Stan Laural on occasion would proclaim “Well, here's another fine mess you've gotten me into, Ollie.” Well we are on a whole new level of ‘fine messes.’ It involves a confluence of two globalized processes that are maliciously feeding off of each other bringing ever day closer to the point of no return. Capitalism, our preferred mode of production and distribution is seriously malfunctioning. And at the same time we face the looming catastrophe of global climate change with unknown consequences. These two interlocking crisis’s besiege and confuse us and lead many into a deadly combination of denial and toward embracing reactionary political and cultural ideologies. Simplistic dogmas in both religion and economics are becoming increasingly appealing to masses of the poorly educated and semi-literate. Both in the US and in the Muslim world, our quasi-adversary, religio-political demagogues allied with opportunistic political parties offer easy, simple and very dangerously wrong solutions from 10th Century holy war to 19th Century lassiez faire capitalism. Despite an abundance of well-researched books, periodicals and Internet blogs, serious objective thinkers seem powerless to permeate this horrendous confluence of ignorance and rigid dogma.
Respected scientists worldwide plaintively warn us that we are irreversibly damaging our biosphere with runaway industrialism, yet nothing substantive is done with the US being the leading recalcitrant. In fact in the US an entire political party has based its platform on almost total denial. Industrialism that seemed to have given us so much has now reached a point of seriously diminishing returns. But a ruling class of billionaires and multi-millionaires, who continue to financially benefit handsomely from this state of affairs and control powerful interlocking corporate interests, conspire in a multitude of ways to keep things rolling right along (or more recently just sputtering along as a nasty global recession lingers.) And so we slither toward the dreaded point of no return in which self-perpetuating feedback loops become unstoppable. This while most of world’s population blithely contends with business as usual. This ‘business as usual’ ranges from simply survival all the way up the food chain where the comfortable and well fed but existentially dissatisfied are absorbed in varying degrees of banal but expensive forms of avaricious competition and conspicuous consumption.
To make matters worse an ill-fitting frame of reference, is constantly reinforced through a hegemonic, seamless 24/7 corporate owned media. Its dependence on advertising profits degrades the news with endless spectacle and allows for precious little real information. Providing understanding and clarification of complex issues is left to an underground of alternative sources. Yet on some visceral level everyone feels things are coming apart at the seams. A sense of hopelessness, resignation and cynicism reigns. With our beloved capitalist mode of production bogged down with overcapacity and under investment and unemployment at record levels, resorting to the usual materialistic consumerist solutions becomes ever more out of most people’s reach. ‘Shopping to the point of dropping’ is now as out of fashion as the leisure suit.
And a hapless president watches as his party now devoid of credibility despite significant achievements fall prey to a pack of fools without answers or even common sense, and they move ever closer toward retaking the levers of legislative power. The ensuing political dialogue is led by the some of the most intellectually dishonest, disingenuous and opportunistic individuals ever to suck air. Analysis using the best science, statistics and objectivity is ghettoized and pilloried as propaganda while the real propagandists commandeer a vast interlocking array of electronic and print media.
Suggestions of rationale approaches or even comprehension of these two interconnected world-historical emergencies - economic and environmental, rarely see the light day. Too many wars and too many individual acts of violent desperation cloud our collective mind and consume our national budget. And many are direct results, “blowback”, from previous geopolitical blunders. This again as hordes of the illiterate, semi-illiterate and minimally educated embrace the most retrograde versions of pre-medieval monotheistic religio-cultural traditions. Ironically as we move deeper into this new millennium the appeal of superstition and atavistic urges becomes evermore compelling. And most unconscionably here in the US a large portion of the population, presumably educated at least through the high school level, have joined into this retreat into the past with their leaders railing against science as ‘humanist’ ideology.
With the election only weeks away both parties are now engaging in the most demeaning forms of political advertising to try to appeal to the lowest common denominator of the electorate. Complex issues are watered down to a thin gruel or else abandoned altogether. It is no wonder than many turn away from politics altogether to avoid being collaterally soiled. It is indeed an ugly spectacle. We are indeed in a Fine Mess.
