#28, November
3, 1999
The human
mind is a powerful device, capable of creating its own reality. There's a story
about a man who swore he had a severe allergy to zucchini was fed a delicious casserole. He suffered no reaction
until he was told the dish contained zucchini, at which time he bloomed into
full-body hives. The kicker: there was no zucchini in the casserole.
The mind
can deny reality as well, often with dangerous consequences. I grew up during
the Kruschev era, and mushroom clouds frequented my dreams ("this time
it's really happening!") Over the years, while the weapons grew in
number and proximity, my mind was building a protective shell of
rationalizations, a barrier against those frightening visions. So when, in
1983, some friends tried to convince me to join the campaign for nuclear
disarmament, I…just…wasn't…sure…
But the
shell was shattered and scattered one late summer afternoon in the Santa Cruz
Mountains. My pregnant wife and I were at an introductory conference with that
anti-war group. I sat next to her in a circle of two dozen people while the
group leader asked us to close our eyes. Visualize, she said, the impact of all
the bombs dropped in World War Two. She read a long list of cities: London,
Warsaw, Belgrade, Moscow, Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin, Tokyo. Hiroshima. Nagasaki.
Millions of lives lost, tens of millions ruined.
"Imagine,"
she continued, "that the explosive power of all those bombs is represented
by this sound," and her partner dropped a single BB into a big tin
washtub. Plink. World War Two: plink.
"Now,
in your mind's eye, picture this, as the next sound you will hear represents
the explosive power of all the nuclear weapons in the world today."
It's hard
to convey what I felt during those next 90 seconds, as she slowly poured TWO
THOUSAND BBs into the bucket. I saw the innocent face of my three year daughter
merge with the baby in my wife's belly merge with the view of the earth from
space, which then was consumed in a fireball. The roar and horror pounded on,
unrelenting. Eventually, mercifully, the BBs stuttered to a near-halt… then
erupted in a final crescendo. I was left on my knees, sobbing into the silence.
While words
had failed to penetrate the shell, the sound of those little copper bullets
blew it away. I understood Einstein's wisdom: "The unleashed power of the
atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift
toward unparalleled catastrophe." This problem is far deeper than
political parties or policies; it's our whole "paradigm." The way we
think--about ourselves and our relationship with others and the earth-- has
driven us to the edge of global suicide. And with my shell of denial now
"atomized", I could never again ignore the threat, or my
responsibility to help end it.
So I'm here
to tell you that in the decade since the end of the Cold War, we've made
precious little progress getting rid of those BBs. Last month, in a move that
could bring back the Doomsday Clock, the U.S. Senate voted against ratification
of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, following a wimpy campaign on its behalf
by President Clinton.
The
Republican opponents spin stories about how underground testing is required to
make our older weapons safer (ahem, couldn't we make them safest by
dismantling them?) But what they really want, and have requested megamillion
dollar funding for, is the ability to test new "third generation"
weapons. In a terminal display of old thinking, they contend this investment in
new nukes will give us a distinct edge in the next nuclear war. Worst of all, a
recent poll showed that less than half of the American public even knew about
this treaty vote.
No, the
nuclear nightmare is not over, and won't end until enough people wake up, shake
up things in Washington, and create a new and improved reality. So think of the
children, and take some advice from Riley, my nine year old, who typed:
"If we don't stop it we will all die horribly or quick so we better make
sure there's no WW3!!!!"