“. . . Oblivion grants we cowards final rest.”

The above was my answer to a question asked by one of my fellow FDL bloggers as to my fear of death. To back track a little,  I responded to one of many posts implying  that the solution  to the predicament we find ourselves in is a “revolution.”  Not working to change the system, but over throwing the whole thing.   Something akin to the (childish)  “rebooting” of the society Naomi Klein talked about in “the Shock Doctrine.”

The thing about rebooting  is that it usually involves great trauma and violence.  I know, some of you brave Klingon warriors would say, “You got to break some eggs to make an omelet”. Please keep in mind that in reality we are not talking about eggs, but breaking people.

Have you ever thought about the mechanics of violence?  Have you really considered the results of such  trauma?  The nuts and bolts of trauma and death;  a place where even the brave seldom go?  My wife is an RN;  medical people know trauma as reality presents it.  It is not like a video game with a reset button.

Consider  the few minutes or seconds just before death. That short space of time seems like an eternity when you know your life is about to end.

As an adult, I experienced something close to this during an automobile accident.  The steering wheel ruptured my spleen, and the hot engine was pushed into the passenger compartment.  It split my knee open.  At the time, I was 28 years old;  by most standards a grown man.  As an adult, it took me months to physically recover from this accident.  It took years to mentally recover from the trauma of coming so close to death.  Think of what small children who are exposed to violence  on such a massive scale as war go through!  Watching their parents killed; being ripped apart by our cluster bombs: the face of Urban warfare .

Remember the Iraqi reporter (Muntadhar al-Zaiydi) who threw the shoes at Bush?  Although our corporate media played the clip countless times of him throwing the shoes and Bush ducking, not once did any of the talking heads dare repeat what the man was saying as he tried  to nail Bush. Thanks to Amy Goodman and Democracy Now, I now know that he screamed at Bush, “This is the farewell kiss you dog….this is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.”

All of you big brave Klingon warriors, consider this:   generally speaking in war, the number of wounded is 3 times the number of dead.  If we killed 3 million people in Vietnam, we probably maimed (for life) 9 million.  Use this same idea for the 55 million in WWI, and the 80 million in WWII.

Let us not forget the million or more killed in Iraq.  Remember the young boy at the start of “Shock and Awe” shown on the  television reports when we blew off both his arms and legs?  Applying the 1:3 ratio, odds are there were 3 million like him we maimed for life. At this point most of us agree that Iraq was a mistake,  Oops!

America is out on a ledge  (Trump Towers); broke and humiliated she thinks it would be better just ending it all. Some of us are yelling “jump”, while others try to talk her down.

Maybe this revolution these guys speak of will be more like a video game where we can experience the thrill of violence yet none of the messy consequences?   Or maybe the “rebooting” of our society could bring on the unthinkable orgasmic violence  of the Rapture?  Makes us seem more like  Necromancers than Klingons.