“MOAB: The mother of all bombs.”

What trigger-happy soldier came up with this moniker for an agent of death, I wonder?

Bombs are not mothers, and they don’t have mothers. They are the evil spawn and agents of death and destruction, the opposite of the nurturing, generative power of motherhood.

This week the president gave his generals carte blanche to go ahead and play with their toys. No need to ask Congress for permission. No need to consult the taxpayers who are footing the bill for these multi-million-dollar death drills.

Apparently it’s the first time this big mother of a bomb has been used, and I can just imagine the excitement of the soldier-boys who got to see the big kaboom in Afghanistan. All that firepower to kill 36—count’em, thirty-six—Taliban militants.

It’s as if you called in a tank to eradicate an anthill.

I am trying to understand what is going on here, and in Syria, and in Russia, China and the USA. It’s plain to see that there are big, diabolical plots and conspiracies afoot, but as in any good mystery, it’s pretty hard to predict what’s coming next.

Clearly, Trump wanted to distract attention from his political and business ties to Russia–the investigations must have been getting hot.

So he takes advantage of human rights outrage over the gruesome civilian deaths by sarin gas to lob a few missiles at Syria—carefully warning the Russians first, so they could get out of the way. It’s still not clear who unleashed the gas on those poor people. It could all have been orchestrated by the Russians, including the limp, clearly staged American response.

Next up, time to remind everyone that there are still militants in Afghanistan to fight, and let the generals play war with some of their really big toys, the ones they haven’t been able to use yet. After all, Donny just promised them $54 billion extra in next year’s budget, so why not blow some stuff up and buy some even newer, cooler gadgets?

Is this all about cranking up the military industrial complex to keep the economic indicators running high, and the stock market along with it? Is that why the Chinese president, who just happened to be visiting Trump at his Winter Palace this week, didn’t seem to mind all the sturm und drang?

Meanwhile, on the home front, is the White House trying distract us ordinary folks from the health care debacle, poor education, opioid and suicide crisis and lack of jobs on the home front by stoking the fires of patriotism and warmongering?

Wouldn’t be the first time.

What’s different now can be summed up in two words: social media.

Pity the poor politicians and business leaders. It’s getting harder and harder to get away with anything anymore.

United Airlines just found that out the hard way. Hell no, you can’t drag a passenger off an airline, breaking his nose and his teeth in the process, and get away with it. Not with a whole planeful of passengers whipping out their phones and immediately beaming the incident to the world!

So far Donny has managed to keep his taxes out of the public eye, but how long can he continue to stonewall before Wikileaks or some other hacker pulls off the curtain to bare the naked emperor, and the pictures go viral?

Sadly, Americans have gotten used to bombs and drones being used in our name in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. But don’t push us too hard, especially when you’re telling us there’s not enough money for enhancing life because the generals are too busy dealing out death.

I was glad to see a #RESIST group pull off an action in Trump Tower this week, unfurling a banner filled with leaflets from the balcony over the lobby, with signs proclaiming NO RAIDS, NO WALL, NO WAR, #RESIST glaring down over the phony glitziness of Trump’s Manhattan fortress.

The action was beamed immediately out through social media, the reverberations spreading just like the shock wave from a mother-bomb.

Real power is not dropping ordnance from 30,000 feet over a cave full of fanatics.

Real power is joining forces with your neighbors—around the corner and around the world, on social media–to say not here, not now, no way! We will not be a party to the war crimes, hate crimes and ecocide you and your financiers and generals are so hell-bent on committing.

Of course, that’s easy to say, not as easy to follow through on. Another Tax Day will come and go next week, and like everyone I know, I’ve dutifully paid my taxes—unlike our Commander in Chief. We’re paying, but we’re not happy–there are major protests planned across the US this weekend under the hashtag #ShowUsYourTaxes.

Where and how will I draw the line for myself? When will I say ENOUGH, stop tolerating what’s going on and get myself moving?

I don’t know, but these questions are churning constantly in my mind. Under it all I hear the sweet innocents of our planet keening, and Gaia herself rumbling ominously.

When babies cry, mothers instinctively respond. Now, with every child on this planet threatened, I feel my mother hackles rising like the fierce flash of Kali’s wild eyes and the withering rage of the Mother Durga, goddesses so strong no demons could withstand them. Mothers are nurturing, yes, but threaten our children and our warrior energy rises like a rip tide.

Things have gone far enough. It’s time for us mothers to take back our power from the generals and show them what just what a real MOAB can do.