The Butter Battle Book and Nuclear Weapons
I have just finished reading “The Butter Battle Book” by Dr. Seuss. You may think that the book, being written by Dr. Seuss, is a children's book. It is, and it isn't.
The story is about the Yooks and the Zooks, who live on opposite sides of a great wall. But what really separates them is that the Yooks eat their bread with the butter side up, and the Zooks – horror of horrors - eat their bread with the butter side down.
In order to prevent anyone from the other side from coming over the wall, both sides post a guard along the wall. The Yook guard is armed with a Snick-Berry Switch. The Zook guard breaks the Snick-Berry Switch with a shot from his slingshot, and both sides launch into a race to produce a more powerful weapon than the other side has, producing Triple-Sling Jiggers, Jigger-Rock Snatchems, Utterly Sputters, and finally, the Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo, a weapon so powerful it can completely destroy the other side. The guard from each side goes to the wall, intending to destroy the other side once and for all with his Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo, only to find that the other side has one, too. The book doesn't really have an ending, it just leaves both guards standing on the wall with a Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo in his hand, waiting to see who will drop his first. And when one side drops his Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo, the other side will drop his too, resulting in the destruction of both the Yooks and the Zooks.
The real-life version of the book is, of course, the “Cold War Arms Race” between the United States and the Soviet Union (now Russia). Each side constructed more and bigger nuclear weapons in an effort to outdo the other side.
Like the Yooks and the Zooks in the Butter Battle Book, the real life story has, as of yet, no ending. The United States still has approximately ten thousand nuclear weapons in its arsenal, with half of those ready to launch at a moment's notice, while the Russians have approximately sixteen thousand nuclear weapons, with about five thousand of those ready for immediate launch.
I think the moral of the story is that nobody can win an arms race, whether in real life or in a Dr. Seuss book. The only possible outcome seems to be a standoff, with both sides ready and able to destroy the other, even though it will certainly mean their own destruction as well. As they discovered in the 1983 movie, War Games, “the only winning move is not to play.”
Unfortunately, we've already started playing the game, and we've been playing it for sixty years. But there's still hope: both sides could agree to stop playing the game, to dismantle their Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroos, or their nuclear weapons, as the case may be, and look for other ways to resolve their differences. That is the only way we might still win the game.
Work for nuclear disarmament. Contact your political leaders and tell them you want the United States to work with other nations to eliminate nuclear weapons from the world. Tell all your friends about the madness and futility of the possession of nuclear weapons, and ask them to work for nuclear disarmament.
And be sure to eat your bread with the butter side down.
The story is about the Yooks and the Zooks, who live on opposite sides of a great wall. But what really separates them is that the Yooks eat their bread with the butter side up, and the Zooks – horror of horrors - eat their bread with the butter side down.
In order to prevent anyone from the other side from coming over the wall, both sides post a guard along the wall. The Yook guard is armed with a Snick-Berry Switch. The Zook guard breaks the Snick-Berry Switch with a shot from his slingshot, and both sides launch into a race to produce a more powerful weapon than the other side has, producing Triple-Sling Jiggers, Jigger-Rock Snatchems, Utterly Sputters, and finally, the Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo, a weapon so powerful it can completely destroy the other side. The guard from each side goes to the wall, intending to destroy the other side once and for all with his Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo, only to find that the other side has one, too. The book doesn't really have an ending, it just leaves both guards standing on the wall with a Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo in his hand, waiting to see who will drop his first. And when one side drops his Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo, the other side will drop his too, resulting in the destruction of both the Yooks and the Zooks.
The real-life version of the book is, of course, the “Cold War Arms Race” between the United States and the Soviet Union (now Russia). Each side constructed more and bigger nuclear weapons in an effort to outdo the other side.
Like the Yooks and the Zooks in the Butter Battle Book, the real life story has, as of yet, no ending. The United States still has approximately ten thousand nuclear weapons in its arsenal, with half of those ready to launch at a moment's notice, while the Russians have approximately sixteen thousand nuclear weapons, with about five thousand of those ready for immediate launch.
I think the moral of the story is that nobody can win an arms race, whether in real life or in a Dr. Seuss book. The only possible outcome seems to be a standoff, with both sides ready and able to destroy the other, even though it will certainly mean their own destruction as well. As they discovered in the 1983 movie, War Games, “the only winning move is not to play.”
Unfortunately, we've already started playing the game, and we've been playing it for sixty years. But there's still hope: both sides could agree to stop playing the game, to dismantle their Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroos, or their nuclear weapons, as the case may be, and look for other ways to resolve their differences. That is the only way we might still win the game.
Work for nuclear disarmament. Contact your political leaders and tell them you want the United States to work with other nations to eliminate nuclear weapons from the world. Tell all your friends about the madness and futility of the possession of nuclear weapons, and ask them to work for nuclear disarmament.
And be sure to eat your bread with the butter side down.
posted by Jim Allyn at 10/15/2008 03:21:00 PM
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