The Atomic War!
I spent much of my youth and early adult life seriously worried that nuclear war about to break out. Then the Berlin Wall fell and things seemed to settle down a bit, though the fundamentals which might lead to war were largely unchanged. The U.S. and the former Soviet Union had more than enough firepower to wipe us off the globe.
During my "worry years" I subscribed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to keep up with the developments across the globe as regards nuclear weapons. I thought about it that much. I subscribed to a host of political magazines, both those with which agreed and those with which dissented. (It was what we did in those pre-internet days.) It was a great weight on my shoulders, one I was unable to shake. Then fortunately I either matured or things got measurably better. Now the Bulletin says we are ninety seconds from doomsday.
Now I worry about nuclear war again. Not so much an attack on the U.S. from Russia since our incoming President is a vassal of Putin, but I dread a small-scale weapon might be used in Ukraine. What holds things up is that Putin wants Ukraine for its wealth and an atomic attack would wipe much of that away. Other nations, once confident that the U.S. would protect them are now seeking nuclear weapons, and I can't blame them. The U.S. under Trump is no real ally to anyone. We've reached a tragic point in human history where greed and self-interest, among our worst traits are what arguably protects us from nuclear warfare, while at the same time making it more likely.
Rip Off
I must admit that I never gave nuclear war a second thought and never felt in any danger. In my opinion the ruling class on either side would never start a war in which they were guaranteed to be annihilated. Throughout human history the elites have sent young men to die in wars but nuclear war is totally different because the elites would be destroyed along with the rest of us. Putin isn't insane and he knows that if he used a nuclear weapon in Ukraine he'd become a total pariah and he'd lose any remaining support he's got around the world. Anyway he's probably hoping that Trump will withdraw US support and Ukraine will cave in.
ReplyDeleteWhen Jimmy Carter turned 100 I mentioned the two gold discs attached to Voyager 1 and 2 which contain recordings of sounds of life on Earth plus a message from Carter. Yesterday the BBC news website published the text of Carter's message which is intended to be found (and somehow understood) by an alien civilisation which comes across the Voyager spacecraft in the distant future. Carter says "We are trying to survive our time so we can live into yours" which I thought was very moving. He was a passionate environmentalist who understood the dangers of climate change all those years ago and in my opinion it's climate change and the effects on our civilisation that we need to worry about rather than nuclear weapons.
I gather that we're roughly the same age, Rip. And I well remember those fears growing up. I've never forgotten how shocking & frightening it was to see my parents & all adults visibly terrified during the Cuban Missile Crisis - I spent hours drawing up a child's plans to turn my grandparents' basement into a fallout shelter, my way of coping with it as best I could.
ReplyDeleteMy fears began to fade as I got older, until the Reagan administration started touted the notion of a winnable nuclear war once again. You'll remember the infamous statement about digging a shelter in your back yard: "With enough shovels, we'll all make it."
And then the fall of European communism changed everything ... so we thought. But there was the replacement threat of international terrorism, which seemed in many ways worse than the Cold War. The thought of suicide bombers with a nuclear device is even more frightening.
Finally, we have an incoming administration driven by greed & bloated ego that's essentially a terrorist group in charge of America, and capable of wreaking havoc around the world. Even in my darkest moment over the past decades, I never really believed we could come to this. The death of Jimmy Carterr, surely the most decent man to ever be President, seems an ominous precursor to what lies ahead - the difference between Carter & what's coming couldn't be more different. And I find myself wondering how America could have fallen so low.
My main hope right now is for the 2026 midterms. But the two years leading up to them are going to be awful.