nuclear disarmament

Normalizing Nukes

/ went2thebridge / 1 Comment

In the video you see a simulation of how the pressure wave from a nuclear explosion affects people in a building. Photo: Storyblocks

New computer simulation shows: How to hit the blow from an atomic bomb

UPDATED IDAG 03:47PUBLISHED IDAG 00:49

Those who are many kilometers from a nuclear explosion can manage indoors if they do right, a new study shows.
– Take cover far into the building and stay away from windows, researchers say.

What is this bullshit?

Swedish television is presenting nuclear war as if it were winnable, limited, and survivable. Just stay away from the windows exactly like they told me in the 1960’s when I was climbing under my desk at school. It was a big fat lie then, and it’s exponentially more of a big fat lie now.

This spin is built on the central lie that “since the start of the Ukraine war, Russia has rattled its nuclear weapons.” In fact, the opposite is true. The Biden administration moved from following Trump in not signing the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to actually signaling from both government and corporate media channels that “limited” use of “tactical” nuclear weapons was indeed on the table.

Even more alarming than the posturing words of politicians, U.S. nuclear weapons and their delivery systems have been moving steadily into place in Eurasia and the Pacific, including Australia. Then there is the increasingly pro-nuke bellicose rhetoric of key U.S./NATO collaborators like Sweden, South Korea, and Japan. That is ominous. 

Normalizing nukes is in no one’s best interest, including the uber wealthy that want to become the super uber wealthy by selling nuclear weapons. 

Because they will die and suffer, too, even though they think they won’t.

An Empire So Arrogant It Sees No Need To Cover Its Butt

/ went2thebridge / 4 Comments

What an apt metaphor was the top heavy, bare-assed national costume for Miss USA prior to her being crowned Miss Universe 2023. Videos of contestant R’Bonney Gabriel barely managing the unstable weight of U.S. imperial hubris amid plans to colonize the moon and achieve “Full Spectrum Dominance” in space did not meet any of my criteria for beauty. But of course that wasn’t really the point — exaltation of the mighty U.S. was.

The irony that a Filipino American woman would help glorify U.S. imperialism despite her ancestors having suffered brutal colonization by the U.S. in the Philippines is indicative of where we’re at in 2023; without an understanding of history, it can be difficult to detect irony at all.

Gabriel’s costume is a good visual companion to the unsustainable hubris fairly dripping from my last missive from Maine’s Senator Angus King.

No relation to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and, as a wealthy white man, seriously lacking MLK’s insight into the dangers of U.S. militarism, Senator King establishes the low quality of his response to my concerns about nuclear weapons by starting with a quote from…Ronald Reagan. 

It goes downhill from there.

Notice how his aides have managed to compose an entire letter on the dangers of nuclear war without once mentioning either Ukraine or Russia. (Or, for that matter, China.) We are meant to decode for ourselves threats it does name: “malign actors” and “potential adversaries.” Quite a feat of obfuscation, wouldn’t you say?

King watchers note, however, that our senator recently traveled to Ukraine and met with the president there, did the obligatory photo op, and made remarks comparing Russian Federation President Putin to Hitler. 

Source: News Center Maine

King is not a stupid person nor an ignorant one, but he is willfully overlooking the strong presence of actual neo-Nazis in Ukraine’s government and military. He was also quoted while in Ukraine as saying, “Putin has made it very clear his overall goal is to establish the Soviet Union.” That is a bald faced lie, but he’s counting on the ignorance of his audience back in the U.S. to accept it without question.

Does King have his own imperial ambitions? Perhaps to run for president of the U.S. after helping to funnel billions into the coffers of weapons corporations? Stay tuned.

Historians among us might also take a look at this 2014 story about riding on a nuclear submarine under Arctic ice as the Arctic is another area of special interest for King. The story is quite revealing about U.S.-NATO intentions (on Russia’s extensive northern border, but for heavens sake don’t admit that).