Doomsday Machine

Doomsday Machine

 

… is that the whole point of the doomsday machine… is lost if you keep it a secret.  Why didn’t you tell the world, eh? 

 

-       Dr. Strangelove (played by Peter Sellers)

 

It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday.  As you know, the Premier loves surprises. 

 

-       Soviet Ambassador, Alexei Sadeski (played by Peter Bull)

 

From the Movie Dr. Strangelove, Directed, Produced, Co-written by Stanley Kubrick

 

By Gregg Wall (7-24-2021)

 

Recently, I had an opportunity to watch Dr. Strangelove, again.  In watching the movie, the thought occurred to me that the premise of the entire movie -- that of a doomsday machine that threatens nuclear annihilation for the entire world, and the insanity of man -- might be alive and well. 

 

Without digressing too much, the movie takes place during the heart of the Cold War, when game theory, and the MAD doctrine (mutual assured destruction), arguably, controlled global foreign policy (as two superpowers – the former Soviet Union and the United States – wrestled for global control).  Ah, simpler times.  At the start of the movie, a rogue & unbalanced US Air Force commander launches a first strike.  As the president and the joint chiefs attempt to pullback and unwind the strike, it comes to light -- via Soviet Premier Kissov and his ambassador -- that Russia, unbeknownst to the world, has a doomsday machine.  A doomsday machine which will automatically destroy the world (via a radioactive shroud for 93 years) in retaliation for a first strike attack. The fact that nobody knows about the doomsday machine, under game theory, defeats the purpose of having such a device.  If you haven’t seen the movie, or it’s been a while, I highly recommend it. 

 

Today, does America have a doomsday device and what exactly is it?  If we examine the structural defects of the US Constitution and our government, we quickly learn that the entire system revolves around protecting the wealthy and the powerful (aka the privileged white male).  Starting with the US Senate, we’ve seen repeatedly, over the last several decades, that it is nearly impervious to change.  From the filibuster to the gerrymandered nature of the Senate, and including the fact that elections are often sold to the highest bidder (a feature of all US elections), the Senate basically ensures and protects the highly failed – laissez faire, neoliberal – status quo.  The unelected SCOTUS, with a hard right-wing majority, also guarantees that our monopoly system, oligarchy, and resulting American lethality are impervious to change.  Add in a highly corrupt duopoly, with both parties serving many of the same billionaires and multinational interests, with no term limits, and you have several key structural defects that ensure a failed stasis & oligarchy – no matter how dangerous – all remain in effect. 

 

The structural defects extend to the US economy itself, which has been placed into the hands of a highly privileged few.  Concentration and monopoly -- thanks to free money policies of the Federal Reserve and Wall Street’s insatiably appetite for M&A and obscene profits -- are now the dominate feature of the US economy.  And with that, as we’ve seen repeatedly, comes diseconomies of scale, failure, and a US government defiled by extreme wealth & privilege (But that’s not a problem, at least in the short term, because congress is more than happy to bailout boardrooms, c-suites, malevolence, stockholders, and failure: frequently, often, and unconditionally). 

 

At the center of all this lies the US stock market, which I have argued has become a money laundering operation and a means to loot the US government.  (See the FED’s QE programs, rampant privatization, and the 2008 and 2020 Wall Street bailouts… see also, captured regulatory bodies and Big Pharma).  The moral hazard surrounding the stock market and the preeminence of the stock market, as the center of the US economy, and the lengths that congress and the powerful will go to protect this vehicle for the redistribution of wealth, is yet another key structural defect w/in the US economy. 

 

A defect that ensures numerous business practices, products, and services that are highly detrimental, not only to the United States, but indeed, the world, stay in place and are impervious to change (see again, Big Oil and fossil fuels).  Add in our stock trading US congress, combined with insatiable greed, and the doom loop, and feedback loop, is complete. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, what’s the problem?  America has had this system government & robber baron economy, structural defects and all, for many of our nearly 250 years.  Moreover, many of the defects of the American system are also prevalent throughout Western democracies, many of them also captured by powerful billionaires and multinational interests (who believe that rigged markets and the almighty dollar, euro, or pound should dictate our fate). 

 

Well, if anybody has paid attention, as of late, the globe is facing the ravages of what appears to be a manmade pandemic -- possibly created in a lab -- as well as, a global climate catastrophe, created by humanity’s insatiable need for energy and fossil fuels.  In fact, the events facing humanity today -- brought about by the structural defects themselves -- are the existential crisis of our times, perhaps for the end times?

 

These structural defects then, quite possibly, are America’s – indeed, the world’s – doomsday machine.  The sad part is, all this could be addressed and remedied, perhaps before it’s too late, but for the doomsday machine. 

 

Humanity’s inability to change, reform, pull up from pending apocalypse – as a result of the aforementioned structural economic and political defects, and abject corruption – appears to be the hallmark of our times.  

 

That, and billionaires attempting, desperately, to flee the planet.  A planet beset by catastrophes largely of the oligarchy’s making. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2021