Friday 27 July 2012

The Earth's Cadence (or maybe not)


I don’t mean to begin on a terribly downbeat note, but at certain minutes I do revisit those childhood moments we all share. I suppose I am directly referring to the horrific fantasy of nuclear Armageddon. As newly-formed humans with inquisitive yet neurotic impulses, it is inevitable that fear of apocalypse will appear in the infant mind at some point. As adults, we do not shed these worries, we simply rationalise them. But what if the child was correct? Is it maybe an intellectual decision to stare out the bedtime window wondering whether bombers will appear on the horizon? Are sleepless nights as a 9 year old a safety measure; rather than a sign of ADD?

You don’t need to close the curtains and stick on your CD of ‘Gloomy Sunday’ to bring your mood to oppressively downbeat levels these days. Or maybe that isn’t time specific. There are many who had to live through Vietnam, Watergate, JFK, and Altamont. Try telling their teenage souls that Armageddon wasn’t round the corner. Shit happens. In a big world, very bad shit happens. In theory, the world can cease to exist at any second. We don’t know the unknowable aspects of the universe, and it is not a stupid child who wonders whether a Black Hole will turn us into anti-matter before I’ve finished writing this sentence. That’s all mind-bending stuff that will drive a physicist mad and it's all good fun. I, on the other hand, am talking about solid old-fashioned nuclear holocaust here though. Let's stay down to Earth.

Don’t worry. I haven’t got any insider information. I know no more than an average MSN page about the weapon activity of any country. I do possess the knowledge that everyone has. I know that England could wipe out Mars or something. America could blast us back to the dinosaurs. You know? That kind of thing. I doubt none of that crazy stuff. I just don’t dwell on the possibility of Obama locking himself away while spouting Kubrickian lines regarding P.O.E. I am not a radical theorist at heart; I like to go with evidence. Bring me a republican suicide bomber, and I’ll show you an anomaly. Bring me a martyr however, and I’ll show you a thousand more all carrying the same book.

What fool would like to argue that that 9/11 bombers wouldn’t have accepted a doomsday device to stick in the cockpit had it been offered? Their goal of suicide murder is a simple one; suicide murder. They had already been brainwashed as far as they could be and there was no touching them. We may wish to live on high horses in the West and claim that the problems are foreign policy, economics, and poverty. However, these extremists idea of charity is free acid for rape victims. I am not discussing the millions of moderates (who are named moderates by the liberals who claim to be tolerant and impartial, but appoint themselves to be the judges of moderation); I am talking about the clear group of sadistic maniacs who wish to destroy you and everything you love. Don’t talk about Orwellian oppression coming from your government before you acknowledge how Winston Smith’s prose would look from within the walls of Iran. If I write this blog in Tehran, I’m dead. So are any homosexuals I know. That’s how it looks. The phrase “wipe Israel of face of the Earth”, that has become so ubiquitous and therefore rug-swept, is more a universal declaration. If you don’t share their hatred for the target, you are the target.

I will take a rare digression from berating the theocrats to address the more obvious threat. North Korea is an enigmatic, robotic hellhole run by Stalin-type despots from decade to decade. The head of state is a rotting corpse. The last president was the result of having a father who wishes to run things posthumously. The current leader is a crazy looking kid who was brought up by that mess of a man. I’ll spell it out: the future is not Orange. What’s more, they actually have the nuclear weapons that the Ayatollahs can still only view thumbnails of. The mind baffles as to why Saddam was so severely dealt with, but the Kim crew have managed to build a kingdom that would feel fantastical if it weren’t so horrifying. I don’t know the details of what goes on in there (look up someone who does; there’s plenty from them), but I have seen pictures taken last year that echo, with precision, those images you remember from the most interesting history lessons at school. There is no way the mind of the public can be remotely free when you’re told the almighty leader is a cadaver who once achieved eighteen holes-in-one on his golf debut. Call me old-fashioned, but a lack of freedom and information always tends to breed problem states.

There is a reason to sleep tonight though. North Korea is not a state that’s big on the afterlife. The main man is almost a God, but there is no Heaven or Hell preaching going on. It’s all political and military fear. They don’t want the world to end. They want their strange concept of a country to flourish. They’re also clever enough to know that they can’t try any funny business if they want to see that vision through. Kim Jong Un can’t even poke Putin on Facebook without saying goodbye to his cousins first. He won’t destroy South Korea unless he wants WWIII. Maybe all he dreams of is WWIII, but we shouldn’t just assume that and proceed to lose our minds. They’re a bunch of dangerous folk, but they can remain in the group of ‘usual suspects’ for the time being. Don’t worry; he’s not in your garden with a pitchfork.

So I bring you back safely into the hands of the God-Botherers. Apocalypse can be a very attractive option for those who fearsomely believe that paradise is ready and waiting.  For everyone else, it’s like receiving a free voucher for Matalan; it’s a nice idea but you’re probably never gonna go there. Al Qaeda doesn’t care if we all die. Nor do those terrorists who operate in Israel. The Westborough Baptist congregation get weak at the knees at the idea. These are facts that cannot be disputed. They can however, be exaggerated, or muted.       

One thing to say over and over while you’re under the covers is this: they don’t trust science. Western scientists working on skin burning chemicals are not having regular meetings with the militia in Saudi Arabia. They are in separate camps. Technically, a ‘Muslim’ terrorist can’t use a nuclear weapon with any confidence. His primitive beliefs dictate that the atoms needed are not existent, and evolution is false so any cellular damage is impossible. They haven’t got the courtesy or intelligence to invent a plane to crash. How far away do think their research group is away from grappling with the theory of relativity? What the Korean’s (or the Nazi’s for the matter) have in common with us is a desire for advancement. We veer off into different roads at that point but science and learning remain in these two societies. Josef Mengele would have built a superhuman baby with rocket arms given the time and money. Bin Laden would probably have just managed to work the Velcro on his pair of Nikes.

So, I don’t think the end of the world is nigh, or even tomorrow morning. Armageddon is possible of course (it always is), and it will always prey on the mind of neurotic kids and long may that continue; it’s part of growing up. There is a time though, when that fearful curiosity becomes an intellectual handicap and the mind struggles to be both rational and happy. There are some warning signs to use as your canary down the mine. Firstly, Iran invades Israel (bad news, we then invade Iran and all bets are off). Second, North Korea tries it on Third Reich style (we can start writing long essays to go into the next generation’s history books). Thirdly and finally, we fuck things up ourselves (the EDL takes off, the opposition mobilise, mini-revolution).  So avoiding these immediate worries you can rest assured that those engine noises above your bedroom are simply low flying commercial planes. Why are commercial planes flying so low this far away from the airport though? Think about that instead!

I wanted this post to be a positive one at its heart. In a roundabout way, I think it is. 

1 comment:

  1. Great blog!!!! visit mine too - jayachandradaily.blogspot.com for more secular content such as poems and essays. I am also writing a series of essays called " to believe or not to believe" which destroys religion at its fundamental levels.

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