From The Edge of The Deep Green Sea of Stupidity

When back in July the Washington Monument’s Reflective Pool turned green right before national Independence Day celebrations, the phenomenon attracted little media attention – and rightly so, in the context of the wars, heat domes, dictatorship shenanigans and genocides that have now become a regular occurrence in late-stage industrial civilisation (early-stage post-Anthropocene).

It was only a colour change after all, what’s the big deal?

But the postcard-perfect visual metaphor of yet another symbol of empire dominance falling prey to its own idiocy has stayed with me since then, and I just can’t seem to get it out of my head. The green reflective pool is a sign of the changing times: despite all the made-up stories by the junta about how the water became stagnant or that “the Democrats did it”, all experts agree that the algal overpopulation party at the Washington Monument was a result of the climate crisis. Bodies of water across the world are experiencing the exact same effect, as heatwaves bring lake and river temperatures up to ideal conditions for the fast over-proliferation of algae and other microorganisms.

Colours are important, because they signal change. And this is why, in the same way that the junta has been dismissing climate change as “weather”, it has gone to the ridiculous lengths of releasing doctored “before” images of the Reflective Pool to convince the public that the pool has always been green – well, at least as early as the previous administration. Back in 2017 they got caught with their pants down as they doctored images once more to boost the size of the inauguration ceremony crowd. Now, with AI, and with an electorate that seems to have the memory of a fish swimming in a low-visibility algal pool, they can probably tell us next week that the pool is red, and the following week that the pool has always been a purple metallic sheen.

So, perhaps it was right for the empire to call it the Reflective Pool, because whatever the colour is, you will never notice it changing: you only see a reflection of the sky above. The sewage of corruption underrunning it all remains safely concealed under the still waters, as an inverted sunset decorates the surface of the pool and reflects back to the dictatorship the only thing it is interested in seeing: its own face.

Fascism is a universal pollutant, but it always comes with the most majestic reflective pools. And all the while as humans fight with each other over “who did it”, the algae itself is the tiny, big winner in the story: despite Trump dumping peroxide in the reflective pool to kill it, much like when he tried to kill Covid with bleach, any attempts to stop climate change from showing its true colours, and to kill organisms that are thousands of times more resilient than us to the climate crisis, are laughable. The ecological history of this planet has already entered a new chapter, and the Washington Monument was simply a brief stop. The train of extinction has already left the building, and humans will be disembarking at the next stop. Whether this emperor thinks he is wearing blue, red, or green clothes, him and his entire species are butt naked against the scorching light that even the pool can’t reflect.

“From The Edge of the Deep Green Sea” is a song that was written by The Cure in 1991. It is believed to be about two lovers who know that their relationship is doomed, but both prefer to lie to each other all the way to the bitter end. Hmmm…

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