The Return of the Bomb

MAD is back

“The bomb, Dmitri… the hydrogen bomb.”

In the last couple of weeks the Russians have paced the United States, de-ratifying their full membership in the Test Ban Treaty. They swear they won’t return to testing bombs, though, which is good. I have been told lately that their word is as good as gold, after all. The legacy media deemed it not of considerable concern. Don’t worry- atomic annihilation is more likely, but it isn’t imminent! How did the geniuses in DC react?

By blowing up an explosive laced with radioactive materials, then claiming the goal of the experiment was nonproliferation, of course! How returning to nuclear experiments of this sort de-escalates the steadily compounding war footing of the developed world is beyond the reckoning of us mere mortals- but we’re stupid. DC tells us that every other week or so.

To be less glib; we are not living in normal times. Sadly, We never were- the relative good vibes of the era between the collapse of the Soviet Union and 9-11 were nothing more than a very short fluke of an era- a miniature warm period in between historically long human ice ages, in which vice, avarice, corruption, war, and suffering tend to reign. I can remember the feel-good era of the late 90s with its Euro music invasion (Ace of Base is absolutely great), chia pets, Pokemon, and of course, computers lining every store, apparently there only to display the then-stunning three dimensional screen savers which we kids would gawk at for fifteen minutes at a time. “Wow!” we remarked, “it looks so real!”

While I hope that the current warpath ends, with US intervention the other day in Yemen and the likely forthcoming land invasion of the Gaza Strip by IDF forces, these are darker days than we have seen in at least two decades.

I have spent virtually my entire life in a world where my nation is at war, thinking about being at war, or engaged in “conflicts” which are properly termed wars. All the time it has been justified by fighting (and never destroying) some far off enemy of one sort or another, be it state actor, terrorist front, cartel, or mob of ideologues. I will always support the United States but we’re on one hell of a tenuous footing at this point, and maybe Diocletian, cabbage-loving former Roman emperor, had a point.