Top Ten Ways Bipeds Hurtled Themselves Toward Doom in 2009

1. Nopenhagen non-accord to not agree to do nothing on global warming

I shouldn’t be an I-told-you-so, but I so fucking totally told you so. Given the screeching bipedal resistance from the supposed advanced western democracy in which we reside, from whence was the leadership to arise that would convince people in the rest of the (poorer) world to sacrifice for the common good so that the oceans do not flood everything from Miami to the Maldives? Tony Soprano was more likely to make a voluntary contribution to the Newark school district.

2. Global business elite continues to sell out the world to communism

That would be the Chinese version, which looks suspiciously like Mussolini-style corporativism except for its chilling efficiency. One billion wage slaves building up the most powerful economy in the world headed by a dozen guys in a cult—does this sound like a world we want to live in? Not content with dismantling our industrial north and shipping it all to non-union Tennessee and South Carolina, the Captains of Industry have now found the perfect solution—get oriental despots to handle personnel. And we wonder why it’s so hard to provide health care for Americans! (Hint: they don’t NEED us any more.)

3. Finance capital, after almost destroying itself and us, muscles a chance to do it bigger and better next time

The only bright spot on this one is that it was so obvious that it pissed everyone off. Unfortunately, the most likely beneficiaries are faux-populist demagogues eager to get back in the game. Real oversight looks impossible given the firm hold of the bankers on the genitalia of everyone important. Already the system is lining up trillions to pay for the next round of casino capitalism.

4. Lingering nostalgia for individual rights and due process scuttled

Amazing to watch Osama bin Laden successfully impose his vision of the human race on the United States, once a hotbed of individualism. Now, it’s fine if a few dozen hapless schmucks who never did anything get locked up in a dungeon forever—who cares about them as long as the rest of us are safe? Osama would agree—the individual doesn’t matter, only the worship of Allah by the collectivity for ever and ever, Amen. Nice coup by the Saudi guy—first you slaughter the enemy, then you colonize the minds of survivors until they see the world just as you do.

5. Televised maniacs take over the airwaves

Counting the radio band, too, which was infected ages ago. On the positive side, who listens to the effing radio any more? But it is still creepy to think that millions of people slurp up the ravings of opiated psychos all day long—must help them digest all that starch. Of course, NPR is an alternative if you like to hear Buffy and Carlton hone their sibilants and giggle to each other.

6. War, war, oh yes, endless war

Not that that’s anything new in the annals of bipedism, which emerged from the reified worship of slaughter. We tend to forget, however, that the Cold War left us with a vast worldwide arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Saddam didn’t have any, but a whole lot of certifiably demented fucks do, and we shouldn’t think the era of their use is behind us. The last world war wasted 50 million people, and we could still bounce back from that as a species, but I’m not convinced the same will hold true if we manage 500 million the next time. I’d like to fight a War on Terror, too, given the many things that scare the shit out of me—not, however, including Afghan peasants.

7. Religion advances in its crusade to stamp out spirituality

If we really believed in all those lovely philosophical concepts and viewed creation with proper respect, our portion of the world would look a lot different. Instead, our organized religions prove daily that they are mostly excellent at turning already disagreeable bipeds into even lower forms of protoplasmic existence. Luckily for the agnostic among us, most of these fanatics hate each other even more than they hate us. Woe the day that they get over it.

8. Proliferating electronic devices turn bipeds into masturbation machines

Self-pleasuring is a fine thing, but in general it should be done behind closed doors and by invitation only—not on the subway or other public spaces. However, in 2009 we scurried yet further downward toward a collective environment where all is permitted if invented by Apple or Verizon and piped through a hand-held device. We’re not really sharing the street anyway, just carving out an individual section by force.

9. Worldwide testosterone poisoning accelerates

Given their apparent terror at all things sexual, you’d think the guys in charge would do something about the raging endocrine contamination observed from Texas to Teheran where men seem unable to perform the simplest acts, like walking down the street, without wondering if they look butch enough. Leaders must be tough, male relatives must be strong and females must keep their precious jewels firmly tucked under the linens lest someone question the length and breadth of the golden penis. As below, so above: politics is largely run on similar principles—be strong, make us powerful, slay the enemy, conquer foreign ports. Not everyone can win at this; thus our world is not pretty.

10. Prohibiting drugs wipes out drug use

Joke! The other War, that on Drugs, gobbles us up in its bottomless maw. This is in fact a sleeper doom-purveyor as the Mexican nightmare works its way up and over the border. Stay tuned for a new wave of xenophobic hatred based on real fears this time, that of being chopped to bits by a Mexican meth gang.

All in all, plenty of room for doom in 2010! Happy new year!