DeanZine - November 2004
The Sky Is Falling
I don't mean to sound like Chicken Little - you know, the storybook chicken that gets hit on the head by an acorn and goes around hysterically telling all her friends on the farm that the sky is falling! - but, well, uh... THE SKY IS FALLING!!!
Scoff if you will, but the evidence keeps mounting and soon it may land right in your own backyard. So, don't say I didn't warn you.
The above photo is of the US research satellite, Genesis, which crashed into the Utah desert, two months ago, at 200mph, when its parachute failed to open (someone left out a few critical bolts - no kidding!). Incredibly, it landed with most of its solar research data intact. And, fortunately, it landed in an unpopulated area and not on anybodys house. The good folks of Utah were lucky.
Not
so the good folks of the village of Penglai, in the Sichuan province of China.
A piece of a Chinese satellite crashed through the top floor of their four story apartment building. No one was hurt, but as you can see from this photo, they won't lack for ventilation anytime soon.
Unfortunately these are not isolated incidents.
Now, some of you may recall my deep consternation at the impending arrival of a voracious black hole which is hurtling towards us at 250,000 miles an hour (Issue #1). But you'll also recall that that particular disaster won't happen for another 13,392,000,000 years (give or take a few millennium) and the odds are good that our sun will already have gone nova by then - by no means an urgent crisis. By comparison, these pesky satellites have been falling out of the sky at an alarming rate.
Not to mention the 8,927 pieces of man-made, space junk currently orbiting the globe, also destined to fall on our heads.
Not to mention the war in Iraq, slaughter in the Sudan, the ongoing AIDS cataclysm, the decimation of our ecosystem, and the impending global economic collapse - 20 years hence - when we really do run of oil...
Now, one could argue that the sky is always falling - and you'd be right.
The point is, none of these things really matter to me as long as my family is warm and safe and secure with an internet hookup and cable TV. Oh sure, I might feel genuine concern, sadness, even despair, at times, but only in an abstract way. Unless the sky actually falls on my own house, I go happily about my business, writing songs, recording them, performing. I might even write a song or two about some heartrending tragedy (tastefully produced, of course), hoping that it somehow absolves me of actually having to do something concrete to help make things a little better.
But in truth, unless it touches me directly - unless a big chunk of the sky falls straight through the roof, smack-dab on top of my head - it's not real to me. It's just another news report. Another headline. A cold statistic. Another sad, but remote, fact of life.
Which is how most of us live our lives.
Which, by the way, is a perfectly natural and sane strategy, by which to operate.
Because no one is capable of functioning in a constant state of sorrow. There's just too much of it.
We can only diminish it by living hopeful lives filled with wonder and joy and blissful boredom... raking the leaves, taking out the trash, visiting the folks, painting the kitchen, shopping for groceries, driving the kids to their piano lessons...
And by praying like hell (yeah, I know - the irony) that the neo-conservative cabal currently running the United States, which seems clearly bent, in a radical military fervor, on imposing its will by force on the rest of the planet, is either prophetically correct in their incredibly risky and deadly undertaking or miraculously lucky in spite of their colossal stupidity and hubris.
Dean, where are you going with this?
Let me explain (this won't take long) : On 23 March 1983, President Reagan called for the development of a satellite based missile defense systems originally referred to as S.D.I, the Strategic Defense Initiative, and more popularly and derisively referred to as 'StarWars'.
The preposterous dream was to spend billions in developing a space based umbrella of satellites designed to sense and instantly shoot down any incoming ballistic nuclear missiles. A constellation of spy-in-the-sky satellites, space-based laser weapons and space-based interceptors was supposed to alter the balance of power between the US and the Soviet Union. Reagan promised to share the technology with the Russians but no one believed him, certainly not the Russians.
And so, in a bold step of lunacy or strategic genius (take your pick), Reagan got funding for the program, committing billions in tax dollars on the development of 'StarWars' - billions which might otherwise have provided housing and medicine and social services to the poor and disadvantages, but which was now pouring like a burst dam into the coffers of the military industrial complex, on a high-risk, unproven, arguably naive initiative, straight out of a science fiction novel.
There was just one small problem: it didn't work. It soon became painfully apparent to even its most ardent supporters that the entire StarWars scheme was impractical and doomed to fail, that the technology was too immature by many decades, and that even if the best-case technological scenario was hypothetically achieved, there were still dozens of simple and inexpensive ways for the Soviets to circumvent the system. A multibillion dollar space based defense system, even if it worked, was still not going to prevent an enemy agent from smuggling a nuclear device into New York City over the Canadian border in a suitcase. Not then and not now.
But here's where incredible idiocy, luck or genius came into play. Even after realizing that the multibillion dollar 'StarWars' program was completely bogus, did they pull the plug?
Nope. And here's why: Although the Russians were pretty sure that the 'StarWars' system was completely unrealistic, they couldn't take the chance that, however unlikely, it might actually work, and leave the US with a critical advantage. So, in response to our Strategic Defense Initiative, they were forced to launch their own, also to the tunes of many billions of dollars. Which they didn't have. Instead of a space-based laser weapon, StarWars became our consummate economic weapon against our cold war enemy.
It bankrupt the Soviet Union and led directly to its collapse.
And not a single missile was launched. And not a single missile was shot out of the sky by a space-based laser beam shooting satellite. And not a single shot was fired. Instead, a wall fell down. And a vast empire along with it.
When Reagan first concocted the idea of spending billions on the StarWars plan, was it an act of idiocy? Yes. A wasteful drain of America's precious resources, best used elsewhere? Yes. A gargantuan windfall for the military-industrial complex based on a completely bogus premise? Yes. Could the effort be described as unconscionable, foolhardy and, in fact, absolutely insane? Yes.
Did it work? Yes.
But, make no mistake... it was a mistake. It worked in spite of the inanity of the scheme. Sometimes, profoundly dumb moves have unexpected positive results.
And, by the way, we American's shouldn't feel too cocky about that victory - we won because we had more money than they did - and that's it; not because of democracy, but because of capitalism. And if you doubt that, consider China, a communist country that is not only very much still in the game, but showing every sign of soon controlling most of the board. The Red states have nothing on the Red Chinese.
So, here's what I conclude from all these orbiting oddities and things falling out of the sky:
1. Even a genial, grade 'B' movie actor can get lucky, sometimes, and win a cold war - even if that success was the result of an insane strategic policy.
2. Things seldom work out quite the way we plan.
I offer this convoluted analogy in the spirit of sincere optimism, by way of suggesting that even if Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Wolfowitz are absolutely wrong in their assessment and inept pursuit of their current mideast strategy, there is always the hope that - just as with Reagan's insane StarWars defense shield - some positive result may yet come from all the current suffering. I'm even willing to acknowledge the remote possibility that, however counterintuitive, their terrible plan may actually be effective, in the long run (but at what cost, is another question?). I'm doubtful, but I'm trying to be open minded about it. (Not that I have much choice.)
In either case, my hope is the same: Let them be lucky or let them be right.
Because otherwise, the sky really is falling and there is no umbrella big enough to cover all our heads.
Be happy and be safe and, oh yeah...
Happy Thanksgiving!
Gobble, Gobble,
Deano
Genesis Satellite Crash Data: http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2004/09/13/10154
A few missing bolts: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/65776main_noaa_np_mishap.pdf
Chinese satellite crashes through roof: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3750744.stm
S.D.I. / Strategic Defense Initiative / StarWars: http://www.school-for-champions.com/history/sdi.htm
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