We interrupt the Lounge for a serious question: Are you terrified?

[bertha katzenengel]

New war to our east. Israel etc.

Israel has nukes.

Are you terrified? I certainly am. I'm not Chicken Little and I'm not looking into building a bomb shelter (where would I put it? Right beside the septic tank?). But I am very frightened about nuclear bomb(s) being detonated at all, let alone in that part of the world right now.

(Not to mention North Korea.)

How about it?

[YellowRubberDuckie]

1. We must be on the same wavelength tonight...

I just started a thread myself. I'm a little freaked.
Duckie

[bertha katzenengel]

3. well, then, you must also visit this thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x5369096

a tiny bit of humor

:pals:

[KitchenWitch]

2. I am scared!

And the whole thing depresses me as well.

[WindRavenX]

4. oh yeah

:scared:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Why is this handbasket all scorched?

[WCGreen]

7. Good one.....

[OhioBlue]

6. I am afraid that we are heading toward

WW3. However, I don't think (or maybe can't let myself imagine) that nukes will be used. It is such a Pandora's box that I can't imagine any Country would want to open considering the possible ramifications.

[greatauntoftriplets]

8. Pandora's Box was opened 3 years ago in March....

The US had badly destabilized the Middle East. Anything goes there now, apparently.

[bertha katzenengel]

17. Hear, hear!

God damn George Bush.

[greatauntoftriplets]

21. Oh yeah!!!!!

Grrrrrrr to craphead *

[GOPisEvil]

9. Terrified? No.

I'd say I'm pretty concerned, particularly since the US has lost any sense of a moral high ground, but terrified about the end of the world? Not me.

[Oeditpus Rex]

10. I'm a bit worried

But I don't think anybody's mad (read: insane) enough to use nukes.




But then, we're gonna get involved in this. :scared:

[nosillies]

11. Why can't they all just grow up?

I've seen middle schoolers AND drunk frat boys handle conflict better than all these knobs.

[Mutley]

12. I'm not really worried about nukes.

Everyone knows that'll be the end of us All. No one wants that.

However, you know the U.S. be involved, of course, and that concerns me very very much.

[Deja Q]

16. Nobody teamed up to bomb the US after WW2 ended.

And I don't mean nukes. Just bomb us to death in retaliation for Japan.

Why would it happen now; Iran is not well liked in the so-called "world community".

As with those two Japanese cities, it won't take much to blast off Iran and leave the rest of the world intact.

No, if Israel uses a nuke of its own, nothing will come of it.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

13. I think we may be on the way to WW3. Am I scared?

No. What is there to be scared of? Death? That concept doesn't bother me. If I die, I will move on, or should I be wrong, and that is that, and I won't be around to be sad anyway.

I'm upset, but more for others than for myself. Upset at the fact that our natures have deteriorated so vastly. Upset for those who will experience losses. But I'm not frightened for myself.

EDIT: You should have my option; Not scared but think they may use nukes

[bertha katzenengel]

18. Hi, FA -- I added that option.

[Ariana Celeste]

14. yeah I'm pretty freaked out.

not sure what to think, but I am definitely scared. seems so surreal to me, yanno?

[Deja Q]

15. Why is Bush so confident over Israel's ability to defend itself?

[LeftyMom]

19. Because the US arms then with the good fighters and shit

and they have nukes. They'd be outnumbered and badly hosed in a ground war, but aerial power is rather authoritative.

[everythingsxen]

20. Yes I'm worried...

for my family and friends.

Personally though, I would sooner get it over and done with instead of having to live with the fear of it happening for another 100 years.

[pitohui]

36. does that make any sense at all?

i would far rather live 100 hundred years w. the terror of another katrina, or a terror of another nagasaki, or what have you "than go ahead and get it over with"

we've lived 60 yrs w. fear of global nuclear war, and i would a thousand times have rather lived w. that fear than to have "gone ahead and gotten it over with"-- they could have gone ahead and gotten it over with in 1962 i guess and then many or most of us here in the lounge wouldn't have the worry and trouble of having been born at all

[swag]

22. I should probably be terrified,

but human existence on earth has seemed so fucked up and silly for so long, that I can't but imagine an absurd outcome for it at this point.

And some live version of the Eagles doing "Hotel California" is now playing in this airport bar. And that is making my mind scream,
"COME, ARMAGEDDON! COME!"

[Deja Q]

23. Am I worried? No. I've enough things to freak out about.

If it is the end of the world, then at least I can rest in peace.

Besides, what can any of us do?

Enjoy what time IS left.

I need to remember that too.

[Kajsa]

27. That's a very good reminder, HT.

We all forget to enjoy the time
we have left on this planet.

:thumbsup: :hi:

[Withywindle]

24. Scared to death but...

...I've been scared to death for so long I think I'm getting scared-jaded.

I was a teenager in the 80s...it was always exciting to wake up and find the world was still here.

[Frank Cannon]

25. Fuck them. Fuck them all with a big black red-hot cast-iron spiked dildo.

A) I'm tired of being scared of everything: terror, $5.00-a-gallon gas, bird flu, mad cow disease... Fuck all those who would continue to try to make me afraid.

B) I'm going to die sometime. That's life. Too bad.

C) When the fucksticks in the Middle East start caring about living together peacefully in the region, I will. They've LOATHED EACH OTHER WITH ALL OF THEIR BEINGS for THOUSANDS of years. Fuck them all and their prehistoric supernatural bullshit beliefs.

Sorry to be so profane. I'm just dog tired of all this shit.

[bertha katzenengel]

26. Tell us how you really feel, Frank.

Heh.

[skygazer]

28. We have nothing to fear except fear itself

Sorry, I've been reading about the end of WWI and the years leading up to WWII. It has struck me that the US was in such a precarious position when FDR was first elected - people were so desperate that they probably would have followed a lunatic if that promised to get them out of the fix of the Depression and the Dustbowl and unemployment - just as the people of Germany followed a lunatic to escape their problems. And yet, rather than encourage fear to build his own power, FDR encouraged hope.

Oh, how I wish we had a leader like that now! Yes, this makes me very, very concerned. :(

[mzteris]

29. scared & pissed

about the whole thing.

Not like terrified - more like resigned. . .

Let's just say it wouldn't surprise me if some nuke somewhere doesn't go off.

Maybe all the stupid bastards will just do each other in and leave the rest of us alone.

Oh wait. I forgot.

America is one of the stupid bastards now, isn't it?

:banghead:

[NNadir]

30. Actually Pakistan and India scare me more than the current Israeli war.

The Pakistan-India border is very long. Both nations have nuclear weapons, and there has been a nearly continuous war between these nations for many decades.

The violence in Mumbai is very unsettling, especially should it prove true that Pakistan is involved.

Both countries have large, uneducated, populations and the potential for vast internal instability. I have been to India, and read the English language newspapers there, and I can tell you that the attitudes toward Pakistan was very, very nasty. (I am not taking sides here; I'm sure that Pakistan is just as bad.)

I know quite a bit about nuclear technology, being an advocate of the broad use of nuclear power. I can tell you that the only time I was ever inspired to buy iodine tablets for my kids was during the last round of Pakistani-Indian saber rattling.

But to say that Pakistan/India is the worst case, does not eliminate the risks of the other cases.

For the long term, I believe the Israelis are trouble as a nuclear weapons state. So is the United States. So is Russia. So, for that matter, is France and China and Great Britain.

If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, the Iran/Israel situation could easily spin out of control.

Mostly I worry that the witnesses to nuclear war are almost all gone now. People have the sense that nuclear war is just a bigger explosion. That is not the case. Nuclear war is not just quantitatively different. It is qualitatively different.

All states have an obligation to ban nuclear weapons. We really need to get nuclear materials under international control. We need to go back and take a look at the ideas of some of the nuclear pioneers, men like Neils Bohr. In a sane world, this would be a priority.

But I fear that the outbreak of anarchy is speeding out of control. These are the most dangerous times I have lived through since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Our President is crazy, and more frightening is that he and his handlers, the nuttiest being Cheney, are sociopaths with absolutely no ethical or moral constraints on their behavior.

[AmyDeLune]

31. I find that I just can't get all that worked up over it

I have no control over the actions of any of the people with their finger on The Button. I'd rather just kick back, live my life and hope the world doesn't end before all the good fall movies come out.:D

And if the world does end in a firey inferno, I guess I won't have to worry about paying off my credit cards anymore.;)

*whistling* Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

32. To be perfectly honest, my dear bertha.......

I'm not terrified....

Concerned, yes.....

I know this may sound odd, but I am fatalistic about stuff like this...

Que sera, sera, and like that.......

Hopefully the parties involved will consider very carefully the use of nuclear weapons......

And refrain.

Hopefully.

:hug:

[xmas74]

33. I just finished writing a short story about how

someone like me would react to this. Seemed like the right time.

Am I scared? There's no point. I live in an area that would be hit immediately if nukes were deployed against us. (Remember the movie The Day After? I live next to the air force base that they talk about being destroyed.)

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if the air raid sirens were to sound right now and I knew they were nukes I'd just grab my daughter, climb in bed, pull the covers over our heads and hold her. We'd be dead on impact.

[pitohui]

34. how can i be terrified?

i don't suppose they will use nukes and if they do, well, it's already nagasaki around here, so what's the use of worrying abt it in advance?

maybe you only have so many terror receptors and once they're all used up, you can't be terrified any more, sort of how you can only smell the paper mill for so long and then the odor receptors are used up and it isn't a prob. any more

[lumberingbear]

35. Pissed.........YES

Scared....No.

I'm so sick and tired of the whole ME situation! These people have never got along and never will. I feel sorry for all the innocent people who, like us just want to be left alone and live our lives.

I pray for peacemakers to rise up in all the contries (including ours).

[Fox Mulder]

37. Sometimes I just don't give a damn anymore.

And other times, I'm completely pissed.

Right now...I just don't care. I have my own life (and well-being, for that matter) to worry about right now.

[anarch]

38. not terrified, but definitely horrified

not to mention saddened and disgusted. And yeah, I won't be surprised if there is some kind of nuclear exchange thanks to the open hostility that has been unleashed thanks in no small part to U.S. meddling and aggression. I don't think that will be the end of us all, though. The economic consequences of all this, combined with the global peak of oil production...now that might be the end of all we know, at least.

[astral]

39. Kinda like everybody said, I'm scared but I don't mull over it . . .

I don't know if the war thing is the scariest or what will happen here anyway if there is no war. I live that Olde Chinese Proverb: "May You Live in Interesting Times."

People here in America act like nothing's gonna change here no matter what the planet is up to.

[bicentennial_baby]

40. No, not really.

I expect such things to happen, in time...I'm no optimist. Too many PoliSci/History/Religion courses for me, I guess. Whatever will come, will certainly come.

:hug:

[RoyGBiv]

41. I could die in the next 5 minutes ...

BFD.

Well, I suppose it would be to those who know me, but really ... I'm not gonna let these bastards scare me.

If we're fucked, we're fucked, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. May as well enjoy whatever time I have left.

Now, I go drink.

OnEdit: The prevalent fear is, in part, due to how deeply this rapture cult has infected our culture. I mean, look. I woke up in the 70's and early 80's every damn morning thankful that the planet hadn't been nuked. I grew up in an environment that had Israel and the whole Arab world at each other's throats on a daily basis. I truly do not recall any mass hysteria about "the rapture" or whatever. Just like at the turn of the last century, the doomsday prophets are out in force, and they are selling their wares with the help of television. I'd bet my next paycheck something over 90% of them are working on portfolios that are reliant on 20+ year rates of accumulation.

I've lived through dozens of crisis situations, all of them in some way something that could be interpreted as "Biblical" in an "end times" sort of way. Funny thing ... so did people 1000 years ago. Maybe the current one is the end-all-be-all of fuckem-up. Fine. Tell me when. Put me at ground zero, and I won't give a damn.

[Stardust]

42. I was eaarlier but now it's no big whoop I'm burned out about caring anymo

[NMMNG]

43. I'm aware of the possibility that the world could be in grave danger

But I know there's nothing I can do to stop it, so there's no use in my becoming anxious over it. If it happens it happens. If I die I die.

[The Magistrate]

44. No, Ma'am, Not Afraid: Attentive, But Not Afraid