We are fat, dumb and vulnerable
Today is the eighth anniversary of the most vicious attack ever perpetrated on the United States by a shadowy enemy that used our own machines to murder Americans in the centers of our economic and political power.
Backed not by a mighty military–industrial complex but powered instead by evil ingenuity, a handful of suicidal jihadists killed thousands of innocent Americans whose only crime was to go to work on that perfect September day. They felled skyscrapers, wounded the Pentagon and destroyed American innocence in a short minutes on that Tuesday morning. The only ones who had the opportunity to fight back were the passengers of Flight 93.
America troops were quickly deployed to Afghanistan and later, Iraq. Soon, military efforts were bogged down in political conflicts at home. Along the way, Americans lost sight of the fact that there are still very bad guys out there who want to kill us and destroy our way of life.
In our innocence and good will, most of us simply cannot believe that people on the other side of the world want us dead because of our value system. Unfortunately, we only have to look to the vile destruction of Second Union Church in Western Goochland to see evidence of that attitude in our own community.
During the last eight years, America has returned to what has become the new normal. We shuffle through airports shoes in hand hoping that the “enhanced security” practices will keep us safe. The absence of further attacks has lulled us into complacency.
Today, we’re more worried about the economy than terror attacks, but other threats lurk all too close to home.
Six years ago, Hurricane Isabel blew through Goochland. Many people were without power for a long time. Henrico's water system was disrupted because there was insufficient generator back up at the pumping station.
At first, the power outage was a kind of forced camping trip. As the days wore on, it got old and tempers frayed.
If our enemies want to destroy America, all they have to do is turn off the power, we’ll self-destruct.
In a fascinating novel, One Second After (ISBN-13:0978-0-7653-1758-2) available at the Goochland Branch Library, William R. Forstchen takes a detailed look at what could happen to America if the power is turned off long term.
An electro magnetic pulse, set off using relatively unsophisticated technology, probably already possessed by North Korea and Iran, destroys all electronic devices not shielded from such an attack.
The power goes out immediately. All devices with any sort of computer chip are instantly fried.
In the aftermath of 9/11, the nation was glued tearfully to television sets. In a few days we knew far too many details of that horrific day. What would you if the power went off and there was no information from the outside world?
Following deployment of an EMP, all communication stops. No one knows what happened. There is no way to ask for help and the whole country is in a world of hurt. There is no one to bring help.
Unlike previous disasters including 9/11, Katrina and earthquakes in California, help was quickly on the way, because America is a big and neighborly nation and the disaster sites relatively small.
Forstchen paints a terrifying picture of what could happen if there was no one there to help. He describes how the malfunction of those ever present chips rule our lives.
Planes, including Air Force One, crash as their computers go offline, people are stranded on an interstate when their upscale rides becomes useless lumps of metal. People turn on each other for food.
We give little thought to our interdependent society that provides strawberries in January and moves supplies of everything from popcorn to pharmaceuticals from one end of the country to the other.
What if all that were to stop. How long could you survive?
In the weeks and months after 9/11, flags flew and the country united. People wanted to get involved in their communities.
The Citizen Corps was created and helped people organize Citizen Emergency Response Teams (CERT) to teach basic first responder skills so people could take care of themselves and their neighbors until help arrive. Goochland has one. As time passed, however, we lost interest.
We Americans are notorious for our optimism. We also used to value our self-reliance. Now, we’re too busy Twittering to care about much else.
News about the H1N1 flu is everywhere, but most people figure they’ll be all right if they get a flu shot. The warnings are exaggerated, we believe.
The flu shots are a best guess effort. What if they guess wrong and huge numbers of people get sick? In an extreme case, things will pretty much shut down. Emergency responders, like our wonderful Goochland rescue squads, will soon be overwhelmed. As the first responders become sick themselves, ambulances will sit idle. It won’t matter because hospitals will overflow and be unable to properly treat patients.
Food supplies will dwindle and so on.
An exaggeration? Perhaps, but we all need to be a little more prepared.
Could you survive for three days where you are right now as you read this? Does your family have an emergency communication plan in case you cannot get home? What would you do if your cell phone didn’t work?
There are huge amounts of information about emergency preparedness on the web. One of the most comprehensive is www.ready.gov. Take a look and think about your own situation.
The world, including your own back yard, is a very scary place. Take a few minutes to plan for the unthinkable.
2 comments:
Sandie, well written, unfortunately it is a matter of when something will happen and not if.
9/11 was inflicted on us by religious zealots. Nobody wants to talk about religion, which was the primary cause of this event. Sandie, using the term "value system" instead of "religion" is one more way to continue to ignore the elephant in the room. We need first a national, then a global discussion about religion and what we're going to do about all the hate it creates on ALL sides.
As long as millions of people around the world continue to believe in mythological, invisible beings who live in the sky, this sort of behavior will never end. It went on thousands of years ago when the Israelis made their genocidal march out of Egypt into the land of milk and honey (but no oil), and it will occur thousands of years from now, until and unless rational thought prevails.
On another topic, as a former CC and CERT participant, I became discouraged by the apathy of my fellow citizens, but also by the change in focus from 'greatest good for greatest number' to focus on special groups such as elderly, disabled, ethnic groups, pets, etc. In the kinds of crisis you discussed, all that goes out the window. It seemed to me that CERT and CC were primarily mechanisms to get grants for county agencies - not necessarily a bad thing, but not what I got into it for. Additionally it became quite clear that the Sheriff's Dept. has no use for these citizens groups, so the real advantage was to obtain instruction for taking care of one's self - and most people consider that to be a government function. As you hinted, those people may (will) be in for a surprise one day.
I read a report today that illustrated how every American family is in debt to the tune of over $1M in unfunded mandates like Social Security and Medicare, plus all the deficit stuff we see on TV every day. According to the report, at the current rate of savings of American families, if we took every bit of it and applied it to the debt, it would take 249 years to pay off. It doesn't require a natural or violent disaster to create the scenarios you paint, it only takes the collapse of our economic system and our currency - a very real danger we are trying to pretend doesn't exist. Shotgun shells will be the new dollar and .22 bullets will be change!
In any event we need a big dose of chlorine in the gene pool, so a mass disaster of the types you discussed could be a mixed blessing for the continuation of the survivors in our society. We've attempted to call a halt to natural selection and survival of the fittest, but I suspect that in the long run, Darwin will have his day. Hope I'm not here when it happens....
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