It's the End of the World, and I Feel Terrible
By Norman Solomon
From Truthdig
Ivy Mike was a hydrogen bomb and the first thermonuclear weapon ever
tested. The U.S. detonated it on Nov. 1, 1952, on the island of Elugelab in
Enewetak Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the western Pacific Ocean,
as part of Operation Ivy. (National Nuclear Security Administration / Nevada
Site Office)
Ive written many hundreds of columns. The one below has caused me the most
uncertainty about going public with it.
Im accustomed to writing about facts, quotes, documented history, while
offering assessments. But this piece extrapolates from the current
zeitgeist, going into realms of events that must be speculative anduntil
too lateunprovable.
Diary
So lucky to be here. Tiny island of dreams.
The serenity is unbelievable, except I want to believe it. Bluest waves with
silver froth. Sun through the palms is damn near orgasmic. And solitude! If
I cant finish the book here, itll be my own fault.
***
Sort of knew I shouldnt bring the shortwave. Thatll teach me to donate to
NPR. Just cant resist a thank you gift. Will crank it tomorrow.
***
Wish I hadnt turned on the radio. BBC World Service all there is. Downbeat.
Swim, then write. Plenty of sunblock. As for writers block, perish the
thought.
***
Latest newscast unnerving. Need to concentrate. I blow this deadline, Im
seriously screwed.
OK, no distractions, beautiful isle all to myself. A thousand words a day
and Ill be in clover.
***
Radio getting scary. Whats coming out of Washington and Moscow, not to be
believed.
Stop worrying and get to work!
***
Worse. Cant listen any more. Cant not.
Wish I could call home.
***
BBC now mostly static. What I could make out this morning left me shaky.
Standoff
ultimatum
hair trigger
nuclear alert
drills.
Threats escalating.
Is that idiot trying to prove hes not Putins bro after all?
***
Radio gone silent. Cant write.
Should have packed some valium.
***
Trump traumatized us. Despicable lunatic president. Groundhog day after day,
one alarm after another, real-life nightmare.
So whatever he said had to be wrong. Easy to forget that even a broken
clock, once in a great while
Early on, so much scorn when Trump said would be better to get along with
Russia. Now I wish.
***
When I was a kid, most liberals wanted détente with Russia. After Trump got
in, a very different approach. (Putin more odious than Brezhnev?) Righteous
flamethrowers over nuclear powder keg.
Still nothing on shortwave. Cold sweat in this heat. Staring at waves and
worrying.
Just realized: All the talk about climate change and hardly a word about the
ultimate climate disasternuclear winterin which case, forget about
agriculture. Or human life on earth. All it would take is a nuclear war with
Russia. For all I know, about to happen!
When we kept baiting Trump as a Putin tool, maybe we were even crazier than
Trump.
***
Somehow a zeitgeist switch got pulled. By early 17, the Russiagate juice
was pulsing like Times Square. Hypnotic.
Didnt think much about where the frenzy might plausibly lead. I certainly
made no objection. Who wants to be a bulls-eye, Kremlins useful idiot? Now
I feel like an idiot all right. For never really asking: Wheres all this
headed? Just keep increasing the chances of blowing up the whole friggin
world?
***
Oscillating between numbed, frightened, outright terrified.
Should have been so obvious, where all the hostile rhetoric was taking us.
Should have slammed on the brakes. But so much easier to fixate on Putin,
the creepy bad guy with bare chest on a horse. Forget about the nuclear
horseman of the apocalypse.
***
Supply boat 72 hours late. Still nothing above the water line but sky and
birds.
All I can do is useless. Starting to dream about arrival of food, water.
Crank the radio and think about that last news report. The surreal staccato
words, on the edge, out of control.
***
Should have been obvious:
1. The frenzy of hostility toward Russia made negotiations less and less
likely.
2. Absence of negotiations with Russia made nuclear war more likely.
3. The frenzy of hostility toward Russia increased the chances of nuclear
war.
Q.E.D.
The lemming logic of it all was unseen in plain sight, evaded most pivotally
by Democrats, liberals, progressives. We were so good at displacing our
fearful rage at Trump, we propelled our own stampede. A kind of collective
madness, the commonest of common sense.
***
Brooding. Climbing walls that arent here. How could this be?
All of us tiny, but every twig we threw on the fire helped it spread, burn
fiercer. A socialized, psychological firestorm. Relentlessly obscuring the
biggest picture imaginable. Actually unimaginable.
Hardly enticing to wrap minds around nuclear holocaust, or the nuclear
winter that would come right behind it. Maybe none of us really could.
Instead, steadily, we got our froggy legs boiled in the propaganda pot. And
we never jumped out. Now all that Russiagate uproar looks so trivial.
***
Always wanted to assume that some people I love will live after me.
***
Hungry. Waves lapping. No boat or plane in sight. No radio sound beyond
static no matter how hard I crank.
Trying to understand how it could have maybe come to this.
***
Better reduce my meal portions again. Cut back on water.
***
Remembering back to 2017 when Democrats in Congress were quite sanely
denouncing Trump for refusing to pursue real diplomacy with North Koreaand
many of the same ones were denouncing him for talking with Putin. So
party-line clever. Now Im terrified the world is on fire.
***
Still nothing. No drop-off. Eleven days late and counting.
Closed my eyes and could hear the scratchy South Pacific album. I must
have been in third grade. Learning cursive writing. Happy talk, keep
talking happy talk.
Never thought I might die alone under palms.
***
Not feeling good. Maybe its from cutting back on food. Nauseous, dry
heaves. Starting to throw up.
***
Will I see the kids again?
Do they have any future?
Trying not to let fear overwhelm!
***
I must have seen hundreds, maybe thousands of cable news hours about how bad
Russia is. Doubt even 1 percentmake that 0.1mentioned the nuclear missiles
between us. Minor detail. Careers being boosted, great ratings.
***
Water everywhere I can see. Almost out of water. So thirsty.
***
I blame the whole spectrum. It wasnt just the right-wing fanatics and
crackpot centrists. Just as bad were the liberals, progressives. They
glommed onto the madness about Russia. Set aside realities for human
survival, an analytical sense of what was at stake. The bennies of
conformity and received wisdom were just too great, the need for context,
history actually, too large. So they fell for or into one of the oldest
basic tricks in the books: diverting attention from the homegrown rot, the
obstacles to democracy that couldnt be closer to home. Instead, they
wrapped themselves around the lightning-rod flagpole of rage at who they
were told was our foreign foe. And Russiagate was to stand alone as a
supreme offense.
While supposedly rejecting American exceptionalism, those
liberals/progressives were fervently embracing it. A silent message in it
all, a message so implicit and apocalyptic that it dared not speak its true
content, an insane content: It would be worth escalating, and escalating,
and escalating against Russia, with no end in sightor really sought, given
the political investment in demonizing Putin as Trumps patronescalating
the real dangers of horrific conflagration from the worlds two nuclear
superpowers.
Where would it end? We didnt ask. Much of the madness was bound up in not
thinking about such questions, not asking them, much less searching openly
for answers grounded in the real world. There was a word that could scarcely
ever be heard, and yet it described as maybe no other could what became more
and more likely as a consequence of the hyped Russiagate madness. Omnicide.
***
Still no food drop. Prepaid!! Supposed to be absolutely reliable!!!
Hope hope hope Im somaticizing.
Dont know what the nosebleed is about.
***
Wheres the food drop?
Exhausted. Aching like some kind of bad flu.
***
Sicker. Hardly can move. Need help soon.
My God want to see my kids tell I love them!!!!
***
Didnt have to be this way.
