Jim Dandy to the Rescue

Where is Jim Dandy when we need him? New Jersey Fats is desperately in need. The Palestinians are desperately in need. John Boehner is desperately in need. In fact, and much more importantly, the human species is desperately in need, but our hero, Jim Dandy, is nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, if he ever shows up, he will be, I fear, too late.

Jim Dandy is certainly too late to rescue me from my penultimate funk. I have been unable to blog for quite some time as there seems to me no point to it. Nothing much happens, the world drags on day to day to the fast approaching “last syllable of recorded time,” as soon there will be no one to record the final and well deserved passing of the human species. If we have not drowned in our own filth, or expired from nuclear radiation, or succumbed to global warming, or starved to death for the benefit or entertainment of the one percent, perhaps something really bad may happen.  

The human species, presumably on top of the food chain, the great chain of being, the apex of civilization, the heights of evolution, the darling of God’s eye, is an absolute dismal failure, unable or unwilling to manage their affairs, incapable of even the most basic of social tasks, oblivious to their own stupidity, morally bankrupt, and on an accelerating path to oblivion. Try as I might I cannot see it differently. I am on the very brink of hopelessness.

I have been aware, of course, that things were not going well for humans, that greed has become the most basic human value, that profit has become more important than human life, that inequality no matter how outrageous was now regarded as acceptable, that untold millions were doomed to poverty while the one percent were deserving while others were not, why poverty was the fault of the poor, why capital was more important than labor, and why, by some bizarre quirk of thought, not working has become more desirable than working at all levels of society. That is, the rich do not work as they do not have to, while the poor prefer not to work because of the untold riches they receive from the government.  

I had become accustomed to this state of affairs however obscene and disgusting it is. I knew that the five or six Walmart heirs together possessed more money than forty or fifty percent of all other Americans, that there were, in fact, not only billionaires but multi-billionaires, and that inequality was just a fact of life. When I was younger we marveled at millionaires, the word billionaire was never even mentioned (an ice cream cone was a nickel, a movie or hamburger was a dime, a hundred dollars a month was a living wage).

When I learned today that 85 people together possess more wealth than three billion plus others on planet earth (I have no reason to believe this is not true) I realized it is all over for us (humans, that is). To me this is demonstrable proof that the human species is bereft of intelligence, oblivious to immorality, unconcerned with human life, and even unconcerned with the tiny planet that sustains them. Having now abused and raped the earth there is talk of colonizing Mars. Good luck with that, mindless, parasitical, bloodsuckers.

   Humanity I love you because when you're hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink.

e. e. cummings