Sunday, March 3, 2019

Foraging For Mushrooms

The new MSM meme, “Trump NoKo Deal Fails,” has prompted a new round of “Oh noes” concerning imminent nuclear destruction, not seen since the “Cold War.” WaPo’s gender confused Charlie Jane Anders opined that “Pop culture is no longer full of apocalyptic nuclear visions. That’s too bad.” Now that Trump is president, and the promise of his impeachment is fading, the MSM wants everyone to live in an agitated state of a new fear and dread.

Whatever happens as President Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to talk about Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, the risk of a devastating nuclear conflict appears higher now than at any time since the Cold War. And yet, pop culture has more or less stopped warning us of the dangers of atomic devastation — and that’s too bad. We need fresh stories to help us understand the renewed and complex risks we face, and to nudge us out of our complacency.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the infamous Doomsday Clock at two minutes to midnight in January 2018, making this our closest call since the 1950s.

Got that? The failure of “Russia, Russia, Russia!” and convicted liar Michael “The Rat” Cohen to provide a clear path to impeachment has left the MSM frantically searching for new anti-Trump memes to terrify moms across the heartland. After spending decades concentrating on First World dangers like racism, misogyny, patriarchy,  homophobia, transphobia and Islamophobia, look for MSM and pop culture to shift their fear and loathing of Trump to a different platform: Trump-induced nuclear holocaust.

Bring back those scary stories of survival in backyard fallout shelters

and grade school air raid drills.

Ooooo! That’s scary!

Let’s make a new round of post-WWII Cold War era of Federal Civil Defense efforts to educate and reassure us that we can survive an atomic attack that – no matter its source – will be PDJT’s fault.

Civil Defense PSA (1953)

They will ignore the fact that Ronaldus Magnus dealt with the real Cold War USSR  threat and ended that conflict through strength not appeasement. Of course that was back when most people in this country still believed it to be the shining city on the hill. It’s not that Reagan didn’t have enemies, but none who were actually rooting against their country just to take him down. President Trump doesn’t have that luxury. When he walked away from the little potbellied pig from NoKo – who serves as a stand in for China – because he demanded some appeasement from the US it was not surprising that the MSM blamed our President rather than our enemy.

So at a time when many journals like ScienceNordic reports that the world is increasingly more peaceful now they see it as the ideal time to rekindle the fear of nuclear annihilation - ipso fatso you can count on “Russia! Russia! Russia!” being replaced with “Nuclear! Nuclear! Nuclear!”

Nuclear Armageddon provided conveniently heightened stakes for storytellers, but those fantasies made Americans aware of a genuine threat…"Popular culture was an important factor in shaping people's perceptions and levels of concern about nuclear war,"… Let's hope pop culture starts to warn us once again.

Not because there’s anything that you can do about it but because it’s the best propaganda tool they’ve had in ages. Maybe even better than racism.

So what do you say Pop Culture generators?  Let’s mobilize, propagandize, scare the bejesus out of soccer moms! Let’s all forage for mushrooms!