Apocalypse Now?
When I was a high school senior at Oakwood School in North Hollywood, I was cast in the lead role of a musical by my talented classmate Richard Saul called Apocalypso! As I recall, it was a crazy mashup of a Fred Astaire spectacle and an end-of-the-world drama. (I was cast because I was the new guy in the artsy school, after being forced out of a military prep school. I could sing but wasn’t much of a dancer.) Dystopia was always in the back of our young minds then. There was always the shadow of the Bomb, of course. But, as we usually forget, the 1960s and early ‘70s were also a graveyard of dreams: endless war, assassinations, racial uprisings. And still, it all seems like a rosy dawn compared to the grim realities of today.
The climate crisis is now officially front-page news. Every day. Hurricanes, biblical downpours, drought, hellfires, orange skies… end of world stuff. But the human race — or more specifically our political and corporate elites — have proven incompetent to deal with these apocalyptic threats. While President Biden tries to push through a massive public works bill to bolster our overwhelmed infrastructure, what are the executives of Disney, Pfizer, ExxonMobil and countless other corporate brand names doing? They’re lobbying against the essential bill, because it modestly raises corporate taxes. A bill that is already hanging by a thread because the science and reality-denying Republicans are only one senator away from blocking any and all progress in the U.S.
Meanwhile, the New York Times — which is supposed to be the voice of reason in America — seems more hysterical about the Taliban than the actual end of the world. The Times revealed its true imperial colors by freaking out over President Biden’s declaration that the era of U.S. overreach in the world is over. As Biden boldly put it, the U.S. must no longer launch “major military operations to remake other countries.” Times reporter Mark Landler scrambled to get a platoon of pundits to denounce Biden’s anti-imperial policy, including, get this, Tony Blair (!) That’s right, the former British PM so disgraced by his groveling partnership with the Bush-Cheney war juggernaut that he can’t show his face in public in England.
Meanwhile, House Democrats sided with Republicans to beat back a Biden attempt to modestly cut the Pentagon budget. It’s enough to make you give up on pathetic American democracy.
I never thought I’d say this, but old, doddering Joe Biden might be our last chance to save America. He seems a different man in the White House. He’s 78. He lost a beloved son to that endless war in the Middle East. He seems to be a man scuffed by life and as it nears the end, with nothing to lose. Yes, he’s still a corporate toady in some respects. Yes, he’s still too enamored of the long-dead rituals and niceties of Capitol Hill. But there’s some kind of new bold streak in the man that feels like our last best hope.
So I’ll say it again. Fuck the New York Times and all the whining voices of neoliberalism. I’m with Joe. I have kids and maybe someday grandkids too. I want them to live.
