"Fascism is a Religion. The Twentieth Century will be Known in History as the Century of Fascism" Benito Mussolini

Good friend of mine introduced me to this podcast around a year ago while helping drive a moving truck down I-5. We made it almost all the way through a very intriguing episode called "The Prophets of Doom," an exploration of Martin Luther's reformation and the Anabaptists and the colorful and murderous exploits of one German City. Of particular fascination was the fact that the church I grew up in and that a large number of family and friends still attend hail from an Anabaptist heritage via Samuel Frohlich -- a trivial piece of information that, if you aren't familiar with, thankfully you will not find your edification compromised while listening to this.

A luxury of being so darn busy all the time is that consumption of media is lessened and when faced with some free time there is a pile of entertainment to pick from (a Stockholm Syndrome kind of thing to say, to be sure!) and the same stands for the available episodes on this podcast. However, I started listening to another incredible episode, concerning itself with the idea that ponders whether or not Human Beings are able to 'handle" the unimaginable destructive power of the nuclear weapon. Around a month ago I started and only today did I finally finish it.

I've written here, on this platform, and even before starting a blog, I have written short stories concerned with growing up under the threat of nuclear annihilation. In college, the best non-writing class I ever took was an elective all about the history of "the splitting of the atom" and was taught by a biochemist, who followed his passion of all things atomic and taught the class in a way that still has me pondering ideas -- political, scientific and really, the essence of the human experience. I like to think that I had the pleasure of growing up under the belief that armageddon was a heartbeat away, coupled with the threat of the rapture -- both happening in a blink of an eye -- from which a logical conclusion is arrived stating that this life, the only life we get on this planet, isn't worth much. Don't hope, plan or waste time thinking about the future because there is no future as you know it, or, as I knew it as a child. I'm off track again.

By the late 1800's the direct foundation for splitting the atom had been laid. Fundamental principles regarding electromagnetism and chemistry had been established; Newtonian Physics (which got us to the moon, by the way) had been a overwhelming success in terms of proving to be a true thing -- to be able to elucidate the unseen and hitherto unexplainable laws of the Universe.  140 years, or so, removed from when this science began to take hold we can look back and see the how this Earth has changed in ways never before seen. Truly, the wonders that we take for granted on a daily basis is astounding. We have devices that rely on technology developed by people who grasp certain fundamental rules of the natural Universe and even now, this technology is used by people who have efforted not to gain this understanding but espouse ideas that discount the efforts of those who sent us to the moon and even worse, those who deny the very basic geometry of residing on a sphere.

The idea of Generation "this" or Generation "that" seems, on its surface to be a irrelevant construct and who is to say who or what are in what groups, or demarcation lines arbitrarily drawn and the idea of what they mean, or why we think like this seems to be obscured, in general. In the terms of simple timelines and brackets of generations, the major defining events of recent history, worldwide, are easy ways to try and interpret the events as we see them in real time, today. World War I ended November 11th, 1918 -- almost 100 years ago. Anyone who played a role in the actual war is dead. I suppose a ten year old kid may have been in the war and is now 110 somewhere, smoking unfiltered Lucky Strikes and chasing it with a swig of Old Grandad, but nevertheless, no-one in our daily lives was a soldier in WWI; the same is going to happen to WWII veterans soon, too.

The people who remember what life was like when the shadow of nuclear annihilation first brought the shade to everything they did and knew are also in short supply. Dan Carlin makes an analogy of the threat of atomic warfare acting as a gun to the head of humanity. When life has been going along, while not perfect (and even less stellar for those digging out of the rubble of yet another world war) noticed the gun against their head and acted as such -- panic, fear, anger, progressive discussion and schemes of leverage, was everywhere. As the Cold War progressed and the Arms Race blossomed into a specter of death unlike the world has ever seen, people who grew up in this environment, and while they didn't remember life without the gun pointed at their head, they were raised by people who did. People who still felt the presence of the gun very much. We are removed enough at this point where very few people remember life before the gun to the head.

Within the past day it seems, at least on the surface, that the DoomsDay Clock has moved slightly backwards. North and South Korea lessening tensions, if sincerity exists on both sides, cannot be a negative thing. Remember the United States has pledged, through treaties to defend South Korea with nuclear arms, if necessary -- and for that matter, a few dozen or so other allies have this umbrella of protection with the United States -- for now. And what has the supposed problem been with North Korea? Their exploration in becoming a nuclear capable state -- while problematic, to be sure, it is that which pushes the foreign policy needle -- not torture, starvation and brainwashing of the people.

Amongst more than a few other reasons, a significant concern of our current national leadership lays in the little reason to trust or have confidence in responsible stewardship of our nation's strategic responsibility. A person like this, who currently holds the office of President, would not have been elected when people felt the gun to their head. People are easily whipped up into a frenzy over immigrants, the myth of Christian persecution (specifically in the US; not discounting oppressive totalitarian regimes and their religious militant dogmatism) and the trappings therein and the gun, which is still there, is nothing but another line item in the pantheon of complaints and murky conspiracy theories. We have moved into a day and age in this nation where real nazis and Ku Klux Klan members are walking around, with no shame. I fear that this is how the world has always worked, that the rise and fall of empires, nations and dynasties have always had the generation which eschewed the wisdom of the past, but only because of the corruption of the generation that raised them. Who complains about the "participation trophy" generation? The same f'ing generation that gave the trophies out!

And what does it take to bring a society together? A tragedy. A war.

Do you trust North Korea? Interesting to ponder what's up the sleeves of his Mao Suit.