End of the post–Cold War holiday

[tude dog]

I remember Duck and cover drills in school. I also remember as I went under my small desk looking at the windows along the wall and imagining the glass breaking and flying into the room.

Of course, there was no way to know how close or from what direction an atomic blast might come from, but it made perfect sense to do what you can do to survive. Over the years since such logic has been ridiculed.

I like this commentary.

We are coming to the end of the post–Cold War holiday from history.



During American history classes at my high school, we laughed at images of children learning to “duck and cover in case of nuclear attack during the 1950s. Our parents would laugh too when we told them about it, everyone having become accustomed to the idea that any nuclear exchange would probably end in both the United States and the Soviet Union emptying all their missile silos and potentially destroying all life on earth. Nuclear-disaster movies from the 1980s such as The Day After and Threads helped people conclude that the survivors of any nuclear war would envy the dead. But then, as Will Leitch pointed out recently, within a few years after the Cold War, American culture seemed to simply shed its previous fear, even obsession, with nuclear conflict. Duck-and-cover videos were spliced into glitzy multimedia, rendering them a kitschy artifact of our parents’ and grandparents’ lives. Yet, on Saturday, residents of Hawaii received the following message from the Emergency Alert System on their phones: “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill. They turned on televisions and saw the same message, with additional instructions to lie on the floor. In other words, to duck and cover. And some people did just that. The effect of a false warning was to remind people how unprepared they are for not just a nuclear attack but for the use of conventional weapons against their state.

In many ways, the modern world is younger, dumber, and more innocent about these things than our grandparents were. We discovered that on Saturday in Hawaii. And now is the time to think it through. If you ever received such a text warning, would you fill your bathtub with water, or with your family members? How many of us turn to resources for advice — YouTube, text — that won’t be available in the event of real disruption?



NATIONAL REVIEW

[AnneBoleyn]

Even as a five year old, I knew "duck & cover" wouldn't work.

I couldn't receive a text message as I don't text, no, wait--I guess my old flip cell phone would start to ring. I do watch TV, it's on all the time, & there are frequent alert tests where an announcer says "this is a test, in the event of a real emergency you must standby to hear what to do next.

I live in a six story building. The basement used to be a designated "fallout shelter." Wouldn't have worked then, as efficient, I suppose, as "duck & cover."

I'd probably start screaming, run around the apartment like a maniac, try to reach my son to say goodbye and kiss my cats. Farewell, Cruel World.

[Wandrin]

It was an interesting reminder, reading the stories of what those in Hawaii thought and did, the people running down the street, and the utter helplessness that they felt, of older times. The threat, of course, never actually went away - only the perception of the threat. Oh well...

[gmc]

Some of our politicians currently seem unable to grasp what a nuclear war means the end. Jeremy corbyn came in for a lot of flak for refusing to say he would use nuclear weapons as a first strike I suspect itls one of the reasons the labour party has seen a revival of it's fortunes with younger voters who don;t seem so hell bent on starting a war.

[Clodhopper]

I certainly realised I don't have a working non-internet radio any more. Shrug. Given that in the event of the big one happening I'd expect anything inside the M25 Orbital motorway to be a large glass puddle I'm not sure it matters that much...

[tude dog]