The day the music died forever

A Time of Unimaginable Sorrow is Upon Us

It was a nice cool sunny morning with some blue birds soaking up the sun, all in a row on the high wire. It took some time to figure out what happened. There were a few low rumbles, they seemed to be coming from north of here. We live on a farm out in the wooded hills of southern Missouri, and north would be up towards St Louis. Soon as the booming sounds started the power went off. At first, I didn’t pay much attention, but with all the military stirrings going on in the world these days, you just don’t know what to expect.

I went inside the house, but with the power off there’s no internet, so no way to find out what’s going on. At least until the power comes back on, or until I get the generator started up. More distant thunderous booms that echo now less like thunder and more like tremendous explosions – and I’m starting to get worried. My kids are at work and the grandkids are in school. I swear I‘m seeing sparks and smoke coming from under the hood of my car, but it’s not running. Now the power line where those bluebirds were singing looks like it’s getting really hot and smoke is coming from the bucket transformer on the poles. Wow! The transformer just blew up sending a shower of sparks and molten metal flying all around the pole! I can hear blasts all over the countryside from more pole transformers exploding. All the fences are sparking and smoking. The woods around the power lines and transformers are starting to go up in extremely violent flames. And the cars are now on fire – all of them! Even the old broken-down ones out in people’s pastures. Our emergency generators are smoking – I’ve got to get them away from the houses before they burn up.

Now I’ve got an idea of what’s happening, because I’ve heard of what an EMP event could do to electrical circuits. Electromagnetic Pulse. That’s what happens when a nuclear weapon explodes. The only other thing I can think of that would do this is a coronal mass ejection from a solar flare. It happened back in 1859 and it was named the Carrington Event. Fortunately, the world did not have much electrical infrastructure back then, just telegraphs, and the induced currents caused the wires to catch fire – sort of like what’s happening to the power lines out here right now. I don’t think it’s a solar event either, because the warmongers in Washington have been beating the nuclear drums for a while, and I’ve been afraid the Russians were going to get spooked and do a first strike. I guess this is it.

A big problem for those of us who might survive a while because we live in areas that aren’t targets is that we lose all sources of information. We don’t have any way of knowing what’s happening. Don’t know if it’s a first strike or a retaliatory strike. Does Washington DC even exist anymore, or is it just a huge radioactive smoking crater? Are those beautiful, magnificient buildings of the Kremlin still standing?

How many of our big cities are destroyed? I remember seeing pictures of the devastation that was Nagasaki and Hiroshima when that monster Truman murdered all those Japanese civilians, and thinking that those bombs were tiny compared to what the psychopaths have in their arsenals today – the Russians have bombs that could literally flatten New York City and/or Houston. I cannot, nor can anyone else, begin to fathom the destruction of a 10 or 20 megaton thermonuclear weapon could wreak on a major city.

Lights go off and then nothing. No TV; no internet. No football – the treasury department that writes all the government checks is gone. Fear-crazed citizens make runs on Wal Marts and grocery stores and take everything they can. No one tries to stop them; the store employees are in a panic to get home. Problem is, with no operable vehicles, the only things people can take are what they can carry by hand. Everyone has to walk, even the police are stranded out on the highways. All troopers, city cops, and sheriff deputies are trying desperately to get home to their loved ones. No cops on duty anymore. No traffic moving anymore. Just lots of people running, screaming, hoping they can just get home, and that there still is a home.

Fires are blazing everywhere from the powerlines and transformers exploding. All electrical substations in the country are smoldering and blazing chaos. Forest fires are rampant and out of control all over the nation and there are no operable fire trucks. No firefighting planes or helicopters are available to fight the fires. Houses hundreds of miles away from the many ground zeros are burning both from the unchecked wildfires, and from EMP induced electrical shorts in home wiring. Almost every building in every town is on fire with no way to put them out. And these towns are far away from the targeted places where the bombs actually hit. This is truly a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions, the like of which has never been witnessed in all of human history. There will never be electricity in this country again. Let that sink in. Freezers will thaw out and food will ruin. Untold thousands of people will perish, starting with those vaporized, then those being burned up in their homes, and there are no fire departments available to help anyone. No hospitals; doctors and nurses are gone, understandably abandoning useless smoldering medical facilities. No industry, no UPS deliveries, no more dog food for the pups. If your house didn’t burn to the ground, at least you may (for a while) have a (dark) shelter from the elements.

Huge blasts of radioactive winds blow hundreds of miles from the explosions, of which there have been many. The first wave was intended to take out the military establishment. No way of knowing, but there’s no reason to believe that anything remains of the pentagon, DC or Langley, Norfolk, San Diego, Chicago, Houston, or any of the coastal cities where there are refineries. All cities with military infrastructure of any kind will be destroyed. The joke that has been for years a missile defense system has been exposed. The sick joke that a nuclear war could be “winnable” has also been exposed. The numbers of people succumbing to radiation sickness is beyond belief. There will be no schools, no stores, no food, and no government services; no disaster relief will be forthcoming. All banks will have ceased to function, so even if there is any money left, it won’t be worth anything. The bankers never were.

If you take medications to stay alive, you’d best have a good supply, because there won’t be any more. All livestock will either be dead from radiation, burned to a crisp in the fires, or promptly slaughtered by starving survivors, and it doesn’t matter to whom they belonged. Same with property. People will no longer obey private property signs, they will go anywhere they think there might be resources, food, water, at the risk of their lives, which aren’t worth much right now anyway. There will be no law!

Every military ship on and under the ocean, with the likely exception of a few submarines, will be sunk. All of the nuclear-powered ships will go to the bottom with reactors likely damaged, spewing radioactive contamination. Like dozens, maybe hundreds, of Fukushimas. Even the reactors that aren’t damaged will undergo meltdowns with no controls. The bible says that something will kill all of the fishes in the oceans, maybe this is how that happens

…..
Bedraggled survivors will wander in shock around former cities in hopes of disaster relief which will never come. Desperate people will offer anything – gold, jewelry, ammunition, their own bodies, for sustenance. Helpless parents will watch in horror as their children starve, hoping against hope that they will awaken from this nightmare, but when this all comes down, it’ll be too late for them.

And we still won’t know what happened. Who decided that a nuclear war would be a good idea? Who “won” the war? Did any of our leaders survive to sign a surrender, and to whom? Or did Russia or China surrender? Will there be hordes of soldiers from some faraway land invading our country after the radiation dies down.

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But with our leadership I can't say that I am hopeful.

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janis b's picture

To compensate for the utterly dystopian vision of this piece, I recommend reading, or rereading, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, or Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neal Hurston. I think I’ll take my own recommendation and reread them for their soothing gift of evoking the capacity of love in dire times.

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snoopydawg's picture

@janis b

The closest I’ve read to this dystopian nightmare was one second after about a small town in the hills after an EMP went off. It was nowhere close to what this essay described. And unfortunately we have people in government who think that yes we can survive using nuclear weapons.

The best part of this is how they describe what happens to the parasite class that thinks they can survive it in their bunkers.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

janis b's picture

@snoopydawg

of the parasite class.

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I have said since I was a kid in 4th grade, I want the nuke to him me in my head. Please.
Imagine being the maid, cook, or nanny in those bunkers. Would you expect equality when you crawled back to the surface? Would you be happy with being the servant when all that you did kept these masters alive? Would you consider getting rid of them and keeping their bounty to extend your life?
If I were in a bunker, rich, would I trust any meal cooked for me by a servant?
I keep telling my prepper pals to stop bragging, that they might be a target. My own prep is for power outages from hurricanes.
If a nuke didn't directly kill me, although I am 45 miles from Houston, it would make it impossible for me and mine to exist. I think ordinary folks, the 99% understand this.
The 1% doesn't, and they are in control.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

snoopydawg's picture

@on the cusp

That’s the funny part for those who think they can ride out the after effects of nuclear weapons going off. First off would they even get in their bunkers and 2nd would their staff be trustworthy?

But who thinks it’s better to hide in bunkers for years instead of making sure that the environment stays healthy? An artificial life below ground doesn’t appeal to me when I’d rather have a healthy world. Have these people actually thought this out?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

janis b's picture

@snoopydawg

Unfortunately

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@snoopydawg their bunkers, and instruct them on how it will all work. They insist on swimming pools.
I want to know their plan to fly to NZ with a live, healthy pilot. From, say, NYC. A pilot that has no wife, no kids, no grandkids. And can get their and land via compass, since there will be no air traffic cont rol. No internet for maps.
Is there a water filter that filters out radiation? Where does one get salt? No salt, no life.
I can only imagine needing a plumber to clear the pipes. A gorgeous bunker that reeks of shit and piss.
If this wasn't so deadly, it would be a comedy.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Creosote.'s picture

@snoopydawg
largely spent ignoring or savaging potential thinking.
"I'm so busy, there's just no time for that right now."
My very good home-healthcare person trusts NPR.
A better, older friend may read more widely than I do
but for them most all the darker reports are just paranoia.
Another group are now purpsesively silent, or immediately angry.
I revere the plank and and our crew

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Socialprogressive's picture

or the effects of climate change, I suspect things will be looking pretty Mad Max by the end of the century.

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I woke up this morning determined to drink less, eat right, and exercise.
But that was four hours ago when I was younger and full of hope.

soryang's picture

"Bend over, grab your ankles, and kiss your ass goodbye" Maybe everyone has already heard this.

It would usually come up during general quarters on the ship. "Brace for shock." Then someone would say it, and everyone would laugh.

One time, many years later, when I was driving a big rig, I had to deliver to a commercial distribution center that was operating in an old USAF underground complex for missiles or something like that, I wasn't sure. I drove to the dock area I was assigned. There were many of them, the caves were cut through the mountain rock in a circular ring. It was harrowing drive through because the tunnel was just wide enough and high enough to drive the trailer through. I had to steer at exactly the right angle or the trailer might hit the side of the tunnel. The dock areas were marked A,B,C,D,E,F,G etc. I can't remember how many there were, each dock area was a cavernous void, the rock throughout was dark grey to black. Obviously there were warehouse storage areas behind each dock. I felt like I was transported back into some Failsafe set. I had been to a place something like this on a show and tell experience during my early military training.

So called tactical nuclear weapons are regarded as the proverbial, "silver bullet," by military planners and Dr. Strangelove types. I read Henry Kissinger's book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy while serving with a bomber squadron. He was an advocate of a "limited" nuclear option. I much prefer his later emphasis on diplomacy and his book On China.

B61 nuclear bomb
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B61_nuclear_bomb
"with variable yield"

People have become anesthetized to this threat. In my opinion, east Asia is the most likely place for nuclear war to break out. Of course, it's arguable that it could occur in eastern Europe. Nuclear weapons have been used before in Japan during WWII, and the US has threatened the use of nuclear weapons in East Asia on other occasions, during the Korean conflict and Taiwan crisis. North Korea has threatened the use of nuclear weapons during recent years. South Korea's president has broached the topic of arming itself with nuclear weapons or at least hosting US nuclear weapons there. The subject comes up in right wing circles in Japan as well.

@snoopydog thanks for posting this thread.

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語必忠信 行必正直

usefewersyllables's picture

N/T

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Twice bitten, permanently shy.

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

It's like meeting the Ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Come ...except he shows you a world where Christmas will never come again, for anyone.

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

snoopydawg's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

I hope everyone read it all to see what I had to leave out and get the whole effect.

I’m maybe 15 miles from the air base so hopefully I go out in the big blast. And unless people have made their homes fortresses all their years of prepping is going to feed others who will break in looking for the last can of tuna as the essay says. Damn our leaders for bringing us so close to this reality. Remember that Obama spent a trillion dollars on mini nukes and there are those who think they can get away with using them. Other countries that have big nukes will use those. It’s not a winnable scenario.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

is why the only NY resolution was
to smoke more pot This year
than Last

just want to have
time to
smile smile smile
when it All Blows

are we stocking up on
pitch forks and torches
yet
asking for a friend

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Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

Pluto's Republic's picture

....at the Miss Universe Pagent last night:

A little bit OT.

But not too much.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato