by Mahanth

“In nuclear war all men are cremated equal.” – Dexter Gordon

IN PREHISTORIC TIMES, we’ll never know exactly when, the human animal learned how to start fire by controlling basic but profound scientific principles: hydrocarbons reacting with oxygen to generate heat. Soon after that, manmade fire spread like wildfire, continuously burning round the clock somewhere or the other. Fire never ended, only grew to form a collective terrestrial eternal flame in millions of satellite locations, across continents, a scathing hot tool that never died in the embers. It was very useful and productive. But where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

Tools like knives and hammers are also lethal weapons. Firepower became the flagship tool of war soon enough. Philosophically, perhaps naively, I viewed modern American overseas power projection at its best as deterring and putting out fires. Firefighting, not fighting the world. It’s necessary for all humanity to not burn the whole thing down. Scorched earth means extinction at our own hands. The dawn of the current atomic phase opened with a boom, heralding the advent of potentially apocalyptic annihilation of our species. A ticking time bomb following that very simple formula cavemen learned to its logical conclusion: hydrocarbons reacting with oxygen, except gone thermonuclear.

Once opened, that nuclear window never shuts, it only widens. Today, we Americans have participated in igniting the biggest ever conflagration, burning the same depleting hydrocarbons in war that we need for modern society to survive in peace. The largest fossil fuel market shock is underway. Such continued escalation will end in nuclear holocaust sooner or later. See the proliferating number of powers with nuclear capability. From the dawn of a new age, to this sunset phase fire grew in relentless logical progression. If diplomacy keeps failing complete darkness awaits. The very same darkness from whence we came, if the delicate fire of consciousness is extinguished forever by our own doing.

The United States of America at its best stands as the true City on a Hill charged with keeping the light burning longer.

Is that still possible if we are actually the ones starting the fire that might eventually put out all fires? Many on all sides will go down in flames fighting for a global legacy of nothing left but ashes. Extinguishing the very same eternal flame that most think their God created on this planet.