For those who did not have the benefit of a classical education, Samuel Coleridge wrote the lyric, The Rimes of the Ancient Mariner, in 1797-8. It is about a sailing ship on a long sea voyage which finds itself in a terrible storm but gets to better weather by following an albatross. For whatever reason, the mariner shoots the albatross which leads to bad luck for the ship. The ship’s company are pissed off with him and hang the albatross around his neck. He is the only eventual survivor of the series of calamities that befall the ship and its crew. For SMAC’s take on the relevance of this to our world today, read on
In his second term, the oldest elected president has already issued a bewildering array of executive orders that are illegal, borderline illegal or controversial and has otherwise conducted himself in an unprecedented, unconstitutional and unbecoming manner. He has taken aim at all the arms of the federal government system, and is tearing them up one by one, not because they are immoral, but because they stand in the way of his and his rich buddies’ feral brand of capitalism.
To do this he co-opted all the people who had something against the state curtailing their lives by throwing each of them a different bone: Be it the Christian fundamentalist with his strict ‘moral’ codes that rival those of the Mullahs; Be it the anarchist or QAnon; Be it the racist; Be it the guy who loves all manner of high-powered automatic weapons who wishes to hunt indiscriminately including schoolkids; Be it the rich guy who thinks the IRS has too much oversight; Be it the guy who feels culturally and economically threatened by immigrants; Be it the disaffected conspiracy theorist who lives in his own podcast, influencer or Fox News bubble; etc. The list is endless – anyone with a gripe.
But he has not stopped there. He has gone after law firms, universities, newspapers, TV and radio stations and individual reporters particularly if they rely to some extent on Federal funding as it gives him leverage – everyone who can hold his actions up to the light.
He is busy tearing the federal system apart and emasculating it and has declared a trade war on the whole world. USA will surely survive but at what cost? While he will die believing himself to be the greatest president ever, his legacy will hang like an albatross around the necks of the Republican Party and his country both economically and geopolitically for years, if not decades. All the while the Chinese will be quietly eating America’s lunch.
To avoid peering any deeper into this possible dystopian future abyss, SMAC offers these repurposed rhymes and lyrics to lighten the moment.
