No Country for Old Men or How Immortality Would Save The World

Carpe Diem has been adopted and twisted by the greedy and the self-centered Average American and the Corporate Machine to mean "Consume Today". The American Dream is no longer about the freedom to achieve one's goals through hard work but a mystical short cut to riches begotten at any cost and freedom be damned.

The planet is in trouble. Not the environmentalist tree-hugger planet. That planet is pretty much in the toilet. The planet that's in trouble is the planet that will be a home for humans for the next 100 years. And I can't even think about the next 1000. It is in trouble because it is being ran by Old Men.

Old Men have experience (from times when innovations were calculators and pesticides). They have knowledge (from times when communications were a radio and two channels of TV). But most of all they have nothing to look forward to except another 5-10 years of life away from wheelchairs and tubes and oxygen tanks.

The problem with Old Men is that they don't need change. Real change will not happen again in their lives.

And they've been in control of the big corporations and more importantly the media and thus shape the viewpoints of the rest of us. And over the last century, the terms of our goals became short. Every aspect of our lives is turning into "Consume Today". Who bothers saving money anymore? Lets take those low interest loans that will become impossible to support in 12-48 months. Lets have a gas tax holiday! Lets drill for oil in Alaska.

And for God's sake, don't give up basic American rights such as the right to commute 50 miles a day in an F150 or buy a 60" HDTV with the last of your credit. And while you're at it, screw the ecosystem, most of us won't be around when...

...see and here's where the problem is. We have been indoctrinated into the religion of Old Men. A religion of comfort. A religion with a 10 year half life. A religion of short sightedness because there's not much time left for its faithful.

So imagine, for a moment, if we could kick these Old Men's lifespans into the 750 year range instead of 75. Woah, gotta control the climate change, stop ecosystem destruction, and stabilize our economy for the next 500 years. Oh and make friends with the Arabs and Chinese. I mean, we might still be shooting 9 holes on their courses in 2508!

Instead we're stuck with a growing population of elders who want nothing more than stability for their remaining years. Leave the politics alone, leave the economy alone, shoot up the last of the oil into the veins of the old country, protect them from those damn brown people, tell them a bed time story about that place in clouds they'll be heading into in a few years. No more technology. No more science. No more knowledge.

It is these elders who, instead of giving us wisdom, are in direct opposition to real change and will stand in its way at any cost. It was they who gave Clinton her strength and it is they who will be the greatest enemy to that impertinent young whippersnapper, Barrack Obama.

But I do believe that we could stop being so fucking selfish and work for the immortal human race. It'll take courage and it'll take giving the Old Men a kick in the ass instead of some kind of automatic respect that society expects us to concede.

We can start by kicking John McCain's flabby ass in November. His old age isn't just an issue of who the VP should be in case McCain passes away while in office or that his memory might be suspect. It's much more serious. It's because he and his minions just want to live out the rest of their lives in a nice retirement home. Even if it is built on corpses from a nasty future.

Ok, cue the McCain old jokes.