It’s Hard to See the Craters from Orbit
The “overview effect” is a phenomenon experienced by the privileged few who have had the opportunity to see Earth from orbit or the surface of the moon. Seeing the planet from this altitude apparently puts things in perspective, trivializing our daily worries and inducing a sense of unity among all humans, regardless of their nationality, race, or religion. But in many ways, the overview effect is better classified as a form of acute blindness.
From space, you can’t see the thousands of miles of border walls creating artificial separations that only serve to reinforce the power of the nation state. You can’t see millions of cars traversing the millions of miles of black top, pumping poison into the atmosphere. You can’t see the Manhattan skyscrapers, those steel and glass monuments to finance capitalism. You can’t see San Francisco’s overflowing homeless shelters or the VC mansions in Atherton.
But most importantly you can’t see the craters where the bombs fell.
On Friday, NASA astronaut and former Navy combat veteran Mark Kelly tweeted out a word of support for John McCain, who had just announced that he would no longer be seeking medical treatment for his aggressive brain cancer. “You can’t speak of honor and integrity without mentioning Senator John McCain,” Kelly wrote. “Stay strong, John. We’re with you.”
Kelly’s sympathies for a fellow veteran of the American military are understandable, but they also serve as a forceful reminder that NASA was and continues to be an agency serving the interests of the military-industrial complex. This is a trivial observation, but one can’t help but wonder who Kelly is referring to when he says “we.”
Is it the millions of dead Vietnamese — who McCain referred to as “gooks” as an elected member of Congress — who were killed while former US military men played golf on the moon?
Is it estimated 100,000 Iraqis who died in Operation Desert Storm, a war which McCain endorsed and became the first US ‘conflict’ to rely heavily on America’s space assets to kill?
Is it the hundreds of thousands of dead Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, and Yemeni who McCain enthusiastically authorized to die as part of a forever war in the name of fighting terrorism?
I doubt it, but the world sure looks different from space, Johnny.
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