It is rare that I will fully type in a curse word; however, this is such a time. There is very little remaining with which to shock. A time to make people realize that we had better pay attention to the situation, unpleasant as it is, for there is no escaping the consequences if the worst happens. At present we are reliving history, that of the "peace in our times" of Chamberlain, or the "false war" after the invasion of Poland until the disaster of Dunkirk. Apparently, we never learn. Same tragic moves in a tragic game.
What is the current situation? Well, quite succinctly, "The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists updated their Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds to midnight. " Closer than it has been in decades. It means that there is real fear of a nuclear war, even a "small" one, where "The worst-case scenario is that US and Russian central strategic forces would be launched with the detonation of several thousand warheads, ... "A large nuclear exchange would not only kill millions of people and contaminate vast areas with radioactive fallout but potentially also have longer-term climatic effects."
A large one? "A blanket of soot would wrap the rays of the Sun and cause a nuclear winter, destroying crops all over the planet and plunging billions into famine." Further clarification and description? I refer you to the many movies, books and essays wherein even the most optimistic, portray "... an uninhabitable world, filled with lethal amounts of radiation and short on necessities like food and water. As our electrical infrastructure collapsed around us, people would resort to looting and other violent methods to survive. The seeming deterioration of civilization during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic would be nothing compared to the anarchy and destruction that would follow nuclear war."
Why do we constantly place ourselves in such suicidal situations? Why do we enmesh ourselves in the nonconsequential, i.e., boasting of being in a Peloton community, rather than in a community of nations that should be, that needs to be? One that does not foment and foster hatred, where it matters not as to color, or ethnicity, or religion, or nationality (and most of that category artificial). Listen to Sade sing Why Can't We Live Together. A question striking deep within our souls:
"Tell me why, tell me why, tell me why
Why can't we live together ...
Everybody wants to live together
Why can't we be together
No more war, no more war, no more war
Just a little peace
No more war, no more war
All we want is some peace in this world."
As a Jew, I stand together with my brethren for we know how deep that hatred strikes. We know, from time immemorial, that the blame will devolve on us, on our shoulders once again, convenient scapegoats. The end results are ugly. The hatred grows to unbelievable proportions, yet it had better be believed. That hatred needs to be constantly fed; new 'food' must be found. No one is safe. Certainly, the denial of the Holocaust, growing once again, the rapid growth industry of anti Semitism, violent anti Semitism, tells us another story.
Need to know, deep within you, what happens, the reality of it all, not just the parades and chants, but the blood, the anguish, the horror, the heaving grounds of mass graves where children and parents were buried alive, where the earth still reeks of blood, where the ground still gives up the bones and ashes of the slaughtered? Think not that you can escape. Even if nuclear disaster is avoided, but war continues, the blame necessity grows, and the scapegoat is ever more a necessity.
I suggest you read, however much you can tolerate, selections from these two books. If you can get more than two pages deep, you have a stronger stomach than I. Or perhaps it is that the heaving ground contains my extended family, hundreds of them.
Read: Children During the Holocaust - Documenting Life and Destruction...in Context
Read: The Unknown Black Book - the Holocaust in the German Occupied Soviet Territories
Here is an excerpt from the latter one, written by one who followed the Soviet Army as they chased the Wehrmacht out. Seeking his family. In vain.
"There are no Jews in Ukraine. Nowhere - Poltava, Kharkov, Kremenchug, Borispol, Yagotin - in none of the cities, hundreds of towns, or thousands of villages will you see the black, tear-filled eyes of little girls; you will not hear the sad voice of an old woman; you will not see the dark face of a hungry baby. All is silence. Everything is still. A whole people have been brutally murdered."
This is what happens when we lose control, give in to our basest emotions and darkest desires. So WHAT THE FUCK, PEOPLE!
Heads need to be removed from the sand.
Eyes need to be opened to the truth, to the consequences.
Ears need to be attuned to what will follow, to the cries of children as they call out, "Mama, I'm afraid, Mama, hide me!"
But there is no hiding from the terrors the horrors, the devastation of war, "conventional" or nuclear.
WHAT THE FUCK!!!
WAKE UP!!
Lest you find yourselves awakening in the midst of a living nightmare.
No matter whatever cloak you choose, whatever name you choose.
Be afraid. Perhaps that fear will be enough to prod us into confronting our own supposed leaders who are too busy playing chicken, while the world burns. Communicate that fear, make them hear, see, make them talk with, not to each other. Perhaps then there will be peace, at least for a while.
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