the coming nuclear war 8/6/2016 0 Comments   infant victim of atomic attack by the U.S. by E.L. Christianson Jr. One of the biggest problems is that we don't want to believe it.  We are able to rationalize away what we actually know to be fact.  We manufacture all manner of explanations that have a happy ending even when realizing that we are deluding ourselves.  The information is here even though the 'media' isn't informing us very well regarding the truth of humanity's precarious situation. It is very difficult to believe nuclear war is not approaching.  One really has to have their head buried in the sand to escape the obvious conclusions.  The human leadership aspect of this planet has decided that "limited" nuclear war,  nuclear war with "appropriate controls", a nuclear war that is "well directed" and is "specifically targeted" is winnable and the leadership itself will survive without serious consequences to those members thereof.  The list of "qualifying criteria" is hard to understand.  Perhaps when the winnable war is over and the leadership has eliminated itself from the potential of future guidance, we human survivors may have a chance for a new direction. The leadership seems to be pushing very hard against Russia and China, both of whom are capable of wiping us off of the map.  The fact that we could wipe them off of the map is not comforting and offers no solace.  Humanity may start afresh with a clean map.   We can hope that survivors will be able to carry on into the future.  It will be tough. Now it is popular and growing more so, among the leaders, to announce that they are capable of pushing the button that will automatically destroy millions upon millions of human lives... old and young, male and female, every race and ethnicity, literally millions upon millions of human lives.  They don't want to be perceived as 'weak' and so instead choose to appear completely and totally amoral and stupid. Only from the extreme of amoral principles could any leader claim a willingness to push the button/ drop the bomb.  Even the often stated yet unbelievable concept of spreading freedom and democracy or, advancing human rights, cannot gain any traction here... to vaporize the population so as to save it from whatever we are selling on that particular day, won't work.  (by now the whole world knows that the Iraqi people would rather that we had not 'saved' them !!!) No matter, because the leadership has continually proven their stupidity... Iraq for only one example, from a long list of failed US foreign policy adventures.  And now, we only have to listen to their words.  They are not hiding these current actions that can only be intended to force war between the United States against Russia and/or China.  We are massing huge amounts of military equipment and personnel against Russia's western border as one part of the many things we are doing against Russia.  Hillary has made insulting Valdemar Putin as a part of her presidential campaign program.  Wait and see what will happen should she gain the White House. We are pursuing a similar program against the Chinese using the South China Sea as a back-drop.  We are there flexing our military muscle and making a show of our world-wide dominance... even the South China sea is under our control, we will be the ones making decisions regarding what goes on there. After a while, people get tired of being bullied.  That's something that can be observed in any school playground.  The bully bullies and finally someone stands up.  Lots of possibilities from the point of someone standing up (bully backs down, bully becomes physical, bully gets beat, and on...) Valdemar Putin has made it clear that he will only take so much and then he will do whatever it is he feels that he needs to do to maintain his position... he says he doesn't want to, but if it comes to it, he will push the button.   Do the American people believe that he would push the button? The Chinese leadership has not been reported as speaking so clearly on the subject.  One can imagine that they are not going to allow themselves to be bullied.  But, they are much older than we are in terms of culture, tradition, history, and the many other aspects that come from ancient roots. As a result of those ancient roots, we can imagine they have seen a lot of war.  That is probably one of the reasons for using the name "Peace" so often and on so many monuments.  They recognize the value peace. Of all countries on the planet, the United States has been the villain on the world scene.  Pretending to be the 'good guy', the hero saving others, we have attacked more countries with our military (among other forms of attack) than any other modern country.  Our military is everywhere on the planet.  The few places where we do not dominate will not yield easily and we are not smart enough to back off when we should. There is an old joke about the best position to be in for a nuclear attack:  'bend over, put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye' Disgusting truth: Brighter than a thousand suns: Eyes that have seen a nuclear blast. Hibakusha. That's what surviving victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are called. The "shadow" of a Hiroshima victim, permanently etched into stone steps, after the 1945 atomic bomb Power and the Nuclear Bomb: Conducting Foreign Policy with the Threat of Mass Murder ​from The 4th Media by Colin Todhunter “Some fell to the ground and their stomachs already expanded full, burst and organs fell out. Others had skin falling off them and others still were carrying limbs. And one in particular was carrying their eyeballs in their hand.” The above is an account by a Hiroshima survivor talking about the fate of her schoolmates. It was recently read out in the British parliament by Scottish National Party MP Chris Law during a debate about Britain’s nuclear arsenal. In response to a question from another Scottish National Party MP, George Kereven, British PM Theresa May said without hesitation that, if necessary, she would authorise the use of a nuclear weapon that would kill hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children. Previous PMs have been unwilling to give a direct answer to such a question. But let’s be clear: a single modern nuclear weapon would most likely end up killing many millions, whether immediately or slowly, and is designed to be much more devastating than those dropped by the US on Japan. On the other hand, opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has stated that he would not make a decision that would take the lives of millions. He said, “I do not believe the threat of mass murder is a legitimate way to go about international relations.” It says much about the type of society we have when someone like Corbyn or Green Party MP Caroline Lucas is attacked by the mainstream and depicted as some kind of harebrained extremist who places ‘the nation’ in danger because they do not want Britain to renew its submarine-based Trident nuclear missile system (at the cost of at least £100 billion in ‘cash-strapped’ austerity Britain). Chiming in with emotive gutter tactics, May suggested that those wishing to scrap Britain’s nuclear weapons are siding with the nation’s ‘enemies’. Theresa May reading from the script Politicians like May are reading from a script devised by the elite interests. Members of this elite comprise the extremely wealthy of the world who set the globalisation and war agendas at the G8, G20, NATO, the World Bank, and the WTO. They are from the highest levels of finance capital and transnational corporations. This transnational capitalist class, dictate global economic policies and decide on who lives and who dies and which wars are fought and inflicted on which people. The mainstream narrative tends to depict these individuals as ‘wealth creators’. In reality, however, these ‘high flyers’ have stolen ordinary people’s wealth, stashed it away in tax havens, bankrupted economies and have imposed a form of globalisation that results in devastating destruction and war for those who attempt to remain independent from them, or structurally adjusted violence via privatisation and economic neo-liberalism for millions in countries that have acquiesced. While ordinary folk across the world have been subjected to policies that have resulted in oppression, poverty and conflict, this is all passed off by politicians and the mainstream media as the way things must be. The agritech sector poisons our food and agriculture. Madelaine Albright says it was worth it to have killed half a million kids in Iraq to secure energy resources for rich corporations and extend the wider geopolitical goals of ‘corporate America’. The welfare state is dismantled and austerity is imposed on millions. The rich increase their already enormous wealth. Powerful corporations corrupt government machinery and colonise every aspect of life for profit. Environmental destruction and ecological devastation continue apace. And nuclear weapons hang over humanity like the sword of Damocles – not to protect the masses from the wicked bogeyman, but to protect the power and wealth of a US-led capitalist elite (that institutes all of the above) from competing elites in other countries or to bully, cajole and coerce with the aim of expanding influence. The public is supposed to back this status quo. And ordinary young men (and women) are supposed to sign up to fight ‘their’ wars. In reality, to fight for what? Austerity, powerlessness, imperialism, propping up the US dollar and a moribund system. For whom? Monsanto, Occidental Petroleum, Soros, Murdoch, Rothschild, BP, JP Morgan, Boeing and the rest of the elite and their corporations whose policies are devised in think tanks and handed to politicians to sell to a largely ignorant public. For those who are aware of the ruthlessness of imperialist intent and the death and destruction it brings, Theresa May’s comments may come as no surprise at all. But what about the wider population? Those who swallow the lie about some ‘war on terror’ or Washington as the world’s policeman, protecting life and liberty. Those who believe the sanctimonious dross pumped into their heads by Hollywood, the BBC and other mainstream media about the US-led West being a civilising force for good in a barbaric world. What civilised ‘values’ is May basing her threat of mass murder on when she talks about unleashing a nuclear weapon? The media and much of the public seem to shrug their shoulders and accept that nuclear weapons are essential and the mass murder of sections of humanity is perfectly acceptable in the face of some fabricated, whipped-up paranoia about ‘Russian aggression’ (or Chinese, Iranian or North Korean – take your pick). Many believe nuclear weapons are a necessary evil and fall into line with hegemonic thinking about humanity being inherently conflictual, competitive and war-like. Such tendencies do of course exist, but they do not exist in a vacuum. They are fuelled by capitalism and imperialism and played upon by politicians, the media and elite interests who seek to scare the population into accepting a ‘necessary’ status quo. Co-operation and equality are as much a part of any arbitrary aspect of ‘human nature’ as any other defined characteristic. These values are, however, sidelined by a system of capitalism that is inherently conflict-ridden and entangled in its own contradictions and which fuels wealth accumulation for the few, exploitation (of labour, peoples and the environment), war and a zero-sum class-based system of power. Much of humanity has been convinced to accept the potential for instant nuclear Armageddon hanging over its collective head as a given, as a ‘deterrent’. However, the reality is that these weapons exist to protect elite, imperialist interests or to pressure others to cave in to their demands. If the 20th century has shown us anything, it is these interests are adept at gathering the masses under notions of the flag, ‘the bomb’ and king/god/goodness (or whatever) and country to justify their slaughter. Theresa May is on cue with her finger-pointing ‘enemy of the state’ rhetoric concerning opposition to nuclear weaponry. Now and then, though, the reality of a nuclear armed world comes to the fore, as May’s response demonstrates. But to prevent us all shuddering with the fear of the threat of instant nuclear destruction on a daily basis, it’s a case of don’t worry, be happy, forget about it and watch TV. It was the late academic Rick Roderick who highlighted that modern society trivialises issues that are of ultimate importance: they eventually become banal or ‘matter of fact’ to the population. People are spun the notion that nuclear-backed militarism and neoliberalism and its structural violence are necessary for securing peace, defeating terror, creating prosperity or promoting ‘growth’. The ultimate banality is to accept this pack of lies and to believe there is no alternative, to acquiesce or just switch off to it all. There is an alternative Instead of acquiescing and accepting it as ‘normal’ when someone like May advocates mass murder in the name of peace or she and others accuse those who refuse to comply as being a danger to the nation, it is time to move beyond rhetoric and for ordinary people to take responsibility and act. Writing on the Countercurrents website, Robert J Burrowes says this about responsibility: “Many people evade responsibility, of course, simply by believing and acting as if someone else, perhaps even ‘the government’, is ‘properly’ responsible. Undoubtedly, however, the most widespread ways of evading responsibility are to deny any responsibility for military violence while paying the taxes to finance it, denying any responsibility for adverse environmental and climate impacts while making no effort to reduce consumption, denying any responsibility for the exploitation of other people while buying the cheap products produced by their exploited (and sometimes slave) labour, denying any responsibility for the exploitation of animals despite eating and/or otherwise consuming a range of animal products, and denying any part in inflicting violence, especially on children, without understanding the many forms this violence can take.” Burrowes concludes by saying that ultimately, we evade responsibility by ignoring the existence of a problem. The ‘problem’ humanity faces goes beyond the threat of nuclear war. The ‘problem’ encompasses not only ongoing militarism, but the structural violence of neoliberal capitalism, aided and abetted by the World Bank, IMF, WTO and trade deals such as NAFTA or the proposed TTIP. It’s a type of violence that is steady, lingering and a daily fact of life under globalised capitalism. Of course, not everything can or should be laid at the door of capitalism. Human suffering, misery and conflict have been a feature throughout history and have taken place under various economic and political systems. Indeed, in his various articles, Burrowes goes deep into the psychology and causes of violence. Burrowes is correct to argue that we should take responsibility and act because there is potentially a different path for humanity. In 1990, the late British MP Tony Benn gave a speech in parliament that indicated the kind of values that such a route might look like. Benn spoke about having been on a crowded train, where people had been tapping away on calculators and not interacting or making eye contact with one another. It represented what Britain had become under Thatcherism: excessively individualistic, materialistic, narcissistic and atomised. The train broke down. As time went by, people began to talk with one another, offer snacks and share stories. Benn said it wasn’t too long before that train had been turned into a socialist train of self-help, communality and comradeship. Despite the damaging policies and ideology of Thatcherism, these features had survived her tenure, were deeply embedded and never too far from the surface. For Tony Benn, what had been witnessed aboard that train was an aspect of ‘human nature’ that is too often suppressed, devalued and, when used as a basis for political change, regarded as a threat to ruling interests. It is an aspect that draws on notions of unity, solidarity, common purpose, self-help and finds its ultimate expression in the vibrancy of community, the collective ownership of productive resources and co-operation. The type of values far removed from the destructive, divisive ones of imperialism and capitalism, which May and her backers protect and promote. The original source of this article is Global Research victim Hiroshima bombing 1945 and now, our leaders are talking about another nuclear war... "let's do it again"... we humans are desperate for new leadership, and that's the truth !!!