They need a pretext. They need some phantom patrol boats. “Look! Drug runners in the strait of Hormuz headed for the Untied Snakes in an open boat filled with a deadly cargo of marijuana, cracked and Hashishish.” No, that really doesn’t work here, does it? “Go ahead, go ahead and take the Omani route. I’m sure, it’ll be fine. I know the Iranians told you not to go that way, but I’ll bet those Iranians won’t do a damn thing! You’re a cargo ship, not an oil tanker. They won’t shoot at you, I bet.”

Every media mouthpiece calls it US retaliation for an Iranian missile attack. Who is in charge of the Strait according to the Particle of Misunderstanding, again? That headline should read, “US Intervenes in a lawful Iranian police action! Breaks Ceasefire!”  As Voltaire observed; if they can make you believe absurdities they can make you commit atrocities. Something like attacking fishing boats with hellfire missiles.

So, Sophistry and screenplay are all part of the modern political globe theater. But you could see how the absurdity could quickly pile up. [See: Soviet Union 1917 – 1991]

You’d have to live under a rock or watch Fox News not to know about Reflecting-Pool Gate by now. Did you know? Those gallons and gallons of hydrogen peroxide dumped in the Reflecting Pool are the exact same hydrogen peroxide found in most of your better grades of paint removers? Go figure! A hydrologist suggests; the next time they want to kill algae, they find out what kind of algae it is they want to kill first. See, there’s your plain old garden-variety green algae, it’s ugly, but it won’t hurt anybody. Then there are other kinds of algae dangerous to humans, pets. and wildlife. Let us rejoice! They only screwed up the paint job and didn’t kill anyone!

Did you know? You’ll probably say you did, but I know that I didn’t. The dark blue color Mr. Trump chose was a poor choice indeed. Not because of its dark dark pigment, but because the color wasn’t supposed to be optional! You’re gonna laugh when I tell you this. Originally, when contracted, the pool bottom was supposed to be slate gray. It’s a reflecting pool, designed to have a mirror finish. And what color do we paint the back side of the mirror? American Flag blue? It is absolutely hysterically funny, when you begin understanding what a huge fluster cluck this really was. Duh, Donald (the Wizard) thought he could make it all better by painting the bottom of the pool dark blue. “You know, like water! Huh? Huh? How come nobody else thought of that before me? I must be a genius or something!” It’s absolutely terrifying to think about what decisions he might make next.

Let’s play a game: every time Trump or the media mention “vandals, criminals,” or leftists.” In your mind, I want you to replace those words with “Little green men from Pluto.” They’re both made-up imaginary terms! Both being imaginary, one is no more outrageous than the other. There are no vandals, just as there aren’t any little green men from Pluto. But the media repeats this lie. Why not the other one, maybe someday? Somehow, the 350 foot gash in the pool has amazingly disappeared! The clever alien bastards that they are, are now trying to cover their tracks, now that their nefarious plot has been exposed by Donald Trump!

The hydrologist also warns that until the proper algae strain is identified. It’s best that a fence be erected around the Reflecting Pool, until its chemistry can be fully understood. It seems, crazy as it sounds, but just pouring in gallons of noxious chemicals can kill the harmless algae and open the door to the more dangerous variety . An unusual number of dead ducks have been found recently in the Reflecting Pool. Do you know what this means? Little green men from Pluto, don’t like ducks! I sure hope a six foot fence chain link fence will stop those diabolical extra-terrestrial bastards and keep them at bay!

“The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. “One word of truth outweighs the world.” ― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn