Who's in command here?

The song For What's It's Worth and the film Apocalypse Now ask unanswered questions about a dark reality filled with dread and mystery. Something rather disquieting to think about, right?

There's something happening here

But what it is ain't exactly clear

There's a man with a gun over there

A-telling me I got to beware

[Chorus]

I think it's time we stop

Children, what's that sound?

Everybody look what's going down

There is a scene from Francis Ford Coppola’s bleak masterpiece Apocalypse Now that came to mind in the aftermath of the Glasgow climate conference and Wednesday’s big oil lease shindig for drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico.

Captain Willard, played by an impossibly young Martin Sheen, has dragged a boat crew deep into the Vietnam jungle in search of his target, Col. Walter Kurtz. The boat arrives at the Do Lung Bridge, the scene of what appears to be a permanent battle, and the night is split with explosions, rifle fire and the screams of the dying. Willard goes in search of the commanding officer, only to find a handful of U.S. soldiers cowering behind an earthen wall. “Hey soldier,” he asks one hollow-eyed troop, “do you know who’s in command here?” The soldier stares at him a moment and replies, “Yeah,” before turning back to the darkness.

The implication is clear: You’re not in charge, captain. Neither am I, or any of these others here. Those voices out there in the gloom beyond the perimeter, the ones moving unseen in great force? They’re the ones running this nightmare.

We are so screwed ...