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Goodbye to the War Party ("Republicrats" et al) and the nuclear threat by Jan Lundberg There will unfortunately be another major nuclear "accident" or "incident," it would seem. It might be one blast or a meltdown, or a nuclear weapons exchange. It could happen in Korea, the Middle East, Europe, or the U.S. or elsewhere. We must face our worst fears, if we as citizens are to deal with this outrageous state of affairs. Thousands of nuclear-warheaded missiles are on hair-trigger alert aimed at and from the U.S., and accidental launch has almost happened many times. In hopes of a less extreme nuclear event, we can anticipate the preferred political result and start now to influence the outcome. I predict a peaceful, electoral kind of overall regime change worldwide that will be the triumph of the peace movement. Change will not come from the top; Congress could impeach President Bush but leaders aren't leading. Initially, the U.S. government, in keeping with its might-makes-right philosophy, might try unprecedented tactics against the "evil terrorists" as well as the pro-peace camp. But popular outrage against the use of nukes may bring on immediate response by voters at their first opportunity. Where honest voting is thwarted, a Gandhian movement may subsequently prevail. The next nuke disaster is going to wake a lot of people up and galvanize them into action. There was almost enough of a movement in the streets to derail the war-of-aggression plan against Iraq. After a nuclear disaster, which is downright unacceptable to any sane person, people will refuse to allow our fair planet from being further abused and our young and unborn to be zapped. The Chernobyl disaster eventually killed 10,000 U.S. citizens due to fallout, in addition to victims closer to the accident, but that event's "opportunity" became merely a partial wake-up call. Our future is still being stolen by idiot meanies and their nukes, so people are poised whether they know it or not to hit the streets and nonviolently "throw the bums out." We have had the War Party, up to here. The greed machine is inextricably part of the War Party. Eleven years ago Americans got fooled for the last time when peace activists supported Clinton/Gore. People hoped for the best, but most citizens to a large degree had voted for more personal wealth. Real change will have to come, and a nuke event may well trigger the real change beyond "defense" spending/policy. Around the world Bush (and his bro, Tony Blair) is commonly seen as bad, but that's not the point of a peace movement. It does not help my case that it's a systemic, not a symptomatic, problem we are dealing with, when Bush is pushing nukes big time. He is fueling the worldwide arms race, benefiting his cronies, but the U.S. has been the biggest arms supplier anyway for several decades. Building nuclear power plants means weapons production because of the byproducts of nuclear energy production. Citizens have not acknowledged the nuclear event of depleted uranium weapons which have hit Iraqis as well as Americans, because this phenomenon was not a spectacular visible disaster. Billions of years is depleted uranium's lasting harm. Some nuclear waste and radiation diminishes relatively fast, but most nuclear waste is mind boggling: plutonium is the harshest, deadliest material ever made, with a half-life of 240,000 years. Nuclear waste keeps piling up, as if the Earth has unlimited space and healing capability. Bush & co. want more nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants. Strategic Command in Nebraska is holding a weapons confab trying to make nuclear weapons more conventional and acceptable. Nuke programs of all kinds are quite profitable for the Establishment, especially as the programs are subsidized by the taxpayers. But they will stop when the dominant "vision" of death, fear and greed is rejected by enough masses of people. Even with devastating consequences to economic growth, people can purposefully stop buying new energy-wasting gadgets, cars, etc. Waiting until the economy will crash or the oil runs dry may be reasonable, but that can mean a loss of precious time, when "Genghis Khan is marching up your driveway." So it's time to wage peace in our daily lives vis-à-vis the planet. To justify nuclear energy because it does not emit greenhouse gases the way fossil-fueled power plants do is like switching poisons because it's better to destroy your intestines than your stomach. Nukes depend on mining uranium (a dwindling resource) which uses so much energy in the overall effort that by the time the nuke energy is available, the net energy is not worth it. More importantly, we do not actually need the energy from either form of power. This leap in logic requires questioning material progress and looking at the math of how many humans can survive in a finite world. It ought to be controlling that native American lands contain uranium, and the poisoning of mining and exploitation must be terminated. Nuclear power plants in France and Germany in early August had to be powered down and sprayed with water because of the heat wave ravaging the continent. I leave it to you to remark on the ironies. We lived for two million years as a species without risking the destruction of our world, nor needing beaucoup exomatic energy. But the brainwashed/propagandized reaction to that idea is something like, "now we are civilized" and "we can't go back to living in caves or in teepees." If nukes come with civilization, I'd prefer to pass on it. It may take a couple of years for the many post-nuke disaster elections to run their course. Popular demand around the world for nuclear disarmament will run strong enough for any pro-nuke holdouts to be regime-changed from without and within, peacefully, without more war. That is our only choice and direction if we are to live long together and share the Earth with its uncounted species. The mayor of Hiroshima, for the 58th anniversary of the first A-bomb blast in war, on August 6, 2003, accused Washington of worshipping nuclear weapons "as God." On August 9, the mayor of Nagasaki, Itcho Ito, warned that the nuclear powers had dealt dangerous setbacks to arms-control efforts, and that agreements supporting disarmament, nonproliferation and test bans "now appear to be on the verge of collapse." Although the nuclear priests and proliferators are on their high horse today and can ignore the victims of Japan and elsewhere, the world has hopefully learned enough to react with heart and a sense of resolve when the next inevitable attack or accident occurs on our small, integrated planet we all share. ***** - Nuclear
Nightmare: We Are Running Out of Time and Out of Luck
by Douglas Mattern Back to Home Page Jan Lundberg's columns are protected by copyright; however, non-commercial use of the material is permitted as long as full attribution is given with a link to this website, and he is informed of the re-publishing: info@culturechange.org |
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