“Take me to your leader” is enough to make anyone shudder at such a thing today. Not that I believe it is likely, but imagine what Bush might say to an emissary from space of such superior knowledge and intelligence during such a meeting. That image of Jack Nicholson in “Mars Attacks!” comes readily to mind. Now I grant you the film didn’t make the cut as of the quality of the really great campy B films, mostly black and white, we SciFi aficionados have come to know and love despite the effort of Jack Nicholson, but the comparison to Bush is an uneasy one.

Then too, what if Klaatu were to find Hillary in the Oval Office? The mind boggles! Perhaps it could be worse; suppose the request to see our leader should cause Klaatu winding up with Pat Robertson? “The Day the Earth Stood Still” in 1951 held a lot of us spellbound when first seeing it. We were greatly impressed with Gort and repulsed by the way things were bungled by the military and government officials, the ego and greed of that idiot betraying Klaatu with his phone call to the military authorities telling his girlfriend “You’ll feel different when you see my picture in the papers.”

But we were hopeful the scientists of the earth like Professor Barnhardt would prevail and save our planet from being “cinderized.” However, most of those in authority in the film elicited from Klaatu that great line “I’m impatient with stupidity. My people have learned to live without it.”

For a younger generation viewing the film it would be difficult to understand how anyone could have found it entertaining let alone taken it seriously in any fashion. Nevertheless, at the time we were only six years away from the end of WWII. The atomic age had ushered in many uncertainties and fears, not to mention credulity, and there was room for a lot of imagination regarding science and things like UFOs. Hollywood certainly gave close attention to our fears, credulity, curiosity, and imagination. But having sensed a goldmine in SciFi, Hollywood would soon be producing films like “Forbidden Planet,” films that began to give some legitimate stature to the genre.

Apart from early SciFi, to view the films of the 40s during WWII is to understand Norman Rockwell’s America. Even at my age I can watch “Casablanca” and other films of the time during the war for example without wondering how we could have been so simply altruistic in our patriotism because for those of us at the time there was nothing of altruism about it. We believed in God and Country, we trusted our leaders and came together to win the war against the Axis foes. And having won that terrible war that sacrificed so many millions of innocent lives to tyrants and despots we were hopeful of a future filled with the hope that wars were now too horrible for the world to take any chance of those atomic bombs ever being used again.

But by the time of Klaatu and Gort we had begun to question many things our government was telling us and we were no longer so trusting of our leaders. We had begun to realize those in government lied; and for the most base of reasons, for power and wealth and we had begun to question stories of cover-ups in many directions. The Korean War was on, the Soviet threat was there now and these mixed with Roswell and UFOs made things quite “interesting” for us in many different ways far removed from Norman Rockwell’s America. So it can be said The Day the Earth Stood Still was timely; the film did strike a responsive chord with us, and we had begun as a society to understand Klaatu’s “I’m impatient with stupidity.” But the problem of the kind of stupidity Klaatu encountered remained and only worsened. And the tyrants and depots now have both the power and stupidity to annihilate all life on earth without Gort!

For my part I don’t want robots like Gort making the decision whether the earth should be incinerated. I wish those like Professor Barnhardt would prevail, and like him were I to meet a “Klaatu” there would be many questions for which I would want answers. But unlike Klaatu’s civilization, we earthlings have not learned to live without stupidity, not even the kind of stupidity that seems relentless in pursuing the extinction of life on earth. Gort may have been a robot, but human beings have no excuse for the kind of stupidity that may result in a nuclear Armageddon.

The efforts of those pursuing things like finding Atlantis, the efforts of so many good people striving magnificently to fill in the blanks of life and civilization, trying to uncover the meaning of ancient stone monuments and the markings in stone, peering into the universe through telescopes and marvels under microscopes, exploring ice caps and the depths of our oceans are truly wonderful, even at times heroic. But if Klaatu were to park his flying saucer in DC now, I have to suppose he would encounter an even greater fund of stupidity than that which was to be found in 1951. We have more knowledge, enough to destroy the world many times over; but wisdom is an orphan from knowledge, so much so as to equal what may well turn out to be terminal stupidity!

Maybe some of you recall a SciFi story where a scientist accidentally discovers a very simple method that if made known anyone handy with tools and chemistry could destroy the world. He is horrified that something like this should ever become common knowledge, knowing there were any number of mad persons whether of religion or politics, or simply determining in their madness all life should be wiped out that would choose to destroy the earth.

But this scientist was a homely man and had never found romance, had given up on finding a mate, and because of his introverted personality didn’t even have any friends. However, he had one love in his life; a vintage racing car upon which he lavished all his love and attention. Leaving his laboratory following his astounding and horrifying accidental discovery he went to where he parked his beloved vintage car only to find it vandalized, tires slashed, glass broken and hammer dents in the body. Pausing only long enough to mourn his loss, he immediately returned to his laboratory and began sending messages to every publication he knew including newspapers explaining in detail his horrifying discovery.

Here at my desk where I write, the sun now streams through my windows and I watch the quail, other birds and beautiful gray tree squirrels, I have several beautiful trees about my cottage here in the country and a marvelous rock garden provided by nature, and it makes me wonder all the more how world leaders can act so stupidly as to risk it all by the selfishly stupid decisions they make that put our entire planet at risk. But because of this kind of stupidity, I won’t be surprised to look through my windows sometime while writing and see that mushroom cloud rising over Los Angeles. I sadly realize there is no appeasing the bullies of Islam, and I’ve lived long enough to realize that for the wealthy in power there is never enough wealth and power to satisfy these. And I doubt Klaatu would be any more successful with the leaders in other nations than ours.

Compounding the evil men do is how entire religious organizations like the Roman Church, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and others go to great length to protect those within these organizations that prey upon children, the most innocent and vulnerable of all human beings. There are the organizations like the ACLU ready to defend any and all monsters together with the growing numbers of monsters that would destroy all that do not bow to their peculiar deities and prophets; the organized systems of hatred religious and political seem on the ascendancy with no end in sight.

I don’t wonder that among my Christian friends there are those hoping Jesus will return and make things right. I don’t wonder there are those hoping Klaatu will show up and give world leaders the ultimatum “Shape up or else!” But folks, it does seem we are on our own; and that being the case, looking about even atheists may be excused for crying “God help us!”