Pigs on the Wing

Why Nobody Cares About Nuclear War

Ukraine fires US missiles into Russia. Ukraine does not possess the technology to guide ATACMS missiles, which means they were guided by the British and Americans. Russia responds by launching nuclear-capable ICBMs into Ukraine- the first time in history intercontinental ballistic missiles have been deployed in active war. The message was broadcast over a six billion megawatt loudspeaker: we’re not bluffing.

Poland, Sweden and Finland heard it. They’re bracing for another devastating European war. Vladimir Putin is holding his breath. He has six weeks to wait until Donald Trump resumes his official capacity as President of the United States. There’s an unending list of variables that could occur between now and then. The Democratic establishment with help from Republicans acting on behalf of the Military-Industrial Complex are determined to lock the Trump administration into a war they can’t negotiate their way out of. It's a hail mary attempt to bait Russia into an attack so catastrophic it could even justify a suspension of the transfer of power and keep them in command of our charge into permanent darkness.

Insiders say the Trump team are working feverishly behind the scenes, using back channels to communicate with Russian officials and arrange a peace deal. Putin wants out of this war. He knows where this series of events will lead- as does Trump. They are eye to eye in the understanding of their own capability to destroy human civilization. Ukrainians are cannon fodder in Biden’s blaze of glory; bodies to be evaporated on behalf of BlackRock, Raytheon and the litany of other financial interests invested in both the destruction and rebuilding of Eastern Europe. They, in their psychopathic greed, presume they can take down the Putin government and loot the most fortified nation on Earth by way of manipulating its leader’s reluctance to incinerate his own people in one final dramatic volley of warheads. Surely they’re aware our continent’s western shoreline is peppered with our most critical ports- locations that are well within striking distance of Russia’s eastern coast- but crucial trade gateways instantly obliterated would provide the pretext needed to galvanize a petrified public. In their view, North American souls are just as precious as Ukrainian lives, which as we have seen, amounts to nothing more than coils in a springboard catapulting them into a trillion dollar jackpot.

Meanwhile at ground level the culture war rages on. Trump voters are still jogging through a well deserved victory lap and the radical left have become the conspiracy theorists. With every announcement of appointees to key positions in the Trump administration the previously accused fascists and white supremacists roar in approval, while the newly adorned fringe minority draws parallels between them and a secret plot to pulverize democracy. Names like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Jay Bhattacharya and Kash Patel reverberate along the walls of the left’s echo chambers, generating a vitriolic reaction that detonates cluster bombs filled with legacy media hit pieces; a flailing barrage of propaganda before the reckoning begins. We are about to discover how widespread the cancer really was, and the scalpel will cut many layers beyond the malignant bureaucracy.

There’s a disturbing silence beneath the noise; a low tone that hammers through the online debates and antisemitism at both political extremes.

I lay in bed at night imagining how it will unfold. There will be a blinding flash of light that grabs my family before our nervous systems can detect the heat. In the best case scenario we'll be warned before we're turned to ash; huddled together in our basement, a few tearful I love you's and goodbyes, shaky voices whispering in our children's ears to calm their anxiety- then nothing.

And for what? What's the equivalent value of each individual life? The spoils of American conquest? A few barrels of oil? A handful of lithium? An acre of farmland for Bill Gates to grow his poison?

The doomsday clock is seconds from midnight. We're on the precipice of Oppenheimer’s nightmare. There was a wider margin of hope during the Cuban Missile Crisis: when time stood still in the midst of total annihilation. We're back in that place; inches closer to the boiler; the glow of the flames reflecting in our faces, yet there's no stillness. We've busied ourselves with less consequential matters to avoid the stark reality bleeding through the curtains of western ignorance. We prefer the hypnotic spells of political cults that shape our worldview because the messaging is simpler and requires no thoughts of our own. We want to be divided; we want to hate each other because it’s easier to despise somebody you can reach out and touch than to direct that hostility toward the elusive oligarchs who are far too comfortable gambling with our material existence. An intensely focused lazer beam on the culprits who’ve laid us all on the chopping block would oblige us to put our differences aside, and we can’t have that because the mechanisms of control won’t allow it. We’ve been condemned to death in servitude to the adiamorphic religions that have become our identities.

Perhaps it’s just that we feel powerless to stop it. These pigs- and I use that noun purposefully in every which way it could be interpreted- have successfully hoodwinked us into believing they were ordained by some omnipotent force to rule with impunity from their ivory towers; that we are merely subjects to be sacrificed at the whims of their empire. How accurate George Orwell was in his depiction of them in Animal Farm- right down to the animal he chose to represent them. They are pigs; insatiable gluttons gleefully impressed by their own filth. They’re unworthy of the considerations usually given to decent people. For every human right they've violated they should have their own stripped away in return. If they want to allow millions of unvetted illegal immigrants into our communities, then they should be made to live in apartment buildings under siege by Venezuelan gangs. If they’re truly convinced of their god-like will to accomplish limited nuclear war, then they should volunteer to wait in their senate, house of representatives and parliament buildings when the first ICBMs are fired at Russia.

But that would never happen. They'll be shuttled into safe zones while millions of innocent civilians who did not have a say or a vote on the terms of engagement have our molecules ripped apart and vaporized in the exchange.

Your favorite actors and music artists shilled for these people. Beyonce was allegedly paid $10 million, Oprah Winfrey $3 million, Eminem $1.8 million- and that's just what leaked. We don't know how much Cardi B was paid to vomit her unique brand of stupidity into a microphone in support of them or what the cast of The Avengers were rewarded for their horrific performance over a Zoom call. Whether through incomprehension of what they were promoting or a complete lack of moral integrity, the price tag on our future was but a miniscule drop in an already overflowing ocean.

Russia is not our enemy- not in the way they've been contextualized. When the Soviet Union dissolved they anticipated a strengthened relationship with the west. They bent over backwards to demonstrate good faith in their willingness to cooperate with the United States. They suffered through a brutal decade-long economic depression as capitalism and democracy were adopted, all with the expectation that they would eventually be brought into the larger circle of NATO allies. But these vulnerabilities were viewed by the US as weaknesses to be exploited, not problems to be solved, and as early as 1992 NATO began to expand eastward under Bush Sr., despite assurances such a betrayal would never occur. As Russia found itself increasingly cornered, starved and decaying after years of weak leaders happily accepting American abuse, they turned to Vladimir Putin: a former KGB intelligence officer and the strongest of strongmen. Putin, who had been present and witnessed the geopolitical whippings of the previous ten years, took a firmer stance on Russia’s connection to the west, demanding to be treated as an equal partner. When the United States responded with sanctions and increased aggression, Putin sought alliances with nations outside of the sphere of western influence, which now includes countries like China, India, Iran and others. Much has been made of the US-backed Maidan coup in Ukraine, but what most don’t know is that the United States had been meddling in Ukrainian elections since they gained independence in 1991. This nuclear stand-off we once again find ourselves in is one of our own creation. We chose to continue the Cold War after Russia waved their white flags, and in many ways this new, deadly waiting game is the result of western bully tactics coming back to bite us- just like Hitler’s rise in post-World War I Germany and the World Trade Center attacks on September 11th, 2001.

Maybe that’s why we aren’t talking about it- because we know we have it coming. For nearly eighty years the Military-Industrial Complex has murdered millions of people across the planet at our behest. We enlisted the pigs to raid and strip weaker nations of their resources- with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund posturing as the muscle behind their extortions- and we benefited in the form of cheap consumer products that did little to enhance our quality of life, but worked tremendously to keep us insulated and conveniently oblivious to our role in it all. Sooner or later somebody was going to mount an offensive against the American killing machine, and Vladimir Putin was just the man with the testicular fortitude necessary to do it. The prospect of a larger conflict has dragged us through a wide open window to the outside world, but how many of us have the courage to abandon the fairy tale of western exceptionalism and address what we see?