Hey, kids, it's your ol' pal Rude Pundit here, puffin' away on his corncob hashpipe and sittin' on his hay bale outside his survivalist bunker in a secret place where he'd have to kill you if you knew where it was. Some of you young 'uns weren't around during the great Cold War of a good chunk of the last century, so you don't know what it's like to wake up every day with a gut-churning feeling that the entire world is gonna be wiped out by huge fireballs and radiation sickness.
No, sir and ma'am, the 1980s wasn't all New Wave, Eddie Murphy, and shoulder pads. Why, back when the Soviet Union was the "evil empire," we all thought we were gonna die any second, but we learned to live with it. So I'm gonna give you some of my wisdom from those bad ol' days to help you weather this new round of shit-yourself apocalypse fear.
Gather 'round. Don't worry. I won't get all handsy.
1. Calm the fuck down. Yeah, yeah, I know that that our dumb-as-a-stump, pussy-grabbin' president keeps huffin' and puffin' about the United States being ready to blow North Korea's shit up, and I know that North Korea is led by an inbred half-wit who claps like a slow little boy when he sees things go "boom," but that doesn't mean either of them is idjit enough to nuke the other. You're still gonna die because of climate change or heart disease, but that'll take a little longer.
2. Most of what you're hearing is public relations bullshit. Trump has a bunch of brain-damaged yahoos who thrill to his fake John Wayne act. Kim Jong Un needs his poor, starving people to think that everyone else wants to kill them and only Kim can protect them. (So, really, they're not so different.) But behind the scenes, there are constant negotiations and dialogues with people actually skilled at this sort of thing trying to figure shit out. This was true during the Soviet/U.S. standoff, and it's true now.
3. Even if fighting breaks out, it'll be conventional, not nuclear. We've got a shit-ton of hardware and soldiers in the Pacific, with bases on Guam, Japan, and elsewhere. North Korea doesn't want to be turned into glowing parking lot (although many people there would probably welcome the sweet kiss of death). So we might get bomb-y, but not nuke-y.
4. Even if North Korea launches a nuke, it'll wipe out just one place, likely Guam, but maybe Los Angeles. During the Cold War, we were facing thousands of nuclear weapons, not just a smattering. So we'll mostly be fine. Mostly. Unless you're in Guam. Or Los Angeles.
5. No, no, calm the fuck down. If North Korea does launch a nuclear attack, the U.S. would surely attack in a way that completely takes out North Korea's leadership, and the one thing Kim loves more than missiles going "boom" is staying in power so he can hang out with Dennis Rodman. Dennis Rodman won't go to a radioactive North Korea (probably). So Kim wants to keep control of his people. You can't do that if the people have been turned to ash.
6. There will continue to be bluster. There will continue to be idiots talking about the "good" of a preemptive attack on a nation that has done very little to piss us off. We had that back in the day, too. Donald Trump will continue to tweet and say stupid, threatening shit that most of the world has learned to ignore.
7. That's because of all the generals Trump's surrounded himself with, who speak with more authority than Trump. In they absolute worst case scenario, they would certainly be a check on his worst impulses. Maybe. Perhaps. So, if all else fails, hey, we can always hope for a military coup. That'll surely settle everything down. Oh. Wait.
Well, kids, that's about it for ol' Rude Pundit trying to give you hope. I'm gonna go into my bunker now and wait this out. We've got enough weed and whiskey to last us a few months. That's my suggestion: get high, get laid, listen to music, ignore shit for a while, turn off the Twitter and the TV, and go outside while you still can. But don't freak out. It's pretty useless.
