PBS Command and Control Is Documentary Armaggedon Goodness

PBS Command and Control Is Documentary Armaggedon Goodness

I just, moments ago, finished this movie and I immediately jumped on the site to tell you about this movie. It is just that good. But I have been waiting for this movie for a long time. I had heard a rumor that a movie would be made from Eric Schlosser’s amazing book.

But the Bonafides for this movie is it’s book. (Oh please, do not pronounce that Bone-ah-fi-d-es, totally drives me absolutely bat nuts to not hear that word pronounced correctly. Truth be told though, as I am better read than I am pronounced, I do find myself trying out words I’ve never heard out loud. My favorite story like that has to be the day I tried out the word “Assuage”. Yeah, that didn’t go well at all. I was a project manager, and a young one at that. And I was being brought in to put a fire out and to pick up the molten lava that was a project moments before it blew up… and here I am… “Greetings everyone. I am Taylor Holmes… and I am here to assuage your concerns, and see if we can get this project back…” But everyone was snickering. Because when I pronounced “Assuage” I didn’t pronounce it əˈswāj – instead, I pronounced it A-ˈso͞oij. As in A-Sewage. As in, to dump down the garbage. So never mind. Really. Now that I think about it. I am in no place to talk at all whatsoever. Go ahead and pronounce Bonafides any dang way you please)

And holy cow on a motor scooter is that a great book. (Eric Schlosser is also the author that wrote Fast Food Nation, which, was awesome good. But of a totally different type of oh my good lord all mighty good.) The Defense Department has stated on the record that there have been more than 32 broken arrows, or serious nuclear incidents that could have endangered the public. But the Department of Energy, a few years ago, released a declassified document stating that there had been over a thousand accidents and incidents involving our nuclear arsenal. No really…

Eric, in the book, actually talks about accidents across the global weapons programs of the world. I think he kicks it off with a discussion of a near tragedy inside the Israeli program? Schlosser actually discusses safety and nuclear weapons and how we just assume that we are safe around the world when, in fact, we are anything but. But the story of PBS version of  the Command and Control movie is a fascinating one in that it concentrates 100% of it’s focus on one specifically harrowing story of a dropped wrench inside a 9 megaton missile silo. Now, normally, a dropped wrench is a minor inconvenience at best. But that this particular dropped wrench almost exploded, killing untold millions and also contaminating a wide swath of Arkansas and the surrounding states. The video is really a detailed investigation into the accident and how it occurred, and how it could occur again. Schlosser is abundantly clear in his book, that accidents not only can happen within the military industrial complex, but they do happen every single day. Some of them are benign, and yet many are anything but.

Oh and by the way, if you are interested in watching this documentary online, you can get to it here.