The Switch Is On

Is it just me, or does it feel as though someone just threw a switch and suddenly the world changed? I know we have been talking about global climate change for a while now, well arguing about whether it exists, and if it does, what it means for humankind.  But suddenly, on comes 2022, and the entire world seems on fire.  First the West Coast of America began getting our attention by essentially literally burning down. One gigantic fire after another.  And these fires weren’t just forest fires. I mean, we have always had forest fires in our West. No, these fires are always way beyond human control. We send out crews and we bombard the fires with things intended to douse them, but they just keep on burning.

But then, all of a sudden, our own little region of North Carolina seems converted into a frying pan. Every day the thermometer hits 90 and then climbs a bit more, sometimes breaking through that magic mark of 100.  Then some clouds roar overhead and deliver some rain. Ahhh, yes, the blessed rain, right?  Well, not quite. Yes, it is true that the rain soaks our landscape, making our plant life happy. But it doesn’t just rain, like it used to. No, now when the heavens deliver, they practically drown us. The other day we had two little rainstorms over a few hours, and they dropped 5 ½ inches of rain. That is a lot of rain.

And now I am reading about Europe. All over Europe the heat is on, full blast. It’s over 100 degrees all over, climbing in some regions to 115 or more. Great Britain is experiencing over 100 degrees (or 40 degrees Celsius, which they seem to prefer).  Places that almost never see 40 degrees C. are seeing it now almost every day.  Railroad transit has been interrupted because tracks are failing. Roadways are failing, and so they are encouraging folks to just stay home (replacing the pandemic as a closing device).

In places that used to have ice, the ice is departing. Now, when ice melts, sea levels will begin rising.  Florida beware, you will soon be under water, and you won’t even be able to blame that Idiot-Malenfant Ron DeSantis.

And I keep wondering what happens when that thing called “Winter” begins to appear. Will winter be reduced to 75-80 degrees, or should we expect some sudden reversal, and the heat gets shut off? Who knows? And are we doing anything about all this? Well, no, because WE (the collective WE) haven’t really decided that global climate change is here. No, we are still pissing on each other about what is going on. Ask Joe Manchin, whose state produces, apparently, ONLY COAL. And Joe will tell you that there is no global warming, or even if there is, his state has nothing to do with any of that. No, Joe doesn’t believe in collective good, only his own good.

And now, just when we became totally fed up with COVID and masks and all that crap, there appears a new variant—yeah, the variant of the month. And this one seems to spread more easily and even evades the vaccination.  So, we are back to heavy duty mask wearing, except that we’re not. Just when we should all be routinely donning our masks again, most of us are ignoring all that in the pretense that nothing is going on.  And, it turns out, the various public health authorities are cooperating with that laissez faire attitude. Yeah, I guess they are now fed up with the public yelling at them all the time.  So, what the hell, let’s all pretend that we’re not going to get sick, none of us, right??

And then, as though the above isn’t bad enough, the American political system now seems totally broken.  Our system has always been annoying, mainly because the American people are often annoying.  But something happened that has changed us and/or the system.  Maybe it was the Barack Obama elections. You know, electing a decent, intelligent, thoughtful and ethical man of color was apparently too much for many Americans.  And so, they came out of their closets and decided to become openly hostile, you know, thoroughly republican. And so, their first act was to enable the election of perhaps the most despicable human being in the country to the US Presidency. Yeah, that Donald Trump thing. And he gave them all permission to be awful, as was their wont.  And so America turned towards racism big time, and misogyny, and we began turning away from the rest of the world, making believe we were the only creatures on the planet.

Now, to be fair, the awful people—Donald’s Tribe—failed to prevail in that next election, and so the country elected Joe Biden, an old guy who is also decent.  But The Tribe refused to concede. Yeah, The Donald told them it was ok to riot, so long as it was in the best interest of keeping him in power. So, first he encouraged the Insurrection, in which armed white dudes invaded the Capitol and started killing people, and actively looking for more people to kill—like Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi.  And, though they failed at that, they went back home and decided to focus on creating chaos. Partly, they began by electing idiot-malenfants, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Bohbert, Josh Hawley (one of the active cheerleaders at the Insurrection) and others like them. And those folks gave Mitch McConnell an open ticket to create chaos.  And Mitch is so experienced and so competent at creating chaos that he became America’s Dream Chaotic-Maker.  Mitch simply refuses to help along anything sensible in the way of legislation that might help America. Nope, if it’s good and created under a democratic President, it ain’t gonna happen.

And so, the failure of America has begun. I keep thinking of that famous book, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  And America is on track as we speak. We are a Nation headed into a state of total failure. And, worse yet, we still have all those nuclear weapons and that really big heavily armed military. Can you imagine what that Military might do in the hands of people like Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, Greene/Bohbert & Co,? The mind boggles.

And here I sit, at the really ripe old age of 87, waiting for someone to flip the sanity switch back on and turn off this damnable switch to Infinite Chaos. We really have had enough, and our grandkids and Great Grandkids have more than had enough.  They want sanity to return.  They want the insane folks to go back into their closets where they used to sit and drink booze and suck their thumbs. That’s where they belong.  It’s time folks. Go home, and let the adults recover our Nation.