So, I was born in 1953, the year of the first hydrogen bomb, and the MK Ultra program was really getting going. The Korean War was fresh on the minds of people, and my dad and mom lived in Kansas City while dad was attending dental school. And now, they had a son. However, it wasn't an easy process.
The doctor approached my dad while mom was in labor, and asked him which life he wanted to save, me or my mom. Luckily, dad said to save them both, and that doctor got it accomplished. And we are all three alive today, so apparently he knew his business. I am very happy about that, as this life has been very interesting, and I'd hate to have missed it!
So as the yield of the nuclear bombs was growing, so was I. This post was led with the nukes and MK Ultra. Why? Because both are on my mind tonight.
An older friend asked me a question I'd never heard recently. He said, "I'm pre-atomic, how about you?" I wondered what he meant by pre-atomic, and he explained he'd been born before the nuclear bomb was exploded at White Sands, and before they were dropped on Japan. His theory was that those born before 1945 were different biologically from those born after. Once 53 rolled around, they'd exploded lots of nukes, in tests thankfully.
I began to wonder about his theory, and found it plausible. Radiation produced by all those thousands of atomic tests, doesn't disappear. At least not for a few thousand years or so. So with all that radiation from over 2,000 nuclear explosions still living here on the planet with us, it is easy to think that we, who were born after the first nuke, are irradiated to a certain degree. And that being exposed to this radiation when very young and in our formative years, that our biology may be different from those born before. He didn't posit how noticeable or extensive that nuclear change would appear, but simply that there was a difference. I found the idea intriguing.
However, it's not as if I can do anything about it, eh? So I began thinking of the implications of the actions of those scientists who pulled the trigger on the first bomb test in New Mexico. I have read that many of those guys were very apprehensive to pull that trigger, because they thought the nuclear reaction might not end before consuming the atmosphere of the planet. Oppenheimer quoted Indian texts as they pulled that trigger. I wonder if he knew somehow, that he'd changed the planet forever?
One small tug on that trigger changed the world, and I mean really changed everything. Perhaps the most important and lasting change, besides the half lives of all that radiation, was the effect on the psychology of the human race. We now were all living with the threat of annihilation at any moment. For the first time, we had to live with the horror of finding out you had about fifteen minutes to live, then it all goes up in smoke. It was a terrifying thought that some unknown man sitting half a globe away, could push a button and kill several million people a few minutes later. Let that sentence sink in for a bit, he could kill several million folks simply by pushing a button, or turning a key, or whatever process they had designed for death.
Of course, I've known for years how man's most impressive technology has always been built for killing each other. That is what we do best, kill each other. Since the beginning of time, I suppose, we've been honing our skills of murder. How many societies built their own wealth on the murder of others. I would suggest every one that has ever existed. And that includes the one we currently inhabit. Ours here in the U.S. was built on killing the indigenous people and exploiting their resources. And we pretty efficiently exterminated the Native American population, and killed a very beautiful way of life, in my opinion. However, I have a significant amount of that Native American DNA in my own recipe, so perhaps I'm jaded.
Never the less, we kill each other so efficiently that one person in the correct situation, can exterminate the species by instituting an all out nuclear war. It is such an easy chain reaction of emotion. Just imagine when that one guy pulls a trigger, a bomb explodes, but before that happens, many other bombs are launched. So soon, there are dozens of nuclear explosions around the world, and then everyone pulls their triggers before they are blown up, so all the bombs, or at least the large majority of them, are triggered. Poof, the human population is thinned or even wiped out entirely. And that's not to mention the other inhabitants of the planet. So that one man could conceivably cause a world wide extinction. I am unsure how those guys like Robert Salas could sit at one of those missile consoles day after day. The mental exercises he must have endured!
What we all endured was torture enough. I learned to duck and cover as soon as I learned to read, in fact, probably sooner. Most families had their own "bomb shelter" dug into their yards. Yeah, right, I really want to crawl into a hole in the ground with some canned food and water, then wonder why? What will you find when you emerge from your hole?
Somehow at a very early age, like elementary school, my friends and I realized the irony of crawling into a hole. We often compared it to the ostrich with his head in the sand. But the construction companies were building bomb shelters at a brisk pace. Apparently our parents hadn't figured out that if one bomb flew, they probably would all fly. They'd been sold a bill of goods regarding their military prowess, and that God and country would always prevail. After all, Americans didn't lose wars, did we?
Well, I remember clearly as if it were yesterday, sitting between my parents and watching as John Kennedy told us that we might blow up at any time. It was the infamous Cuban missile crisis, and we were gathered on the couch in the family room, shivering with fear. We weren't alone. I think the world changed in those few hours of terror. And I am not referring to politics except in the broadest sense. No, I am referring to the social Zeitgeist. We were all terrified, no matter how braggadocios some may have been. And I believe that for the first time ever, the world realized the implications of those weapons. Until then, I think they really did think they could survive a nuclear exchange with the Russians, or anyone else.
Obviously that changed their minds. Once the population had time to digest those events, we all realized we were most likely doomed.
Now, in the last month of 2014, I am amazed we are all still alive. After all, way back when they shot the first of those death fireworks in New Mexico, they didn't know if we'd survive that first blast. But they pulled that trigger anyway. Ponder those implications. Because it isn't the only time men have taken the ultimate chance of destruction. We throw ourselves into battle at the drop of a pin. Why not blow up the world, eh?
I also mentioned MK Ultra. That just blows my mind, and I suppose the mind of countless others. I believe I am a victim of MK Ultra, but I also believe that all of you are as well. You see, nuclear science wasn't alone in exploring the boundaries of destruction and self immolation. The psychologists, psychiatrists, and sociologists were hard at it as well. And they enlisted the help of the chemists, and before you know it, we had LSD. These military/espionage men thought they'd found the wonder drug of mind washing. Yet, after experiments, they realized that this drug turned soldiers not into the fighting mindless robots they'd envisioned, but into giggling peace loving hippies. The soldiers mostly laid down their guns, and examined the new world around them. I think that is hilarious.
So for some reason, they decided to loose Acid on the masses. I'm not sure what they thought they'd accomplish, but I remain happy that they did so. You see, perhaps they thought they'd confuse us so badly, we would stop challenging authority in areas like race relations and peace. We were interfering with the military/industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us to avoid. He said it was bad to put so much power in the hands of a few men, without strict oversight. Well, we dropped that ball, eh?
But so did the powers that be, because they actually focused our rebellion by giving us the Acid. Much like they never really knew the yield from those nukes before pulling the trigger, they pulled the Acid trigger without really knowing the yield. Others may argue differently, but I think that one backfired on them. The riots of 68 should be all the proof one needs as to that end, as most folks in those protests, had taken Acid and if not, they'd at least smoked the dreaded reefer. Sadly, I remember when "Reefer Madness" was a fairly new release.
So they got more than they bargained for with their MK Ultra experiment, which I believe to be still going strong. I think they learned rapidly how to utilize their new found psychological skills, and have continued to refine them over the decades since. When a secret government program gets "disclosed", it is easy to simply change the name and continue as before. I think that has been done over and over in our history.
Today, I fear we are is severe danger, and perhaps even beyond the point of no return. I fear any semblance of self government is gone. We retain the ability to govern ourselves extremely locally, but when it gets to government on any large scale, I believe our representatives are slaves to special interests, and largely corrupt. I hate being that cynical, but it seems to be human nature, really. Any system, no matter how good, seems to get corrupted very rapidly. I sometimes think that fighting corruption is actually fighting human nature. We win lots of battles, but seem to be losing the war. We are always striving to better ourselves, but society seems to always be on a downward turn.
I think that is why my formative years in the fifties, and teenage years in the sixties were so wonderful. Despite living in a world existing under the threat of instant annihilation, and watching my likely future every night when the nightly news showed pictures of the graphic ugliness of Vietnam, it was a world of hope. There was a brief few years, when I actually thought we were curing our societal ills. Maybe it was delusion. But like a medicine that helps when you are hurting, you don't care if it is a placebo effect. It felt good.
So while I was singing "Love Me Tender", the powers that be were singing, kill me quick. Well, maybe it is silly and naive, but I still like to wonder what it would have been like if that killing energy had been directed toward keeping people alive. John Lennon challenged us to "Imagine." I still like to take him up on that one. later, rw
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