Dancing the Last Dance on the Titanic

Dear George,

We all know that greed is good, even though it turns the brain to mush and shrinks the soul to the size of a dingleberry. But few people understand why it’s not only good, but essential as our world tumbles down around our ears.

One writer approached the answer to this question obliquely when he said:

At one point in his masterful People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn reflects upon the unspeakable carnage wrought by the Conquistadors in South and Central America, all in the pursuit of gold, and wonders at how those obscene riches sustained imperial greatness…for barely a hundred years. All that bloodletting, enslavement, massacres—genocide in places—for a temporary wealth that quickly vanished on the stage of history.

It reminds me of our current oil craze: in one century we have plundered billions of years of stored hydrocarbons, and what do we have to show for it? Fleeting prosperity—one that is hardly shared by all—a highly volatile Middle East, and awesome ecological devastation that will require centuries of recovery.

There is it in a nutshell, George. Time’s running out; the dance is nearly over and the lights are beginning to dim. We’ve got to get it while the getting’s good, ‘cause it ain’t going to be good much longer.

For the last sixty years we’ve shot across the sky like a meteorite, and like most meteorites, we are slowly being reduced to a cinder as we plunge through an atmosphere made rank by our “progress.” We are dancing the last dance of the powerful, with spins and gyrations that become even more frantic as we leap and hop our way closer to the precipice.

We are now little more than the sum total of the myths weaved by our corporate media that highlights the trivial to distract the drones from the walls and foundations that weaken with each passing day.

Greed is the lifeboat that will keep our corporatists afloat while the drones sink beneath the surface, still convinced that they are free even as the water pours into their lungs.

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones