89 Seconds. It feels like the world is closer than that. The Doomsday Clock’s previous record for shortness was 90 seconds. Today’s announcement says we are one second closer to Armageddon. Like I said, when looks at what Trump’s said and done so far it seems like he’s doing all he can to turn the whole world into the same chaos the Trump Org was before he got the urge to get revenge on Obama. Batsh*t crazy picks for National Security posting, picking fights with allies, demanding NATO increase spending to 5% of GDP (why won’t OUR journalists ask him whether the U.S. will do the same?) and other stuff. Dropping out of the Paris Climate Accords (again), stopping foreign aid (not nearly as much money as people think but still crucial spending), withdrawing from other things that could make another COVID, an international disaster possible. Yeah, I’d say the group behind the Doomsday Clock was pretty generous sayin 89 seconds.
For those who don’t know, or need a refresher the Doomsday Clock has been around for a long time. Created in 1947 as the full measure of the realization of potential nuclear war had set in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists put it in their (then) magazine. It’s been updated yearly ever since. It’s meant to warn people of the world how close we are to having technology we created destroy us. Not as many pay attention to it as they should. If we didn’t already have enough things like nuclear bombs including so-called “dirty bombs” that don’t explode with nuclear force but are wrapped in certain nuclear material can kill off an entire city in less than a year, AND bioterrorism we now have AI to deal with. Maybe worries from some that AI might just morph into something that decides humans aren’t needed anymore and wipes us out is some pretty “out there” thinking. However like nuclear technology or research into combatting virulent diseases the work and its results can be used for good purposes or bad.
In any case, as this article from CNN tells us we are closer than we’ve ever been to annihilation. We’ve been awfully close before. And events like the Cuban Missile Crisis that we know about (there are incidents that have been kept pretty much classified and under wraps) we literally have been minutes away from large nuclear exchanges. I was very young in 1963 but I still can recall how terrified every adult I saw was during those critical days. Even when we thought it was over it turned out not quite. Air Force General Curtis LeMay of the Joint Chiefs was hell bent on pushing things over the edge. He was sooooo certain that the USSR would just back down. Over there Kruschev had his own version(s) of LeMay to deal with! But we have to face some serious truths. Trump is back and doing everything possible to make sure THIS time there are no “adults in the room” to restrain him from his worst impulses. So the clock is now at a new record:
On Tuesday, the clock was set at 89 seconds to midnight — the closest the world has ever been to that marker, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which established the clock in 1947. Midnight represents the moment at which people will have made the Earth uninhabitable.
For the two years prior, the Bulletin set the clock at 90 seconds to midnight mainly due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the potential of a nuclear arms race, the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, and the climate crisis.
The linked CNN article goes on to say:
“We set the clock closer to midnight because we do not see sufficient, positive progress on the global challenges we face, including nuclear risk, climate change, biological threats and advances in disruptive technologies” such as artificial intelligence, said Daniel Holz, the Bulletin’s science and security board chair and professor in the department of physics, astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago, in a news briefing Tuesday. “The countries that possess nuclear weapons are increasing the size and role of their arsenals, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons that can destroy civilization many times over.”
I’m having flashbacks to 1968, and the first Trump term. Most of you have never heard of The Fugs, an underground Chicago band that produced some serious but also funny music. (Now that I think of it I haven’t listened to The Belle Of Avenue A in a long time) They recorded a tune named Four Minutes To Twelve as a response to how crazy the war in Vietnam had made things and the song was as relevant during Trump’s first term as it is again now. I’d include the lyrics but you can’t find them! I had the same problem four years (plus) ago. Sites that publish lyrics to songs either show a blank space where they usually show lyrics or say they aren’t available. Sure as hell seems like censorship is going on from where I sit.
At least now you can hear versions that have been remastered making some of the lyrics easier to understand. However, what you hear again at the beginning of each verse says pretty much all you need to know:
Four minutes to twelve, and there’s a MADMAN at the wheel!
Somewhere someone should combine a certain verse from The Doors’ Riders on the storm with the Fugs. There’s a song there for someone more creative than I am. In the meantime I give you The Fugs:
********** And now, a message from Ursula I hope you take to heart **********
Friends, I am forced to self-promote and ask you for money. We had a bad year compared with 2023 and the end of the year has been catastrophic. Traffic died on November 5. We are a small blog and completely self-supporting by ad revenue, donations, and subscriptions. If you can afford a monthly subscription that would help us out. If you can make a small donation, likewise. Our only goal is to stay in business and give you the best content we can generate. You are the wind beneath our wings. Thank you. Ursula
Dr. Strangelove anyone? Or…how I learned to love the bomb.
I had graduated from HS the year before and can vividly remember the Cuban Crisis. My sister was a WAVE stationed at the then named Andrews Air Force Base. She later told me how tense everyone was and how they were on highest alert! We may be headed for some of the same scary times with a madman having our nuclear codes.