The Present is a Cauldron

The present is a cauldron of different recipes for survival, all of which are examples of too many cooks spoil the broth adage. No one in times like these could possibly find solace nor recidivism recommended in any one truth without becoming contradictory and confused. Here in California where I live we are being processed to be prepared for a super El Niño when statistics show it is La Niña years that have resulted in the majority of catastrophic floods and damage. Nevertheless, I will give cursory acknowledgement to the warnings because in this day and age, it’s best to put some effort in personal safety without acquiescing entirely to the rising fear mongering the world leaders and science and technology benefactors are either not warning us enough about or are overwhelmingly promoting or cautioning about. From worldwide travel restrictions, health concerns, data center building, nuclear/war violence, dictatorship/ anti-democratic politics, surveillance overreach, and, in general, a plethora of information and variety of truth/ untruths we are bombarded by, have all coalesced into one big bundle of apprehension and fear. On the surface, the best of us try and ignore or, at least, dissimulate and disassociate ourselves from most of it, but I still wonder why a ballroom and new monument in Washington, D.C. are prime examples of a reality I never saw coming, despite being a lifelong contrarian, in the mildest sense of the word. I read enough science fiction and understood and continue to understand, dictators and monsters sometimes take over the world, but super heroes, patriotism, idealism always has come forward and puts a stop to it or them. Or does it? 

When I was a young kid and bomb shelters were being made so we could all emerge after an undetermined time from a nuclear war ( with The Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, remember that?), we’d be ready to get back to building the democratic, bigger, better, and, of course, heavily armed capitalist state. I, also cheered and sometimes participated in the anti-war, pro civil rights, modern feminist, anti- nuke (both weapons and commercial use), the Occupy, Arab Spring, pro- Palestinian, anti- Zionist, anti-surveillance Patriot Act, anti- war again and again, and again. I was also a veteran, or I can say proudly, I am a veteran, for once a veteran, always a veteran, a blue-collar working man, and now an old gray haired social security recipient favoring Medicare for all and some version of socialism for my grandchildren. The sad thing is seeing certain parts of the world continue to deteriorate into sacrificial lambs, Cuba being the biggest one to me because I’ve been there several times and I understand the people are being made to suffer simply because at one time in their history they fostered a relationship with socialism and Russia, ironically, socialism and Russia are more tolerated or accepted today than Cuba itself. That’s the way of America, Saudis fly planes into the twin towers and pentagon, and all Muslims outside of Saudi Arabia are intolerable. The banks bring America and the world to the brink of collapse, and they get the relief, while millions of ordinary citizens lose their homes, financial security, and faith in their country. A pandemic kills a million or so here, the worst statistical measurement in the world, and it’s called fake news. All culminating in the most crazy historical, literally crazy, example of when nearly all the so-called leaders of the so called free world begin to follow and emulate one of the worst human beings born in my lifetime, willing to destroy whatever small amount of civil, cultural, political, idealistic, philosophical principles which have been pushed and pulled and sacrificed for, into the modern age. It’s not as if he is Prometheus when we need warmth, but more like Midas and he brings us the Hydra, or Medusa. He, of course, is no Jason nor Perseus, merely a cartoonish version of how we see monsters in the modern age. Fat, lumbering, all powerful until the beheading or the successful assassination. Then it becomes mundane repetition, I won’t be around for the next edition. The historical rewrite nor the embellishments. Sent from my iPad