[Written 11/28/2016]
Like
all of the "Post Mortem" essays, this one was intended to be
auto-published after my death. I've intentionally let one of two slip
past that target, but as long as I can reset the publication dates on
these things I'll keep pushing them back until I can't. This one was
intended to appear on my birthday, 2023, but I was still kicking then,
so it was pushed forward in time, again. And in 2025, it was pushed back one more, hopefully, last time.
One
evening, while contemplating how miserable living through another
moronic Republican president will be, I stumbled on to Ezekiel J.
Emanuel's The Atlantic essay, “Why I Hope to Die at 75.”
Dr. Emanuel’s argument for looking to naturally end his life at around
75 is pretty solid. The subtitle, “An argument that society and
families—and you—will be better off if nature takes its course swiftly
and promptly” nicely sums up his logical and emotional rationale. In a
conversation with a good friend earlier this week, I admitted that, when I was 19,
if I had imagined I’d live to 68, I would have lived most of my life
entirely differently. Until I suffered through my 30th birthday, I did
not expect to live even that long and every decade marker after 30 was a
disappointing surprise.
Once I had lived long enough to watch my father, step-mother, and most
of my family vote for Richard Nixon, twice, I had lost all faith,
respect, and interest in the human race. Nixon had a well-documented
history of corruption as vice-President under Ike (who had quite a
tolerance for corruption himself), was a disgusting faux-commie-hater
and liberal-baiter along with Joe McCarthy before and during reaching
the pinnacle of his corrupt career and blowing up the US political
system. Nixon was obviously only slightly smarter than his dog,
Checkers. The hilariously self-titled "Greatest Generation" followed the
1950's military version of Trump, General Dwight Eisenhower, with
Richard Nixon. Even when everyone with an IQ over 50 knew Nixon was not
only a crook but a traitor they voted for Nixon again in 1972. The fact
that members of my family and the stupid half of the country repeated
this disrespectful, anti-life, anti-science, dehumanizing act by voting
for Ford, Reagan, Bush I, Dole, Bush II, and McCain pretty much ended
any possibility that I would ever have much hope for the human race.
You could almost cling to hope when Carter was elected, since Ford was
clearly incompetent, corrupt, and hoping to extend the Nixon legacy of
stupid. It didn't take long for the Marching Morons to turn on Carter,
though. Anytime Americans get a dose of reality, they rebel.
You
just knew that folks like my family would rebel when they heard, "The
threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of
confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and
spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt
about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of
purpose for our nation." Delusion is the national drug of choice and
everything else we take to numb the pain is just to enhance delusion. In
1980, pretty much anyone with a functional brain cell hoped Reagan
would be the end of the Republican Party and the country would get on
with finding alternatives that were actually conservative. Just like
2016, when Reagan won it was obvious that there is a whole lot more
stupid out there in the sticks and burbs than anyone imagined.
Because you can't get enough of a bad thing, voters rejected Dukakis'
competence and intelligence for Bush I in '88. Reagan had driven the
economy into the ground, created the US international debt, blasted the
manufacturing economy into dust, turned banking into world-class
gambling, and created a military-industrial complex that is a
too-big-to-fail and too-dangerous-to-mess-with monster that has been
crushing the life out of any hope for an American democracy since. Bush I
continued with that drunken party until Clinton's chimp-talk campaign
slogan, "It's about the economy, stupid," convinced barely enough voters
to try something slightly less stupid.
But only slightly.
Eight years of semi-sane government was enough. Instead of going for the
safe, if boring and predictable, bet with Gore, slightly less than half
of the lethargic US voters cast a ballot for a drunk, faux-Christian,
everything-drop-out with a familiar name. Bush II and Cheney promised to
toss a monkey wrench into everything good and to raise up as much crap
as possible; and they did. All in the interest of making money, they
stumbled into one war and conned the country's morons into falling for
another profit and power heist that pretty much insured the end of
anything resembling American credibility in the world.
The 2016 election shouldn’t have been a surprise and it wasn’t, but it
was a gross disappointment on top of a lifetime of disappointments.
Adding to it all, I suspect one of my own children has joined the ranks
of The Marching Morons and that is about all of the crap I can choke down.
If I live to see this essay published, I’ll be 75 and even more
miserable than I have been for at least 60 years. It is impossible to
describe how little interest I have in seeing any more of the future
than I’ve already experienced. I’ve suffered through four Republican
Presidents and Trump will be one too many. The eight year respite
President Barack Obama’s competent leadership offered would be a perfect
way to end my participation in this country’s idiocy. For no more than
12% out of my life I got to enjoy government run by a man who wasn’t
among the dumbest 50% in our down-bred population.
I wake up every night between 2AM and 4AM, feeling nauseous
and slightly dizzy and from head-to-toe, I have that creepy feeling you get
when someone is dragging their fingernails across a blackboard. I know something
is wrong with me. It might even be something curable, but I don’t want the
living cure. I want the permanent cure. I’ve had all I can stand of stupid. I
don’t need to be surrounded by people who elected Nixon or Reagan, the Bush’s
brainless clan, Trump, Michele Bachmann, Jason Lewis or any of the other
half-wits the Marching Morons have put into Congress. I don’t need another day
in the presence of Fox News believers, Alex Jones conspiracy bimbos, climate
change deniers, anti-science hillbillies, clown car over-population
enthusiasts, religious and superstitious nutjobs, and pampered white people who
think they are members of the master race even though they probably can’t spell “genocide” or “holocaust.”
At this point, I’ve done everything I wanted to do and was able, or failed to be able, to do some of those things badly enough to prove to myself I would never clear the hurdles and achieve the goals I set for myself. What passed for “creative juices” in my life have dried up and withered away. My body is not just failing me, but it hurts badly enough that I’d be tapping-out if there were a referee to signal to.
In my case, I could have picked any number between 15 and 50 as an acceptable moment to call it a life. I can’t say it has been fun, because it hasn’t. I can’t say it has been worthwhile or satisfying, because it wasn’t. Regardless of how many people I’ve supported, defended, supervised, or tried to befriend, I’ve always been alone and these last few years have been ruthlessly lonely and unrewarding. If I could simply stop breathing today, I would. I desperately hope I don’t have to move this damn rant to a later date than July 17, 2023.
