Moon landing was one giant leap for hypocrisy
TV STATIONS went “into orbit” recently to mark fifty years since America squandered billions – “for mankind” – by propelling three men in a tin can to the moon, while many fellow “Earthlings” suffer crippling poverty, hunger and a lack of clean water and sanitation.
Despite being hailed by the world’s leaders and media in ‘69 as an “epoch-making event” that would “bring the world together in peace”, in reality it was just one small step for man; one giant leap for hypocrisy.
US President Nixon’s “historic” live telephone message to Apollo 11’s crew – as to how their achievement “inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth” – could of easily been mistaken for an unexpected belch of hot rocket gas.
His phone was barely back on the hook before he extended the senseless slaughter in Vietnam and ordered the invasion of Cambodia.
Hero-worshipped astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin even left a “comedy plaque” on the moon, inscribed with: “We Came In Peace For All Mankind”.
Evidently there wasn’t enough room to add that these “Great guys!” had both been fighter pilots in the merciless and “genocidal” Korean War (death toll: nearly five million – mostly innocent civilians).
But “moon-mania” wasn’t to last. By the early ‘70s the public’s interest in space had fizzled out and the novel idea of man bringing lasting – real – peace to the world by “lunar love” had also been jettisoned.
As they looked back awestruck at our beautiful planet, the earlier Apollo 8 spacemen were inspired to read from the Bible book of Genesis: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Given the dire state of the world, it may now be more fitting for astronauts to quote from the prophetic Bible book of Revelation (11:18): “And the appointed time came... to ruin those who are ruining the earth” – or any other planet they may boldly go where no hypocrite has gone before. Howard H Smith Penarth
Ian Roblin Llanishen, Cardiff
There is a term for this conduct – tyranny and autocratic dictatorship, pure and simple