In the 1950’s, our teacher told us to dive
Under our desks
As a dry run
For the Atomic War bomb drill.
The initial blast would blow out
The windows
Followed by superheated
Streams of searing
Gas. Those whose flesh
Wasn’t initially
Stripped from their bones
Would suffocate,
While those further from
Ground zero would be sprayed
With dense radioactive fallout--
Fatal scars and cancers.
Hiroshima had taught us
Something:
Mercy wouldn’t spare anyone from
Suffering,
God’s little children
Would burn like the rest,
But at least we could practice
Our bomb drills
Once a month,
Showing how cooperative and
Obedient we could be
In the face of overwhelming odds.
We have other problems now. It seems likely that the debt will simply turn us into slaves of the Chinese. From wikipedia and US Public Debt:
ReplyDelete"The 2010 Budget proposed by President Barack Obama projects significant debt increases, both in terms of dollars and relative to GDP.[44][45] The debt was projected to nearly double to $20 trillion by 2015, but was expected to increase to nearly 100% of GDP by 2020 and remain at that level thereafter. The estimates assumed real GDP growth (after inflation) ranging from 2.6% to 4.6% annually from 2010 through 2019, which exceeds Blue Chip consensus estimates.[46] These 2009 projections were subject to revision as the debt had in fact reached about 96.5% of GDP by FY2011, much earlier than 2020."
We're constantly dodging bullets and doing the best we can. We do survive Skynet in the Terminator Series. And I think we can survive Obama, too.
Well, we survived the first decades of the Atomic Age, when many people expected us to have a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
ReplyDeleteThat's what all the preoccupation with bomb shelters was about.
My concern is that people don't realize that without excess wealth, a country can't put itself in the position of policing and propping up the rest of the world. When we were a rich country, we could have large standing armies, and foreign aid, and open borders. But those are luxuries we can no longer afford. Clearly, we must put our own house in order first, before we can look outward to other people's problems.
Everyone must share the burden. The rich don't get any more tax holidays. And not the corporations either. If they think there's fairer weather abroad--then let them leave. Most corporations in the world would be delighted to do business here--since their taxes would be less. We live in a "business-friendly" country. If you doubt this, check out Western Europe.
Interesting reflection.
ReplyDeleteA few elderly humans like north and east of Vegas still show abnormal levels of radiation.
KO's mistaken (as per usual) in thinking the atomic age has passed us by. It's still an issue, which is to say, potential disaster-- beyond a beat poet's nightmares.
Civilian reactors, such as the jap. one which the tsunami rolled over, have poured thousands of radioactive water into the pacific.
Read a bit about the latest ..russian ICBMs for a real megadeath-thrill--the Birchtree or something. from Vladivostok to 30 minutes to North beach, daddy-o. The USA has similar shit, and just as horrible. I ...predict we'll see some of the monsters go off within the next 10 years. Best to have suit and mask and stocked fallout shelter handy.
I think Obama killed the business climate, and is now the bomb, or the dud, or the dude that killed the economic machine that laid golden eggs. I'm not sure how he did it. I know why. He's a communist.
ReplyDeleteHelllooooo, Senator McCarthy !!!
ReplyDeletenaw!
ReplyDeleteit was the Skull & Bones Republicans with Green (Greed)
in their hearts/minds up there in Yale
who sucker-punched us...
as we all know
the Dems are on the side of
Truth, Justice, and the American-Chrisian Way
heck, nobody dropped those A-bombs and fire-bombs on Japan ... & killed them dead.
and, remeber<KO Nixon was one on o McCarthy's team
... and so was Robt Kennedy... such "team players" !
Yeah Tailgunner Joe had problems. As did the Kennedy bros.
ReplyDeleteThen compared to the Rosenbergs and others (including nazi defectors to the USSR) helping out Stalin, not that problematic.
(post my comments, Sir F. YOu allow catholic/WASP bashing, etc--then a bit of mild...yid-bashing should be allowed)
We knew our enemy then was communism. This was helpful and clarifying. Through the slow creep of the left, we now have communist lies everywhere around us, even in the churches and the universities. They infiltrated every aspect of American life and now we can't even speak the truth any longer. They wiped us out.
ReplyDeleteCommunism is dead, dead in the water. The Soviet Union is defunct.
ReplyDeleteThe real issue today is Jeffersonian democracy, and whether the moneyed Right can bamboozle middle America into repudiating its own interests in favor of privilege and unregulated capital. That is the real debate we're having now.
The victory will come to those who manage to define the parameters of the discussion before the details are even discussed.
Kirby, you're living in the 1950's. Wake up and come into the 21st Century.
Will the rich, the corporations and bankers be allowed to keep their ill-gotten booty, or will we restore the tax rates which would have prevented the present budget crisis, had they not be shoved through during the Bush Administration? As a middle class parent and working-person, your interests are clearly with those seeking relief. You stand to lose everything. The rich only stand to lose about 5% of their excess spending money. They have the leverage, but you still have the power, through the voting booth. Will you be fooled once again by the swaying cobra head of power? Will you be mesmerized and let down your guard, only to be bitten again?
We can chop the snake up into pieces, or we can allow it to infest our yards and homes, where it threatens our livelihood and our future prosperity. The choice is yours. I've made mine. The Republicans don't represent my interests, they never have.
Accusing Obama and corporate liberals of being reds---that's a big part of the TP-GOP communication hack at this point. You see this on Althouse, other rightist sites (where Olson can be found, chiming in with...klansmen at times (serio, check it out Sir F>)).Merely suggest to some of the wingnuts that taxes should be raised on the wealthy or that social security should be saved, and one's a ...collectivist.
ReplyDeleteThe demos are a pro-business party. Obama routinely praises entrepreneurship, capitalism, Wall street, etc A few nights ago he was hanging with deep pocket NY finaciers wasn't he? IN fact teabaggers--at least ones out in Yokelville-- dislike corporations as well, and will at times say corporations are commies--collectivists!. So in effect anyone is collectivist, except maybe..Foxnews? It's beyond like Ayn Rand's paranoid visions of the 60s.
My next door neighbor built a bomb shelter in 1962. They had a big black German shepherd named Victor who terrified both the milkman and the mailman, so the neighbor built a dog run with a big dog house and a six foot fence around the perimeter on top of the bomb shelter. The entrance to the shelter was inside the doghouse.
ReplyDeleteThe milkman and the mailman both felt much safer because of the dogrun. They'd even laugh at poor Victor and taunt him when he would bark at them and try to jump out of his dogrun to come after them. They didn't realize that if Victor took a running start he could clear the top of the pen without even touching it.
When the neighbor excavated the bomb shelter he found a human skull about eight feet down. He turned it over to the local community college and they did some tests on it. They decided it belonged to a native American female about sixteen years old who had lived there more than a thousand years ago.
The neighbor was a barber who owned his own barber shop. They had a son my age. We were good friends, so my parents even let me go to a summer Sunday School class with him once ot twice. They wanted me to be aware that going to church doesn't necessarily make you an awful person.