New Year’s is always a while in the making, then the party is over in a day, with hangovers and half-hearted resolutions. Reality returns in a trice. Welcome to our awful, no-good, terrible prospects for 2026.
In a flash we invaded a sovereign nation for its oil, under pretext that a very bad man needed to go. Such baddies are all over the world but few have oil. We overwhelmed our meanie with an impressive show of force, i.e., using a cannon to kill a canary—and created a distraction from the Epstein files. Thus Trump’s quest for a Nobel Peace prize continues by starting wars – a rather counterintuitive way to go about it. And Little Marco Rubio, with whom the Donald once traded belittling comments regarding certain parts of their anatomies, is firmly in the latter’s pocket.
But, wait, there’s more: No one really understands AI except that it will change our world and along the way take our jobs and make our lives one big retirement plan. Not that AI won’t generate money but for whom? Please don’t be abused of the notion that it’ll be spread all around.
What started around the Tigris-Euphrates and in ancient Egypt has never changed. There were smart people and there were those less smart and control of water was the big issue. The smart ones thought up the means of production but needed labor to make it happen. Then the smarties used warriors and security forces to force the strong to work for next to nothing—and a religious class to tell them not to worry, that it was all the will of the gods. Please notice that nothing has changed in this new year of our Lord.
There was no reason for the smarties to hold overwhelming wealth and leave workers with little to nothing. They needed each other, but the workers were robbed of livelihood and dignity. It was greed, plain and simple and it goes on forever. Whatever there is to have after AI is king, don’t expect everyone to benefit.
Then there’s the violence we’ve all come to love. Check your preferred entertainments and note there’s typically someone saying, threatening and doing terrible things to other people which, it turns out, is as addictive as fast food. Even our sports are extremely violent affairs but, hey, that’s what we like.
The death of Charlie Kirk was a big, fat chance to get a handle on gun violence. After all, we would only pay attention once the worst happened to someone well loved, and Charlie had his many fans. But it quickly became political. His widow, remarkably, chose not to hate his assassin–then wandered off-script to ordain J.D. Vance as Trump’s successor when she should have thrown her weight behind better gun laws. Now Kirk’s movement is in disarray, with mutual finger pointing and dope slapping—all auguring no good from what otherwise could have been a game changer.
No wonder we want to run away from it all, which is what Elon Musk proposes: i.e., run to Mars. The Red Planet however has no water and the cost to get there, transform it, and make it sustain us over the long haul could be spent fixing the mess we’ve made here. It’s a matter of will, and so far we don’t have it now, so why would we have it on Mars?
My list is longer but space is short. Much less troubling is the “6,7” phenomenon ingeniously put on us by the young. It’s annoying to them that we imitate all their follies—but mainly we envy their youth. So they came up with “6,7” which means nothing at all and, by cracky, they’ve got something there, and we don’t know what the hell to do about it. Expect more such brain twisters whilst we’re getting facelifts.
Given our politics and all other problems, our party has been a long time in the making and, again, will soon be over if we don’t get a grip.
So, OK, Happy New Year to all, but it’ll take some doing.
Newburyport resident John Burciaga used to party when young and dashing. Now he stands at his door yelling, “Get off my lawn!” Give him a piece of your own mind at Ichabod142@gmail.com.