Nuclear War: Just Another Day
Colin Todhunter
Catastrophic events that send the world into turmoil happen on ‘just another day’. The atom bomb that exploded over Hiroshima took place while thousands of ordinary folk were just going about their everyday business on ‘just another day’.
A missile attack on a neighbourhood in Gaza or a drone attack on unsuspecting civilians in Afghanistan: death and destruction come like a bolt from the blue as people shop at the local market or take their kids to school on ‘just another day’.
Will it be ‘just another day’ when the next nuclear bomb is exploded in anger, an ordinary day when people are just going about their daily business? By then it might be too late to do anything, too late to act to try to prevent an unfolding global catastrophe on a scale never before witnessed by humans.
Yet so many appear too apathetic and wrapped up in a world of gadgets, technology, shopping malls, millionaire sports players and big-time sports events to think that such a thing could be imminent.
Are they so preoccupied with the machinations of their own lives in cotton-wool cocooned societies to think that what is happening in Syria or Iraq is just too boring to follow or that it doesn’t really concern them or it is ‘not my problem’?
Do they think they are untouchable, that only death, war and violence happens in faraway places?
Could any of us even contemplate that on some not-too-distant day a series of European cities could be laid waste within a matter of minutes? It isn’t worth thinking about. Or is it.
The US (and the West’s) foreign policy is being driven on the basis of fake morality and duplicity. Millions lie dead in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya as a result of US-led imperialism, and nuclear-armed Russia is constantly demonised simply because it will not acquiesce to Washington and serve as a vassal state.
And now, as the US continues to stir up tensions with Iran and as China warns neighbouring countries about allowing US nuclear missiles aimed at it on their territories, much of the Western public and media remain oblivious to the dangers of conflict escalation and the biggest immediate threat to all life on Earth: nuclear war.
The threat of mass murder
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 extract comes from an account by a Hiroshima survivor talking about the fate of her schoolmates. In 2016, it was 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 MP George Kereven, the then 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. May also implied that those wishing to scrap Britain’s nuclear weapons are siding with the nation’s enemies.
Politicians like May read from a script devised by elite interests. This transnational capitalist class dictates global economic policies and decides on who lives and who dies and which wars are fought and inflicted on which people.
The mainstream narrative tends to depict individuals who belong to this class 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 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.
The public is supposed to back this status quo in support of what? Austerity, powerlessness, imperialism, propping up the US dollar and a moribund system. For whom? 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: those who swallow the lie about some ‘war on terror’ or Washington as the world’s policeman, protecting life and liberty.
Rejecting hegemonic thought
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 expansionist.
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 into their demands.
If the 20th century has shown us anything, it is these interests are adept at gathering the masses under notions of flag, god and country to justify their slaughter.
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.
Instead of acquiescing and accepting it as ‘normal’, we should listen to writer and campaigner Robert J Burrowes:
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 evasion of responsibility, acquiescence and acceptance are, of course, part of the conditioning process.
The ‘problem’ encompasses not only ongoing militarism, but the structural violence of neoliberal capitalism, aided and abetted by the World Bank, IMF and the WTO. It’s a type of violence that is steady, lingering and a daily fact of life under globalised capitalism.
Of course, oppression 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.
But there is potentially a different path for humanity.
In 1990, the late British MP Tony Benn gave a speech in parliament (above) 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 apparently 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 key politicians and the corporate media protect and promote.
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Thank you for sharing this useful article information. I am really impressed with the article you provided. atari breakout
O purblind race of miserable men,
How many among us at this very hour
Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves,
By taking true for false, or false for true;
Here, through the feeble twilight of this world
Groping, how many, until we pass and reach
That other, where we see as we are seen!
— Tennyson
I can tell you this: Amerikastanis are so narcissistic, ignorant (by choice), stupid and tribalistic that they literally think that the universe outside the borders of their country are nothing more than a Hollywood film inhabited by black hat wearing villains (we humans) and that it’s just the business of white hat wearing Amerikastani heroes to string us up. Their worldview is limited to what’s fed them by their television screens, their attention span can be measured in milliseconds, the memory hole in which they consign inconvenient facts has no bottom, and their hypocrisy is vaster than the universe.
As such, no, they don’t care that they might be eliminated in a nuclear war. The possibility simply cannot occur to them.
Americans live in fear of being exposed as bullies & bully more out of psychological defense mechanism of reaction formation. That’s all bullies know until they get punched in the mouth by someone tougher than they are.
USA was punched in the mouth when the Lehman Moment struck. They have been overcompensating ever since out of bewilderment.
MOU
“As such, no, they don’t care that they might be eliminated in a nuclear war. The possibility simply cannot occur to them.”
And even if it did occur to them, they would visualise it as another big screen epic with them as spectators of their own demise.
Wall Street governs existence for all. Wall Street existentialists advocate Hobbessian Brutishness so that the Hobbessian Brute in all of us can be free market based.
The last brute is supposed to turn off the lights when everyone else is killed off.
Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg, & Bill Gates are jockeying for position as all time Hobbessian brutes in the race to the bottom right now.
May the biggest brute win.
Darwinian Evolution in end game play.
MOU
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the single greatest acts of genocide in human history. Beware the Reckoning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn0I26EJi1o&t=1s
The 0.01% that actually control this world, without bringing God into the picture, have clearly gone mad. They are squandering vast amount of resourses to build and pile up increasingly destructive weapons that could accidentally be used to incenerate a wide swath of humanity.
The sooner these classist lunatics are denied power the better it would be for the entire world ! Don’t nutize nuclear power; just nano nuke their powerful nuts !
It certainly looks like the U.S. regime is doing everything to start WW3. With impunity it is terrorizing innocent people in distant lands and not so innocent people at home. Americans ought to look at what the troops they support so unquestioning are doing in the Middle East. That will be their own future as well.
Internally Displaced Syrian Refugees Tormented by US Forces
Freedom and Democracy of psychopaths.
“Rapidly expanding nuclear arsenals in Pakistan and India portend regional and global catastrophe”
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/10/eaay5478
After reading the article, I was wondering why there is no mentioning of ABM installations in both Pakistan and India. With Iran having built an effective ABM system, Pakistan and India could/would do the same? It would certainly raise the stakes, as more warheads would be needed to overcome the ABM systems of the enemy, correct?
After you get to this:
“fatalities could reach 50 to 125 million people, and nuclear-ignited fires could release 16 to 36 Tg of black carbon in smoke, depending on yield. The smoke will rise into the upper troposphere, be self-lofted into the stratosphere, and spread globally within weeks. Surface sunlight will decline by 20 to 35%, cooling the global surface by 2° to 5°C and reducing precipitation by 15 to 30%, with larger regional impacts. Recovery takes more than 10 years. Net primary productivity declines 15 to 30% on land and 5 to 15% in oceans threatening mass starvation and additional worldwide collateral fatalities.”…..
I would say ABM-considered or not- is just a nuance…
Not if one system works and the other one was bought from the U.S.
Of course it was meant as a thought. What if – two sides (be them either Pakistan/India or others) would be able to cancel out each others attacks? Wouldn’t that make the futility of the expenditures obvious? Same with a nuclear conflagration. Mutual Assured Destruction does exactly that. MAD is Sysiphos on steroids. With the exception that both adversaries will have to rebuild their countries after such an exchange. Which might take a while. But the companies that do the reconstruction might still be the same.
The only racket is the war of terror. Nuclear war prevents quick recovery and thus swift profits to be made. If no profits can be made, then there will be no war. Other than accidentally.
The US war plan during the 1960s involved a simultaneous attack on Russia, China and all their allies, including even tiny Albania, employing 3,600 large nuclear weapons with an typical yield of 1.5 megatons against 2,100 targets, including 900 cities, in the initial assault.
Studies and projections put the fatal casualties from this operation at 285 million, though this was later reassessed and raised as high as 1,000 million. 650 million was eventually taken as an expected outcome, in effect splitting the difference. Of course, at this time, world population was about half what it is today.
This assessment ignored Russian and Chinese retaliation, British and French nuclear arsenals, the thousands of tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons and chemical, biological and conventional weapons. It is known, for example, that in the event of war, in the case of Germany, nuclear weapons would have been deployed against Munich, Hamburg, Bonn and Frankfurt.
It is unlikely that current nuclear weapons are any less destructive. Even absent a possible nuclear winter, it has been suggested that the 30-50-20 rule would apply. 30% of the population of a target country being wiped out in the initial attack. A further 50% dying off in the ensuing 6 month period from starvation, exposure, disease, radiation sickness, and the complete breakdown of order and civilisation generally, leaving a surviving residue of 20%. But the prospects for the survivors would not be particularly rosy. Everything required for human existence would have been destroyed. The electricity grid, fuel supplies, potable water, the transport system, even the most basic medical services, industry, agriculture and commerce. Most, if not all, of this 20% would be unlikely to survive longer than two years following the attack.
Life for the survivors has been likened to a return to the Middle Ages, but this is clearly absurdly optimistic. Medieval societies were quite complex and sophisticated, producing magnificent cathedrals like Notre Dame and impregnable castles. Anything of this kind would be quite out of the question for the traumatised survivors. Even basic subsistence agriculture would probably be beyond their reach.
And such a catastrophe becomes more and more likely with each passing year.
Much appreciate your powerful article Colin. The state our World is in due to the rampaging 0.01%, along with their henchmen (and women such as Christine Lagarde) who continue raping and plundering the planet, and grinding the vast majority into the dirt.
Including the slaughter of millions of human beings in the quest for new markets and resources – in the pursuit of ever more profits and the grotesque enrichment of a tiny number of vampires.
I’ve mentioned this site numerous times here, but there’s a site that lifts the lid on the warped con job of Neoliberalism called Neoliberalism Softpanorama.
What is truly screwed up, and morally bankrupt and just depressing is that the large majority of people couldn’t give a flying fig. Even when I’ve informed people about what is happening in Yemen, Syria, Libya, Palestine and many other countries or pointed them to sites like here, Moon Of Alabama, Strategic Culture, The Grayzone, and there’s no response, no discussion, its like they never even looked at those sites I suggested.
I know other commenters here have had similar experiences also.
Once, people lived by morals, ethics, and a sense of what is right and wrong. Now it seems hedonism and narcissism runs rampant with a hefty dose of dog eat dog, the breakdown of community and bucket loads of me me me.
When I was a young person, I had a long period of depression. Because I didn’t want to grow up. I didn’t want to become a ‘grown-up’. Later I realized that I had been given the ‘gift’ of premonition. Knowing what’s coming without being able to pin it down to something specific. All the visions I had came true so far. Especially the one that created the resistance to grow up and be part of a world that has it so backwards in every way.
The people that couldn’t give a flying fig are people that are unable, incapable to give a flying fig. They might very well want to, but they can’t. Their program does not allow for that. They are so indoctrinated – most of all by their various religions – that it is impossible for them to look beyond what they were programmed with.
People are Pavlovian Dogs. A lot of them, if not most of them to various degrees. And it certainly does not help that they have forgotten what ‘Life’ really means. They don’t live anymore – they barely exist. They don’t reflect on life, don’t respect life and misunderstand life. Which is a tragedy, because they will be all dead soon. All of them. A look into the obituaries will reveal that. Which creates the question: “Why cut life short? Why make it artificially miserable?” It comes with enough suffering and pain in its natural state. Why add suffering and pain to it? The Yin and Yang like Sado/Masochism?
For a long time I have published works that deal with the truth about what and who ‘we’ (as humans) are. Fewer people are interested in finding the answers, fewer than ever before. Which lead to the resignation of publishing other than commenting here and there on web sites that are frequented by real people. Like this one. Like you.
For the whole lot, I see a darkness coming that suffocates the senses. It appears it has to be this way. Thank you for being there and here.
I deeply appreciate your heartfelt reply and take it on board. I’m grateful there are like minded people here, and elsewhere. Thank you.
<a href="[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQn7peLy_p4?start=23&w=560&h=315%5D“>
Let’s play the game called Life! (Alan Watts with sounds and images)
It’s high time to democratise nuclear weapons.
If Trump, Blair, and Netanyahu can have them, then so should every country in the world, including the smallest and most exploited.
Or nobody should have them.
One or the other.
The argument will be refuted in the West by those who have ’em with “only we should have them, because others would use ’em on us.”
Or as the Magic Negro Nobel Peace Prize Obama said, “It is essential for our security that we spend another $2 trillion on more nuclear weapons. But Iran/ DPRK/ everybody else doesn’t need any. They can make do with a BB gun and a couple of water pistols.”
Ran across this on a twitter account.
Tony Benn’s Questions. Never forget them.
1. What power have you got?
2. Where did you get it from?
3. In whose interest do you use it?
4. To whom are you accountable?
5. How do we get rid of you?
How do we eliminate nuclear weapons when you have Washington and her allies threatening the world? North Korea can at least get a few winks at the moment, not so much Venezuela. Perhaps the Houthi are showing the way with you destroy us, we will take you down with us. Asymmetrical warfare. I wonder if what happened in Libya in 2011 happened in 2019. Libya might still be the richest country in Africa. Yes, nuclear weapons will be with us until kleptocracies no longer threaten the world. The full implementation of a multipolar world can not come fast enough.
Is that like a ‘buy one: get one free’ hegemony?
Three nuclear armed rapists will be sodomising humanity into dehumanisation, alienation, and degradation. Two of them will be paying the first for the privilege (it’s all one tributary system under the dollar. The replacement will be worse for humanity).
I can see I’ve lost the argument that Russia and China offering zero alternative to globalised, overfinancialised, neoliberal dehumanisation. But at least America was honest. When they said they were acting for humanitarian reasons: everyone knew they were lying. When Russia and China propagandise about sovereigntist humanism and a harmony of man and nature: people believe them. Why?
The multipolar world will be the short swansong of humanity. The extension of overfinancialised globalised imperialism will be all the worse for having three neoliberal imperial rapists – or one imperial; two sub-imperial. The Eurasianist *Tianxia* – the technochratic ecofascism so welcomed by progressives – will be humanities suicide pact with neoliberal overfinancial imperialism and corporacratic hegemony – for the people, welcomed by the people (some of them at least).
I’m sorry, I don’t get it. The multipolar world will be our climax civilsation for sure: because nothing will survive it. Not much anyway. Orwell said “Humanities future is a jackboot in the face”. I see three. For the people.
“I can see I’ve lost the argument that Russia and China offering zero alternative to globalised, overfinancialised, neoliberal dehumanisation.”
Not here, you haven’t.
“The multipolar world will be the short swansong of overfinancialised globalised imperialism by all 3 jackboots” : fixed it for you.
Welcome to the world of Internet connected but many free nations. Nations can work together by admiring/ sharing each others talents / resources while respecting each other’s space. Yes there are big guys and toddlers on the playground, but not any more one single giant. Too bad for the totalitarian forces!
BigB… Aleksandr Dugin is one very scary person. I did a bit of research after a comment by you on another story about ecofascism, the blood and soil movement along with the trillions to be made from the greenwashing of capitalism – ushered in by false prophets and so called organisations like 350.org and Avaaz. All with their eyes on the pot of gold. This is the logical outcome of Neoliberalism – Regardless of who practices it. Its still going to screw humanity.
We have been in an Epic Recession for 12 years …longer and deeper even than the Great Depression. And we all know what it took to end that one, don’t we!
The difference is fiat currency v gold standard. The central banks have entered the markets as artificial buoyancy aids – to keep the markets afloat with capital. This has become a false credit addiction with no cure.
The cosmetic effects of half a gazillion of a fictitious capital anti-recovery are about to work themselves out with possibly the largest correction in history. That the recovery has started in the repo markets *before* the official crisis hits (we’ve never resolved the crisis – the new crisis is the old crisis deferred by ‘money-printing’). The Epic Recession is set to get longer and deeper in the coming years.
Fascism is crisis capitalism: and we are in the Marianna Trench of capitalist crisis – the longest and deepest of them all. As the mechanisms are poorly understood: the attempted recovery will perpetuate the deepening and defer a greater crisis to the future. The cure will include the primitive accumulation of whole countries worth of sovereign assets – stripped by those who created the crisis – in what Jack Rasmus aptly calls ‘carrion capitalism’.
The currency will be stabilised and centralised: privatised countries will be refloated and the people handed the bill. All tied up capital welfare – pensions and securities – will be liberalised and mobilised to privatise nature. Privatised nature will be rented out as environmental services – and the people handed the bill.
We need no crystal ball to foresee that faced with permanent austerity and a multi-gazillion dollar – or ‘synthetic hegemonic currency’ – bill plus compound interest (all fiat will be toast) …the conditions will be rife for any number of charismatic personalities to step up and say: “I will promise you freedom from this form of illiberal capitalism with my new creed of ultranationalist unity: built on the common ancestry (ethnoi; narod) of national idealism (dasein) of the sovereigntist People”.
I suspect Dugin – or a younger sycophantic acolyte – will have a great future ahead of them. Humanity, not so much. I do not suppose anyone will heed the call to disarm now: before it is too late?
Nuclear War: Just Another Day without Pakistani president’s Imran Khan infront of the UN last month? In his long speech full with falsehoods he threatened that Pakistan is thinking of a nuclear war over Indian Kashmir. That from the land that sheltered Osama Bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Maulana Masood Azhar . The man in mum on his own Baluchistan but also on Xinjiang, Yemen, Syria etc.
Check after 48 minutes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLSsBRZeCjg
https://electronicintifada.net/content/inside-israels-million-dollar-troll-army/27566
https://news-communique.com/index.php/2019/08/25/pakistan-president-arif-alvi-leads-troll-army-releases-a-fake-video-to-malign-india/
Pakistan only developed nuclear weapons after India had done so first.
But nuclear weapons in Pakistan are less worrying than the huge illegal nuclear arsenal of the utterly vile genocidal Zionist Regime.
China attacked India conventionally in 1962 in the Himalaya. In 1964 China exploded its first atomic test bomb, in 1967 it first hydrogen bomb.
India followed only then in 1974, too late to be admitted in the 5 member nuclear clubhouse.
Next China secretly send Pakistan a nuke bomb design plus a plane load of plutonium.
The Afghan war later made the CIA close its eyes for Pakistani nuclear smuggle from the West (Urenco) for uranium based weapons.
The 1962 war was instigated by India. China limited the conflict and brought it to an end as swiftly as possible.
Imran Khan is far less frightening from an Armageddon point of view than Nuttyyahoo or the genocidal Zionist Regime in general, which has long relished the prospect of the extermination of all the goyim.
Spot on article, Colin. There is a vast network of western elites, including corporate bosses, politicians, media, military brass, think-tank propagandists and bought-and-sold academics, who work tirelessly to lull populations into acceptance of imperialist hegemony and the ‘inevitability’ of war.
The survival of the planet and the human species depends upon enough people everywhere becoming aware of the falsity of such narratives as ‘humanitarian intervention’, ‘regime change’, etc., and actively opposing them.
Precisely what Tony Benn said in his last interview.
It is going to be n uphill struggle, but we must stay aware and positive, and ignore completely all the MSM presstitutes, who have their own agenda and are a law unto themselves.
They are working tirelessly to make us despondent and apathetic.
That is quite the dish. Allow me to compare it to a large pizza (humanity) with lots of different toppings on it (circumstances). Since the emphasis is given on ‘nuclear war’, I like to start with the mushrooms on the pizza.
With the first mushroom clouds, an era was initiated that would ultimately completely alter human consciousness. Before the first atom bombs, wars were devastating, brutal and destructive – but survivable. ‘Survival’ before the first two nukes was threatened by physical force and albeit outlawed by chemical and biological warfare. After the mushroom clouds had settled, survival was also threatened by something invisible, tasteless, odorless and silent. Radiation. Radiation eludes the average mind, as it it not possible to grasp it. When its effects are apparent, death will be inevitable and might occur without any prior physical harm. The human mind is ill equipped for this kind of danger. Evolution outfitted humans with senses that are without exception useless when it comes to radiation. If you don’t count the 6th sense in – to leave the area before it will be contaminated.
I do my best to keep it short, but it is indeed very important to discuss this topic. Actually, humanity’s continuance is depending on discussing this issue that is so many issues at once. Staying with the mushrooms some more, you may or may not remember, or know about the fake missile alert in Hawai’i on January 13th, 2018 – a lovely Saturday morning just like any other lovely morning. On my way to have breakfast in the village of Pahoa, I noticed cops driving around and stopping other vehicles, talking to the people inside. Then a cop stopped me too and told me that “The crazy guy has launched two ballistic missiles at Hawai’i. You should go home and stay with your family.” That was an akward feeling for sure. Exactly like watching the two towers in Manhattan turn into pulver. I responded to him that “I need some breakfast first” and continued to the healthfood store.
The remarkable fact is, that most of the Pahoa people would say “Oh yes? Okay then.” There are no guarantees in life in the first place. It was apparent that those who were relatively new in town, or the area were hit the hardest by the fake alert. Especially on Oahu. There were other people at the healthfood store, obviously also not really concerned having breakfast. Some people though became very hysterical when the alarm went off on our phones. The cops had told people to turn around before the alert went out to the phones. An important point. Here however, it is only important how people reacted to this “Emergency Alert: Extreme – THIS IS NOT A DRILL. OK”
While it was swept under the rag by local authorities and Washington as much as possible, this was the first incoming ballistic missile alert in the history of the U.S. The ‘Emergency Alert System’ that relays alerts to citizens’ cell phones is not that old. There was no such alert before that explicitly stated “NOT A DRILL.” Which resonates with the also mentioned ‘structural violence’ in the article. Structural violence here is the absence of any form of redress for this kind of abuse. A scapegoat is oushed before the people and that was it. It is now known that based on the “THIS IS NOT A DRILL” missile alert, scores of people are now suffering from PTSD – as the brain is incapable to separate fact from fiction, especially with the addendum that the incoming ballistic missiles are not a drill. Call me callous, but I have internalized George Carlin’s set of simple rules of which number one is to “never believe what my government tells me”. Feel free to let me know if you heard anything about compensation payments for emotional abuse.
Even without nuclear war being an intentional threat – as there seems to be no real Dr. Strangelove in office, or left to make that decision single handed – the threat the nuclear arsenal poses is ludicrously high. Sure, nobody speaks about it on a regular basis, but even with nuclear warheads being excempt from planned obsolescence, the danger lies in the failure of the system, or components thereof. Even human error is in the mix. To understand that it is not necessary to have a madmen like Bolton, Pence and Pompeo push the proverbial button, will make it easier to argue that only a global ban of all nuclear weapons will be able to prevent the accidental launch of WW3. But of course there is still Choks out there and chock of it. Humanity must also end the design and stockpiling of ‘B&C’ weapons.
It is now apparent to a large number of folks, that the pizza contains other toppings that humanity better removes from it. To these, I count all toppings that contain a slew of chemicals and toxins that at least influence, or at worst incapacitate or inhibit critical thinking and reason. Please refer to the articles here on OffGuardian about GMO food products and the huge amounts of pesticides/herbicides used in the agri-industry. In combination with fluoride (see also the article about fluoride on Paul Craig Roberts website) and without emphasis it should be clear that the combination of the toppings makes for a very unhealthy pizza. A pizza that creates such a large degree of indifference, depression, gullibility and willful ignorance based on reduced thinking abilities, that the threat of nuclear war can no longer be given the importance it should have.
In this fact lies also the potential deception about the climate color revolution. If you have paid attention to the statements given by the members of the movement to save earth, you will have noticed that none of these voices demand an immediate end to militarism – the biggest polluter, resource terminator and global warmer on planet earth. Not a single word. Nowhere. If anything, controversy between Greta lovers and Greta doubters. No demands to close the Pentagon, NSA and CIA shops. The burners of energy at the countless data centers that collect any and all information about any and everybody on earth – minus the filthy rich. They are excempt from getting spied on 24/7/52. No mentioning also about the Federal FIAT money printers.
There are so many toxic toppings, that it requires a sea change of human consciousness – a quantum consciousness leap of sorts to come to terms with the fact that humanity is betting against its own survival. There is still money to be made with nuclear warheads – actually more than ever before and now loads of dough can be made by selling people solutions for the ensuing climate collapse.
What is – as always – missing in the global discourse, are down to Earth solutions that are implementable immediately by the masses. Subsidized by their governments that will have to be toppled to cease and desist to torment the masses with fake austerity that is nothing but gush up ‘economics’. Change starts in the mind. From there it moves to action, or the ceasing of such actions that are detrimental to the collective organism. Really small things, like recycling the cordless phone at home and replacing it with a wired one – no more batteries needed (if not for a memory function). Planting fruit trees wherever possible. BDS plastic. Not only the bag at the checkout. No, everything that does not come in hemp cellophane (sic). No more buying stuff that was flown in from the other side of the planet. It is all in the details – the more insignificant the solutions appear, the more significant will be their implementations.
Why risk a nuclear conflagration if we don’t have to? Give warmongers the mental healthcare they need instead. Mandatory minimum life.
Apologies, it wouldn’t come any shorter.
I think…that in the beginning – a need was built, and from that minute, necessitous life, instead of instantly recognising the erroneous design and inevitability of reproducing for a recurring chained reaction – decided to indulge it…..and so it continued, just that over time, along came the mercenary, who recognised the power that could be aquired from that dependent dawn and the ease of which it could be taken advantage – the profitablity in exploiting consumption realized – and so it went, But as their hunger grew ,the power frenzied for more – and greater was the ‘need’ to engorge themselves….so, the more they stole….as for the others, they didn’t know what hit them, docile and compliant, their true essence long unremembered – and now – three score and ten and a healthy repeat to take on the name is all they ask for – no matter who suffers for it.
A similar question i guess came up in Prof Piers Robinson’s interesting talk in South London this evening. But more in the context of finding solutions to the problem of modern propaganda. Which in a way is the same thing because if we dont find a solution to our poor thinking and obsession with gadgets, which make us vulnerable to propaganda, likely we will be all carrying our eyeballs around.
Piers offered a number of ideas but while he hinted that war with china and russia could result perhaps after iran – this was described as a likely medium term possibilty so perhaps even he could not contemplate the short term risks. But having read this article I am yet more convinced the way to achieve this goal is too scare the hell out of people. It’s the only way people will wake up. This could happen tomorrow- one spark in Syria is all that’s needed.
When time is done, it will be a moment of a day – perhaps like today.
How can it be otherwise than the loss of the ‘ordinary’ or familiar to an un-framing of our consciousness fro which we may be completely unprepared – or which we may have experienced throughout our lives at different levels of challenge to our sense of continuity?
There are many threads that feed into this theme.
One is that man made mass destruction as opposed to Cosmic catastrophe or Earth changes is an expression of our consciousness – regardless we ‘try’ to counter, check, deny or hide it.
While the mainstream narrative sees biology over millions of years occurring by gradual uniform change to gradual uniform change, I see our consciousness – (as we now believe and experience it), in the current cycle of our human record – is only a few thousand years old and that its activation and development – far from a gradual learning over great periods of time – exploded all around the world.
That this was synchronous with catastrophic events breaking a ‘golden age’ is mythically recorded all around the world but rationally rejected – not least because the rational is a layer set over the ‘unconscious; or repressed psyche.
The god-king, the City-state and the idea of ‘self’ as power OVER life, and world is associated with Planetary cataclysm that our current cosmos and consciousness – has no way to access or make sense of. And so our Ancestors were imaginative and creative ‘artists’ who came up with all these insane story-myths and deadly serious ritual – that had no ‘moral cohesion’ excepting to emulate, appease and align under powers of overwhelming force – that were themselves chaotic and periodically catastrophic – until all settled to the world in which a more linear narrative continuity could build as civilising cultural developments – WITHIN and alongside the archetypes of power struggle.
There is another aspect to ‘end times’ that is apocalyptic – and literally I mean the drawing aside of the veil of devices by which we know not what we do – because we know not what we are.
While I resonate with ‘Separation Trauma’ as being formative to the generating and structuring of our personality structure – as survival strategy – I also hold the sense that the splitting of the mind is WITHIN a greater whole that is forgotten or ruled out by division and conflict or ‘doublethink’.
Within our life focus we are for the most part almost exclusively identified with the body – but not as a true incarnation of embodiment of passion for life – but as a separating self-conscious inhibition of love AND of fear. Self-consciousness then usurps a true self-awareness as a masking of feared reality, under a narrative of continuity and control set as survival in terms of exposure to or reliving of such pain of loss.
The imposition of ‘order over chaos’ as an ongoing struggle (and in which competing powers see the other as the evil, threat or chaos), is an archetypal narrative or mythic structure – in which we all serve different roles to each other – until we wake from ‘structure’ to being of a different order and quality than all the meanings of a conditioned (and self-conditioning) mind.
I could have sketched how the tares have spread through the crop as a manipulative intent operating as private agenda beneath appearances – but breaking through as well as being falsely flagged onto proxies and patsies. But I do not feel drawn to engage in conflict with the conflicted – so much as release that for a simple desire for truth.
It is my sense that no one can deny you the truth of who you are – excepting you give them the power to do so – or in other words do it to yourself under the assertion that they made you do it. Self-hatred is a terrible torment – and so it is hardly surprising that under its conviction we ‘outsource’ it to an alien will (the other).
I’m sure no one cares to consider self-hattred when surely it is only those psychopathic evil scum that need to be pulled down and destroyed. But that is what I mean by outsourced self-hatred.Not that you are evil – but that the feared conviction that evil has a place in you is hated and cast out EXCEPTING when called down in righteous vengeance – when it takes on a sort of ‘holiness’ and the blanket firebombing of civilian populations becomes a sort of burnt sacrifice to a terrible god – that the ‘Stockholm syndrome’ aligns under as their only life.
Lots of people use ‘waking up’ to mean seeing deceit. But that is only the first steap – and not a conclusion or destination. When what seemed true is undone of its status as fact – truth is OPEN to being discovered. Fixating on hateful deceits does not yield truth so much as petrify under the gorgon’s horror.
I recently read an account of people who experience destructive tornadoes as either dissociating or living in terror – with a few who are drawn to open in the energy of it as part of the energy of Life.
The core issue of the human conditioning is of possession and control – set against a fear and pain of loss.
the ‘powers that be’ can see no way to ‘survive’ in their terms but by radical contractions (enforced austerity under totalitarian ‘smart’ control of carbon guilts or social credits. But this is because they are addicted to their invested illusions – as perhaps are we all in some degree. And within the illusion of power over and under – anything true is ruled out – unless to be marketised and weaponised to feed the habit.
A qualitative shift will not come as a top down saviour. And rising in Life is not rising up in the bait of hate. But aligning ONLY with that which truly serves purpose revealed in Life – is defended against as if a sacrifice, when in fact keeping ourselves in conflicted purpose sacrifices our full presence.
I do not know if I will lose this focus in human living to nuclear war, cometary impact or something utterly mundane like falling off a chair. But I don’t see it as an exclusive totality in and of itself but as a living expression now – and keeping that awareness amidst the events and demands of this day is part of holding a sense of worth that shares – even if it cannot often find a full expression in such fearfully identified society.
Perhaps fear claims its harvest – by those who choose to accept it as their guide and protection. But it is never to late to live the willingness of a just day, this day. Lack of a true self-acceptance is a form of self judgement, rejection and hate – and then how can we relate to anyone in peace?
Look at the body language of the crisis actors playing out their roles.
the threat and fear are used to serve an agenda of power struggle. But if you change agenda to embrace a true re-education in life – then you look at all of it with new eyes. They offer you an education in how the mind is captured and run from which you can recognise a like pattern in yourself – and be in awareness of choice. The mind says whatever you do wont make any difference. But I say that everything you think and accept as true for you makes a difference to how you see, experience and respond to your life and your world.
Self hate is made righteous under Green Eugenics. Humans as virus, humans as cancer, ordinary people as the cause of planetary destruction. This is an Ancient Script playing out. Recognition is the key to shifting the purpose of the script. It will play out – but to the purpose you accept in your heart.
The problem is not new, it has been raised in the past by authors such as H.G.Wells and George Orwell. In Wells’ novella ‘The Time Machine’ the time traveller travels from Victorian/Edwardian England to a distant future inhabited by the elois. The elois are completely useless and apathetic have no use for books, learning or reflection and enquiry. In the fullness of time traveller discovers that the elois are kept alive by the Morlocks who keep the whole show running and keep the elois alive with food and sustenance. Unfortunately – or otherwise – for the elois they come as dinner du jour on any given day for the Morlocks.
The mass narcolepsy of contemporary society is also strikingly anticipated in this short novella. In one of Orwell’s essays – I can’t remember which one exactly – he theorised that it may be the case that most of human race don’t actually want liberty. They have been genetically engineered bred and raised like a variety of shorthorned cattle. Alas the capture of any snippet of everyday conversation would serve to confirm this unfortunate situation.
This is very well captured in Orwell’s novel, ‘Coming Up for Air’. The principal figures is George Bowling, insurance salesman, who sees only too well the authenticity and vacuous nature of contemporary life and the behaviour and mental processes – such as they are – of his fellow travellers on the morning train up to London. Orwell speaks through George Bowling here.
”Of course there is no question that it’s (i.e, war) coming. You can tell by the cheer up stuff in the newspapers and the way they’re talking about it. I was reading a piece in the News Chronicle the other day where it said that bombing planes can’t do any damage nowadays. The anti-aircraft guns have got so good that the bomber has to stay at twenty thousand feet. The writer thinks, you notice, that if a bomber is high enough the bombs won’t actually reach the ground. Or more likely what he really meant was that they’ll miss the Woolwich Arsenal and only hit places like Ellesmere Road (where I live).
This precisely illustrates the crisis of humanity in the age of double-think, double-speak and the narcotization of thought, speech and the dominance of structure over agency.
When there is a nuclear war, it will probably be a first strike offensive. It is likely to be between America and it’s allies and Russia. If America starts it, it will have to, as a matter of course, protect itself by also attacking China. American psychology and geopolitical strategy make it imperative unless previous agreement had been reached between both countries.
Let no one imagine it will be limited, or that we in Britain will still exist afterwards.
Don’t you mean if there’s a nuclear war?
No.
Okay then, so why do you bother read and reply to such essays if that’s the way you feel, because if it is, then you’ve already given up all hope.
I don’t want to think as I do. I lived through the first cold war and only opinion, this one is more dangerous because America has made it clear they want nothing less than world domination. The first time around it was possible to accept a reluctant live and let live philosophy but with less resources to share and a world economy out of control, it looks to me like a race to the death in which America is determined to win.
Also, I have never given up hope. Hope and logic are different things.
What makes it more dangerous is current western leadership, the worst in its history.
Arrogant, venal, corrupt, irredeemably ignorant, and ideologically driven, self serving, not open to any agreement, headstrong, self regarding little sawdust Caesars.
People like Kennedy and Khrushchev were very flawed individuals. But Kennedy had a torpedo boat sunk underneath him and Khrushchev fought at Stalingrad. Chirac, who died a few days ago, served as a French army conscript in Algeria.
When we need a Bismarck or a Metternich, we get Macron, May and Merkel.
Truth is that even if one side gets their blows in first all that follows is not defence from the attacked.
It is revenge.
People like Bolton think that it is all about speed of attack.
He also thinks that after a few attacks it will all stop for negotiations.
Bolton is an idiot.
He’s not alone in his idiocy.
He’ll stand in the smouldering ruins of the USA with a singed moustache and declare _ ”
” We can make this country great again .”
If he’s still live of course?
Excellent and 100% true!
A companion piece to this is Max Blumenthal’s ‘Pentagon-funded researcher smears ‘The Management of Savagery’ in error-filled Times Literary Supplement screed’, that exposes the lies in a ‘review’ of his book. https://thegrayzone.com/2019/10/01/pentagon-funded-researcher-smears-the-management-of-savagery-in-error-filled-times-literary-supplement-screed/
What strikes me about both essays, is the ease with which us privileged members of the imperialist states are druggedd (one way of the other) into going along with the savagery. I truly despair.
Those humans who are born with (or have developed) an ethical sense will avoid any form of cruelty on any scale, small or large. Those who, like our fellow “groupies” in the animal kingdom — chimps, sheep, cattle, horses, all sorts of deer — will seek safety in numbers and Follow the Leader. Safety in numbers: once the herd knows that it’s only Poor Old Tail End Charlie who’s been brought down and eaten, they will go on munching their little patch because they know their procreative capacity can easily replenish that loss — as long as there is grass. Follow the Leader: because he is wise and knows the way to Winter Pasture.
Of course a startling event might stampede an entire herd over a cliff; or the Leader might be a Judas Goat leading a herd of groupies to the slaughter. But the principle of Safety in Numbers ensures that a species will survive an enormous amount of lethal onslaught — as long as their environment is not destroyed.
These principles apply to many animal species, from social insects such as ants and bees (remarkably long ancestry) to Jonny Come Lately H.sapiens. What distinguishes The Human Condition is Conscience; what TS Eliot called that rare thing, a Sense of Sin.
“Praise be to Zeus who wrote this Law in His sky,
That human beings must Learn by Suffering” — Aeschylus, Agamemnon.
If we will learn no other way.
Except that we are not animals. If we were, we wouldn’t even have coined the word, “human” to differentiate ourselves from them.
Of course the principle of safety in numbers applies to us too, but probably with more conscious thought going into it than in the case of our equine or bovine brothers and sisters.
If numbers were all that mattered, I do not believe that human evolution would ever have matured to a level capable of producing individual greatness, which I think most of us can agree is a thing that has frequently inspired us all.
And when Poor Old Tail End Charlie just happens to be Ludwig van Beethoven at age 57 getting brought down and eaten, we are not going to expect the next specimen to be born in his home town to match his genius in any way. Seriously, now are we? It just doesn’t seem to work that way.
I believe that present and future human evolution encompasses also the evolution individual human consciousness, and that we have to stop thinking of ourselves as sheep, evolving eternally as just sheep, sheep, sheep.
That doesn’t alter the fact that in the eyes of a great spiritual teacher like Jesus Christ we may nevertheless still be at some level rather like sheep, but I am convinced that the individual choice of whether or not we CONSIDER OURSELVES to be mere sheep (a choice which we all have) is a crucial one for the evolution of our species.
Fulke Greville quote: “Oh, wearisome condition of humanity, Born under one law, to another bound;”
As you say, War Dropper, the choice is yours and mine.