We Can’t Afford To Say We Are Powerless

I recently said I was a happy person. And I am. But occasionally my thoughts turn toward climate change or the fact that there are nuclear weapons in this world and it induces a fair amount of anxiety in me. I wouldn’t call it unhappiness, rather an intense desire to do something without the ability to find a quick fix for the problem.

I deal better with my anxiety regarding climate change and environmental breakdown. Perhaps it is mostly performative, but there are things I can do as an individual to lessen my impact on the environment. I drive my bike instead of my car whenever possible. I eat locally sourced food and accentuate plant-based foods in my diet. I eliminate plastic from my life as much as possible and hang my clothes to dry, weather permitting. It does help to do SOMETHING, because I really feel it will take everyone doing their part if we want to change the world. Sometimes it’s not so much about HOW change starts but THAT the commitment to change takes root.

The realization that there are nuclear weapons in this world is harder for me to do anything about. I was too young to experience the Cuban Missile Crisis, but there have been a fair amount of times where global conflict became so possible that the dread of nuclear war has seized my attention and my soul. The madness, the utter madness of people doing that to the human race. The hubris required of humans to feel they have the right to risk the survival of every species on earth with their gamesmanship. Zombie movies are frightening because we are forced to consider what the world would be like if our fellow humans became inhuman brain-sucking monsters. The idea of nuclear war forces us to consider that human beings are in truth willing to live with the unconscionable.

Think of it, nearly every human being feels himself to be utterly helpless in the face of nuclear war, as if he or she has no say in the matter of whether our nations should stockpile weapons capable of destruction beyond our capacity to comprehend. We abandon utterly any personal responsibility for their existence. I cannot express to you what an utter mental sickness and moral failing such an attitude is in my eyes.

If it were your child, your dog, or your bank account that was at risk, you would move Heaven and Earth to protect them. You would let no one in the world tell you there was nothing you could to protect them, you would do whatever you had to do. Something deep within you, something very instinctual but healthy would be triggered by the injustice or by your concern for another.

And by God, you would not be quiet! You would scream to the heavens in order that justice be done. You would cry out and not cease from crying out until the situation was rectified.

And yet on a matter far more important, we remain silent. It is not your child merely that is at risk but the sons and daughters off everyone everywhere. It is not your dog only but all dogs, all animals. It is not your bank account merely but everything you and everyone you have ever met holds dear. There is no possible way to stress how important a subject this is.

And yet, we say nothing. We place our faith in the very systems and ideologies that allowed these abominations to come into existence in the first place. We place our faith in generals and politicians and arms manufacturers who do not deserve our faith but only our skepticism.

I try to think who I might trust with a nuclear weapon. Nobody comes to mind. Jimmy Carter? Seems like a nice guy with good intentions, but I wouldn’t want to risk it. Should he have some undiagnosed mental disorder, who knows what he might do? Afterall, why take chances?

The list of trustworthy people falls precipitously after that. You have your good-natured celebrities like Mark Ruffalo and Sarah Silverman, but I would never lay such a burden on them and fear what it might do to them. There are other people of integrity that I might entrust nuclear weapons to, but I’m quite certain they’d never be a part of such madness.

So who do we entrust them to?

In better days there were leaders with a certain degree of gravitas who felt, to some degree, the seriousness involved with weapons systems that were capable of destroying all life on Earth. Who do we have today?

We have a group of sociopaths who are cut off from reality and only understand the small segment of society which they’ve chosen to inhabit. We have people living in their silos who know what it takes to climb to the top of that silo, but who don’t know — or care — about anything that exists outside that silo. We have Adam Schiff, whom you only have to look at to know you shouldn’t trust with a fork, let alone any sort of power. You have Nancy Pelosi, who is so immersed in her role as power broker that she has no attachment to normal human beings or reality itself. You have Dan Crenshaw, who has the upbringing of an elitist and the empathy of a fighting dog. And when you place these mad creatures together in a governing body, they become an unthinking mob that only knows how to obey the orders of those who have the power to keep them in office

For God’s sake, look at the two last leaders of the free world we’ve had. FOR GOD’S SAKE, look at the last two leaders we’ve had. There is no one that immediately comes to mind I can think of that would be worse than either of them. I would trust Jethro Bodine or Homer Simpson with nuclear weapons before I put my trust in Donald Trump or Joe Biden. I would choose Dennis Rodman or Pamela Anderson in a heartbeat.

And yet you have entrusted to them the keys to a nuclear arsenal. What is wrong with you? And by you I mean all of us, but right now I want YOU to answer that question. You can’t hide within the crowd and shy away from answering. It doesn’t work that way, not if you want a future for humanity.

The urge to turn away from this very real and very dangerous problem is great, I know. The hope that someone else will solve the problem is a tempting though — you must know this — empty one. It is easy to ignore what you have no power over but you no longer have the luxury of believing yourself powerless. There is too much at stake. There is everything at stake. You can pretend to ignore it but it will sit like a sticky black liquid in your mind and in your guts and in your soul, depriving your life from having any meaning or any real joy. Until the day you realize saying there’s nothing you can do is not an option. The only way you can ever hope to free yourself from the ugly blackness within you is to accept its reality and let it motivate you to make a change.