As radioactive as an old joke

UK nuclear sites at risk of flooding

     Governments fall from sheer indifference. Authority figures,
deprived of the vampiric energy they suck off their constituents,
are seen for what they are: dead empty masks manipulated by
computers. And what is behind the computers? Remote control.
Of course. Don't intend to be here when this shithouse goes up.
Nothing here now but the recordings. Shut them off, they are
as radioactive as an old joke.
     Look at the prison you are in, we are all in. This is a penal
colony that is now a Death Camp. Place of the Second and Final
Death.
     Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only
those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed
in can hope to escape.

from The Western Lands (1988) by William S. Burroughs.