I’m angrier than a blogger whose wifi went down, because more people aren’t taking the ever-growing threat of World War III more seriously than they should be. With all the talk of late of nuclear war, almost to the point of how things were during the Cold War, it’s important to keep oneself informed and ready.
The threat is very real. There may be some warning, but, most likely, there won’t be much of an advance warning. There are tons of videos on YouTube, all with different scenarios. One frightening thought is what will happen if the United State withdraws from NATO. Our government likes to say that we’re prepared, but we’re really not.
If we go to war with Russia, we all know that will spell doom for both of our countries, and even for the entire world.
I could post link after link after link, but I’d like to do is show you a live-action/animated movie from 1986. When The Wind Blows, based on a cartoon book written by Raymond Briggs, is a movie that tells the tale of a naive, poorly-educated British couple who somehow manage to live through an initial nuclear blast, only to die of radiation poisoning because they weren’t prepared.
The movie is entertaining in that, through the gift of hindsight and being more educated on the matter of nuclear war than the general public, we see all the bad things that can happen to people who ignore the threat, even when it’s in the news.
Given that the movie was released in 1986, we know that it debuted during one of the most unpleasant points in the Cold War. We don’t have the Soviet Union to contend with anymore, but Russia remains a threat, and maybe that threat is quickly escalating to the point of experiencing a third world war.
Looking at the movie, the characters are amusing to watch because of, by today’s standards, how stupid they are, but on the other hand, it’s kind of depressing, because something like this could happen again. There will be people who ignore the warning signs in the news and they’ll pay for that with their lives.
The couple in the movie had no prayer of surviving. But what if they’d been better prepared? What if they’d evacuated to a public shelter?
The movie is full of poignant ’80s music that contributes to the dark nature of this movie. No one wants to think about nuclear war, and many people have done nothing to prepare. That is, of course, with the exception of people who call “preppers.” They’ve built or rented their own nuclear shelter and they’re stocking up on food, water and other supplies.
They’ll probably survive the initial blast and they’ll be in their hidey holes until the radiation has died down to the point of humanity coming up from the depths of the earth. But will they be rejoining a world that they’d want to be in? When they emerge, only a few people will have survived.
Water? Radiated, filthy and disease-ridden.
Electricity, internet, cars and so forth? Inoperable, never to be restored.
We will be knocked back to the stone age. Is that a world anyone wants to return to? That’s why many say that those who are vaporized in less than a fraction of a fraction of a second are the lucky ones. They’ll go so quickly that they won’t feel pain. They won’t get sick. They won’t die a slow, miserable death. They’ll just be gone.
Those who do survive the initial blast will likely slowly and painfully suffer as radiation invades their bodies and they have nothing to do but suffer over the next few hours and maybe even days. For them, it will be the most unpleasant way to die that one can possibly imagine.
The thing to know about nuclear war is this: if you don’t prepare for yourself, the government will not come looking for you. In the film, the couple waits for their government to launch a civilian rescue effort, but that’s a fool’s errand. Those who are left twisting in the wind will remain doing so.
The government, at least the United States government, has no plan to aid citizens. They only care about the president and that’s it. They don’t care about me, and they sure as hell don’t care about you. So those who are building their own shelters or who have purchased or rented units aren’t so crazy after all. Many of them will have enough provisions to keep them down there for a year or more.
But again, sooner or later, they’ll have to come up, and I just don’t think any sane person wants to save themselves if they’re going to return to all of that. As for me, I’m hoping for vaporization. I just can’t see the point, for me, to secure a shelter, because I know what will await me once I emerge.
Anyway, I highly recommend that movie. There are some moments of dark humor, but for the most part it’s both entertaining and depressing to see how stupid some people were during the Cold War.
Hey, let’s all hide under our desks! That’ll save us!