Russia has declassified the video footage of the largest nuclear explosion of all time, the Arctic detonation of the so-called “Tsar Bomba” in 1961.
The explosion was 1,500 times more powerful than those which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, and ten times more powerful than all munitions detonated during the entirety of World War Two. Its mushroom cloud was 42 miles high, over seven times the height of Mount Everest. It was 59 miles wide. It yielded 50 megatons, but could have been rigged to yield twice as much with technology that was available at the time.
The footage is a sight to behold, and serves as a sobering reminder that not only have we been living on the same planet as these horrible things for many generations, but the only reason any of us are still around is by sheer dumb luck. We’ve come inches away from total nuclear war not once, not twice, but many times during the last cold war due to miscommunications and technical malfunctions, which could have easily gone the other way if things had been just a tiny bit different.
And now America is heading into rapidly escalating new cold war tensions with not one but two nuclear-armed nations, and flirting with armageddon hasn’t gotten one iota safer. People like to think of nuclear standoffs as the leaders of nuclear-armed nations each hovering a finger over “the button”, but in reality there are thousands of individuals in the world who have the ability to independently start a nuclear war, any one of whom could easily do so because of confusion, miscommunication, or other unforeseen circumstances amid heightening tensions.
Nuclear brinkmanship has so very, very many moving parts, with so very, very many things that could go wrong. It’s an impossible situation to retain control of.
A 2014 report published in the journal Earth’s Future found that it would only take the detonation of 100 nuclear warheads to throw 5 teragrams of black soot into the earth’s stratosphere for decades, blocking out the sun and making the photosynthesis of plants impossible. This could easily starve every terrestrial organism to death that didn’t die of radiation or climate chaos first. China has hundreds of nuclear weapons; Russia and the United States have thousands.
We are in trouble. The only reason we don’t realize it is because Anderson Cooper and Chris Wallace aren’t telling us we’re in trouble on a daily basis like they would be doing if mainstream journalism existed. We’re in at least as much trouble as in 1961; we just think we’re safer because we got lucky during the last cold war.
In fact we are arguably in more danger, because the United States is entering post-primacy as China surges and unaligned governments continue building a world order that isn’t dependent on the US dollar or American hegemony. That reality is about to crash headlong into a prevailing Washington orthodoxy that US unipolar domination must be preserved at all cost. An inevitable dethronement meeting an ideology which asserts that dethronement must never come.
A cornered animal is dangerous, especially one with fangs and claws. A dying empire is dangerous, especially one with nuclear weapons.
Today is the International Day against Nuclear Tests.
The only way to guarantee that nuclear weapons are never used or tested again is to eliminate them.
(THREAD) #nuclearban #AgainstNuclearTests #IDANT pic.twitter.com/KwyoLvnj1d
— ICAN (@nuclearban) August 29, 2020
With that in mind, I’d like to offer a thought experiment.
Imagine you feel a tremor right now and go to look out the window, and you see a mushroom cloud growing on the horizon.
Really try to imagine what that would be like, just for the moment.
Really put yourself there, and at your own pace go through the following questions:
What are you feeling?
Where’s the first place your mind goes?
How are you feeling about your loved ones?
Are you happy with how much time you’ve been spending with them lately?
Are you happy with how you’ve been treating them?
Are you satisfied with how you’ve been living your life?
Would you say that your priorities have been where they should have been?
Over the last month, have you been spending all your time and mental energy in a way that you now find ideal?
Have you been spending your time and mental energy in the way you would have been spending it if you’d been mindful of the fact that a nuclear war could erupt at any moment?
Because–and this is the end of the thought experiment–a nuclear war could erupt at any moment.
It is important to reckon with this fact. Living on the same planet as armageddon weapons and a global contract of mutually assured destruction should be something that you are acutely aware of, and something you have grappled with on an existential level to the fullest extent possible. Because it threatens your life, and the life of everyone you know, in every second that ticks by.
You should be aware of this, and that awareness should change you. It should change the way you live. It should change the way you spend your time and your mental energy. Because you are not guaranteed a single second beyond the one you are reading this sentence in.
Failing to grapple with the reality that nuclear annihilation is hovering over our heads at every instant is the same as failing to grapple with the existential realities of your own mortality. It is that personally relevant to you. It’s as negligent as failing to reckon with your childhood traumas or your place in the universe. If you haven’t truly contemplated the reality of nuclear standoff even as the empire you inhabit hurls itself into new cold war escalations, you aren’t being real with yourself at all.
This is about you. Personally. As much as anything else in your life is about you. Because it has every ability to end your life and everything in it at any time.
New declassified footage shows the detonation of the Soviet Union's 50 megaton Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created and tested https://t.co/kRndXfZzPs pic.twitter.com/v4mFPOAg1b
— Mikael Thalen (@MikaelThalen) August 22, 2020
Ignoring this reality is as absurd as ignoring a stranger following you around with a gun to your head every moment of your life. If you feel like another thought experiment, put yourself in that situation for a minute, because it’s the same as what’s happening now. Only difference is if that gun goes off, it doesn’t just kill you. It kills everyone.
Pursue a life of excellence and live each moment like it could be your last, because of course it could. And above all make sure you do everything in your power to raise awareness and oppose the insanity of the situation we now find ourselves in. If God forbid we ever do see that mushroom cloud out our window, we want to at the very least be able to say we did everything we could, and we made the most of the time we had here.
____________________
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93 responses to “Nuclear War: A Thought Experiment”
Nuclear weapons are a hoax…..
Glad my comment ended this nonsense….look at the pictures caitlin posted from ICAN….its clearly two explosions edited on top of another….the first picture you have caitlin is a edited picture of the sunrise as is the tsar bomb(tsar=star=sun)
Theres video of a guy eating plutonium during lectures and it never poisoned him…
Covid…nukes…global warming…asteroids…elections…mass shootings…terrorist attacks(9/11)…economics…religion
It’s all a hoax…it only comes from that damn box called a TV…and the camera the most important invention of the world class….not even religion….has come close to the level of control via lies and exaggerated claims
Sadly there seems to be no hope….you seem to enjoy at a deep subconscious level the end of the world…and don’t say no…the biggest most successful tv and movies are about the end of the world..you love it…love the lie…love you entertainment…watch your football game…
A lack of intelligence and a deep psychological disorder with displacement projection and cognitive dissonance…it pisses me off that the world class treats you guys like this
Even more heartbreaking is….you enjoy it 🙁
I think I already have too much post traumatic stress to participate in this thought experiment. The best I can do is recall the ending of Planet of the Apes:
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“You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! God damn you all to hell!”
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2 minute video link here:
I am afraid the threat of nuclear global extinction has left the popular imagination of the American people. The Cold War and science fiction writers kept it alive. One critic credited science fiction writers with the acceptance that a nuclear war would mean the extinction of all humanity. Neither political party is much interested in any sort of nuclear arms agreement with either the Russians or Chinese.
But I do think it is now highly likely that under a Biden administration we will have a nuclear war with Russia. With Trump he is so erratic who knows what can happen. (Either way i will not vote for either.) Having watched really since the Maiden in Ukraine, the growth of Russian xenophobic and even racist themes has reached hysterical levels. It is this hysteria and Biden’s war mongering character that will lead him to engage the Russians in direct military aggression. And from there to nuclear war. Joe wants to get tough you see. Neither he nor Kamala nor their handlers will have any clue what MAD means, nor do they care. I give us two-three years before we see our final sunset or sun rise.
I take a different view. I ignore the fact all that shit exists. I create a loving space for me and my loved ones. If I/we die in the next second or day or year or decade, it’s all the same. We rebirth and move on and up. I am at peace with what ever happens. <— None of what I just said implies I don't care.
As many as 8000 nuclear explosions have been unleashed , most overwhelmingly by the Americans since the bomb was developed in the 1940s . . Background radiation has increased by several powers of ten since causing all sort of mutations in living things be they plants , animals viruses, or germs . As both Al Einstein and Bert Russell among many others agreed in the 1950s , the population bomb will ultimately lead to the use of the Atomic bomb. A Thucydides Trap that has been closing for several generation , as the Metaphysicians Nightmare about the nature of human existence draws to a close .
There’s a global depopulation bomb happening at the moment. That’s why there’s such a push for immigration; bureaucrats need more taxpayers and industries need more customers.
Even after COVID-19, the world’s population is increasingly composed of non-breeding humans getting too old work and consume profitably.
Professors Antony C Sutton. Carol Quigley and Guido preparata all wrote in great detail in their books how the Wall Streeet Bankers, the City of London, some of the US plus European companies helped finance, design and build the industrial infrastructure of both the USSR, Nazi Germany and now we have the latest example of the People’s Republic of China. So the question is why when they were the Western Imperialists most deadly foes. Well, George Orwell described in Book 1984, as did HG Wells as did Aldous Huxley.
Trouble is, the last books ever voluntarily read en masse, especially by the younger generation, were J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter series.
Not Orwell, Huxley, or Steinbeck.
Not even any games based on their themes.
Afghanistan is the source for more than 90 per cent of the worlds heroin supply, much of it destined for Europe, according to the United Nations. Some estimates put international drug trafficking as one of the most lucratively traded commodities, on par with oil and gas. Financial proceeds can be laundered through big banks as the scandal involving British bank HSBC illustrated.
For the Central Intelligence Agency and other United States intelligence agencies, Afghanistan is a giant money press from illicit drug dealing.
That easy source for covert funding makes the Afghan war too addictive to kick the habit. With its clandestine global network, fleets of private planes, diplomatic clearance, national security license and byzantine bank accounts all those features make the Central Intelligence Agency a perfect conduit for narcotics trafficking.
In addition to means, the agency also has powerful motive for secret funding of its other criminal enterprises: media influence operations, color revolutions, assassinations and regime-change subversions.
The systematic involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in international drug running is as old as the agency itself, created in 1947 at the beginning of the Cold War.
Its function of covert operations is by definition illegal and therefore requires secret funding. The agency has been linked to illicit Nazi gold to fund its early operations. Later, narcotics trafficking entered as a crucial means for organizational funding. The Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia was central for sponsoring anti-communist schemes in the 1960 and 70s, as was Colombia and Central America for funding proxy forces like the Contra in Nicaragua during the 1980s. Afghanistan carries on this global function for underpinning the Central Intelligence Agencys criminal enterprises.
This very revealing article can be read here:
CIAs Addiction to Afghanistan War by Finian Cunningham!
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/08/29/cia-addiction-to-afghanistan-war/
Nothing really surprises me anymore. Anyone who REALLY wants to know whats going on should definitely check this out, its a pretty scary warning from a history and economics professor. Pretty damn eye opening: https://thinkaheadsurvival.weebly.com/
That was good advice during Cold War I, but if the government indulges prepping today, its only because they want private caches of food and weapons littered about to loot for themselves.
Prevention of any human-origin apocalypse is the only real chance of real survival for ordinary people. Guns and tinned food are that dodgy insurance policy bought without reading the fine print that’s hoped is never needed as long as all the real precautions are taken.
Survival fantasies are kind of the ultimate selfish fantasy, with the world and all its material goods free for the taking. Wanna be players never imagine they are the NPC drop.
Looks like Russia is preparing for the Biden era, rattling that big old sabre.
Putin has delivered a classy dual message; one, Russia has nukes, some of the most powerful ever developed, and two, they aren’t going to play the ‘limited nuclear war’ game with precision dial-a-yield blasts or EMPs.
Unfortunately, most people have forgotten Cold War I and come to believe Russia would never fire back no matter what the Western Deep State did in provocation.
Which is odd, given the manic villainization of Russia. Why wouldn’t they shoot back to maximum effect if they were indeed the ‘bad’ guys?
“Unfortunately, most people have forgotten Cold War I and come to believe Russia would never fire back no matter what the Western Deep State did in provocation.”
And you seem to have forgotten hot WW2, when Hitler penetrated deep into Russia and this costs the lives of at least 20 Million Russians, soldiers and civilians.
If NATO believes like you that Russia would allow any missile fired from anywhere, especially from European soil when any time to identify the object is basically non existent to enter Russian airspace without immediate response I think they gamble forgetting this history – as they are forgetting their commitment not to encroach on the Russian border militarily by accepting former Warsaw Pact members which brought this situation and warning on.
Not at all forgotten. WWII was pre-nuclear. The pre-nuclear cycle of diplomatic-economic aggression always ended in war.
What the USSR did in WWII was decisive overt self-defense against an overt unprovoked invasion by Nazi Germany, the Germans convinced they were liberating the slavs and pre-empting a Soviet invasion.
There seems to be the belief in the Western security aristocracy, that constant maximum pressure short of overt warfare has no limits. As long as they have the barest fig leaf of acting in self defense, when war is finally triggered.
No-one believes, Russia would respond to an act of war spun as self-defense as an act of war. Its easy to believe a Biden administration unloading an EMP warning shot at Russia to put a stop to some imaginary ‘Russian aggression’.
Not for nothing did Putin announce any ballistic missile fired at Russia will be considered nuclear.
The Western publics, don’t get it. They are, as Paul Craig Roberts describes Americans – but it applies to all Westerners – ‘insouciant’ to the dangers of real war with Russia.
“the Germans convinced they were liberating the slavs and pre-empting a Soviet invasion.”
No, utterly wrong. Hitler from the beginning wanted an expansion into Russian space. The required homeland for a future German Reich worthy of the name.
And then there was Generalplan Ost, with the target of “liberating” the Slavs…liberating as in freeing their souls to join their maker. A limited amount of the remaining population was to used of Slavs for the future German land owners.
And the intelligence in Germany was good enough to know there was neither the capability nor the intent by Russia at the time to mount any first strike against Germany, and Stalin was convinced that he had enough time for building up defense forces to countering any German aggression based on the treaty.
You’re missing the point. What Hitler and his elites thought was different than what the common people were led to believe.
Same thing happens today.
For example, the NWO pretends to offer socialism – but they really offer dictatorship.
Since they don’t have the National Socialist party’s level of absolute control of the narrative, the NWO reset can be challenged.
“Russia has declassified the video footage of the largest nuclear explosion of all time, the Arctic detonation of the so-called “Tsar Bomba” in 1961. The explosion was 1,500 times more powerful than those which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined…”.
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This release was just a subtle reminder to the World of consequences to any Empire foolish enough to do something really, really stupid now or tomorrow.
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“We are in trouble… We’re in at least as much trouble as in 1961; we just think we’re safer because we got lucky during the last cold war.”
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There are certain people in this world who have a death wish. Unfortunately, they want to take everyone else with them, too.
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“Have you been spending your time and mental energy in the way you would have been spending it if you’d been mindful of the fact that a nuclear war could erupt at any moment?… it threatens your life, and the life of everyone you know, in every second that ticks by. You should be aware of this, and that awareness should change you. It should change the way you live.”
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It may not be possible for a human being to actually process and comprehend their death and end of Earthly existence. We are so used to being alive and EXISTING that the bare harsh truth of non-existence, the ending of our mental and physical processes is just beyond our true comprehension. We understand that we will die as a mental concept that we have a nice safe separation from in time right now. But actually dying one day soon? Body functions ceasing? No mental activity? No more mornings and afternoons and evenings? No more touching those that we love? No more tomorrows to plan for? Our thinking and feeling just shuts all that down in our consciousness because it is too foreign, too terrible, too FINAL for us to really process and accept.
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“If God forbid we ever do see that mushroom cloud out our window, we want to at the very least be able to say we did everything we could, and we made the most of the time we had here.”
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One day, NOTHING will be here. None of us, no tree, no river, no mountain, not even the Earth itself when it gets swallowed up by the expanding Sun. There will be no book, no database, no pictures carved into rock… nothing at all left to show We were here and lived and worked and played and loved and hurt and cried and laughed at this speck point in the Cosmos. All that will remain is all that there is anyway… Spirit. We pray that our Spirit(s) do survive somehow, somewhere, in some form so that all that came before it wasn’t all done for nothing.
I join in your prayer, with increasing confidence in a positive answer. When the conclusions of the exhaustive research undertaken by the Society for Psychical Research (formed in the late 19th Century by eminent scientists and scholars to debunk “the spiritualism craze”) are joined with contemporary scientific studies and analyses of the NDE phenomenon, there emerges a strong probability, distinct from religious faith and tradition, that the human personality (and perhaps all living things) survive what we know as death and enter a much larger, more complex spiritual world, where a human being’s position is determined by how much love was expressed and wisdom acquired in THIS life. If so, we should keep in mind that however dark our current world may appear due to manifold manifestations of human evil, the very structure of reality, ultimate things beyond our power to corrupt or destroy, is unalterably on the side of LIGHT. I find this strengthening, uplifting conviction sadly missing in much of the contemporary left, an omission which inclines it to, mires it in, enervating and self-defeating dystopian thought.
With absolute respect, but are nuclear bombs really the issue? Hiroshima 140 000 dead, Nagasaki 75 000; Chernobyl 50.
WW2, 30 000 000 dead in Russia that no one talks about; 5 000 000 Koreans died during the Korean War; 1.2 million starved to death in Ethiopia; I can’t even get a count on how many have suffered in Palestine.
A Nuclear Bomb means instantaneous death for most of us, a little bit longer for everybody else; wars last years. Afghanistan’s conflict has gone on for twenty; Palestine’s for 50? I’ve read Helen Caldecott; I follow John Pilger. I know India, Pakistan, the States, Russia, China etc. all have access to scary, omnipotent bombs they do not use…I think the larger concern is with the weapons they choose to…because they are happening right now and it is wrong.
Interesting point. The real issue is, nations’ elites can’t get along without resorting to deadly conflict, and even in democracies, people can’t stop their ruling elite’s conflicts from becoming their conflicts.
Nuclear weapons removed the direct war option from the ‘great’ powers. Even without nukes, conventional weapons development continued and ordinance effects and residues, are, long-term, just as deadly as nuclear war. Just not as quick-ending.
Yet, nukes kept the peace. Proxy wars and economic wars abound, short of their conventional potential.
Limited nuclear war, would begin as EMP warheads, the safest way to deploy a nuke with minimal fallout. Its just that limiting the war to just EMPs is impossible.
I somewhat agree with you . At the moment “biological warfare” has replaced “chemical warfare” as the terror weapon of choice in our new and shiny “war on death” , that a majority of humans seem to be “enjoying” at the moment .
Yes, that bomb was indeed designed for a yield of 100 megatons. Scientists say that an explosion over 100 megatons would be useless–since most of the power exceeding that yield–would be ejected into space! Yikes!
Read the memoirs of William Teller and Andrei Sakharov. Amazing insights.
Well, the article says the 50-megaton blast had a cloud 42 miles high. (Caution: rough calculations ahead. Unchecked assumptions, too.)
Let’s say the volume of a mushroom cloud is in direct proportion to its power, and the cloud expands proportionally in each dimension. If those sayings hold pretty true, then the height of a 100-megaton blast’s cloud would be about 1.26 times the height of a 50-megaton blast’s cloud. (1.26 cubed is JUST over 2.)
That would suggest the 42-mile cloud height for 50 megatons would rise to almost 53 miles for 100 megatons. And AFAIK, the official altitude of the border of space is 50 miles. . . .
There is no one nuke on an ICBM. They are MIRVS or Multiple Independently-targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs). There are multiple war heads which separate to cover a broad area. There is no one big bomb.
Here is a thought experiment. Caitlin actually reads my post and responds. Then we get a dialog going and I convince her that drugs and the miracle of human wokeness is never going to work. The only thing that will work s elevating human logic and reasoning above the bias, perceptions and self-interest of individuals and groups of individuals. We start by putting a call out to programmers and open-source advocates. Our first order is developing a template and open-source program for the comments section like this one. [Children in the distant future (if we survive) will roll on the floor laughing till exhaustion at what we are doing here now. Nothing is created, stored and saved, furthered, organized or resolved. It just rolls along with no logical moderation getting harder to exchange ideas until, hey its
tomorrow lets start all over and do it again!] Then we make this template available for others to use. Eventually it evolves into an apps of sorts where 100,000s of thousands of people are participating in the largest evolutionary event of all human history. They can all join anonymously in a forum moderated by human logic, not the power and influence of individuals or groups of individuals. They have formed a type of ‘collective Intelligence’, a human powered AI of sorts. The conclusions and the formation of the conclusions are transparent and belong to all of us, Humanity. The power they infer belongs to all of us, Humanity. Of course this will not all set well with those who feed and subsist on the power of persuasion, perception, violence etc. There will be Huge push back from ‘power centers’ that exist in the world as we know it today. There will be struggle and conflict between those who value the whole of humanity and the intelligence of humanity as it serves the whole of humanity and those who value ‘power’ that serves their individual needs and wants. The latter will succumb eventually as the Collective Intelligence that now exist has made obsolete everything they used to manipulate the world as we know it now. Leaders are obsolete, media is obsolete, the Idea of Authority and Experts is obsolete. The world has changed, why? Because all those lies, disinformation, misinformation, they spread to get what they wanted were not really just lies. They were obstructions to people like you and me forming conclusions based on solid logic and reasoning and we have that all under control now. It also has made their most formidable weapon obsolete. Why? Nuclear weapons are now not what they were before. They are too encompassing. The enemy is not now delineated by nationality, race, political and economic beliefs or geography. It is simply human against human and how do you individually want the future of humanity to progress. Do you choose anonymous human expression moderated by human logic and reasoning where power is held within the ‘product’ and the lesson of it’s formation, a system where we all humanity have access to this ‘power’. Do you choose the power of social cohesion within nationality, race, geography, ideas, to establish ‘power’ and the idea of leaders who manage and distribute the power. A world based on ‘Individual Intelligence’ as we have now.
https://medium.com/@whmilk/here-is-a-book-i-have-placed-on-amazon-and-smashwords-e864cc0e2c60
https://medium.com/@whmilk/the-value-of-anonymity-in-a-collective-intelligence-c0a003f481b6
https://medium.com/@whmilk/thinking-outside-the-vertical-line-28161b232d64
So technology will be used to rescue us from technology.
Technology will be used to rescue us from ourselves.
Great point , if ironic sarcasm . Within the confines of the new global religion that is materialism the promise of technology with always be a weapon of those seeking power. The only way to defeat an oppressive organization is with tighter organization?
What I see is that ‘power’ is often the goal. Yet at the same time it is all built on sand in the sense that the conclusions put to us are build on perceptions rather that sound logic or reasoning. Like the ‘Russians are Evil’ theme. Why did they not want to FIFA soccer played in Russia. Because people all over the world would go there and see that the Russians were actually some very nice people, the average Russian anyway. This is the fallacy of Demonization. In my view Elementary students should learn this is 1st grade. It is so basic. That is not the world we live in though. In our world leaders of great countries send men to war using this very thing. We have to find a way to develop Conclusions based on sound logic and reasoning rather than ‘perceptions’ formed from whatever sells the message. In Epistemology I believe they call it a ‘justified true belief’.
“Nothing is created, stored and saved, furthered, organized or resolved. It just rolls along with no logical moderation getting harder to exchange ideas until, hey its tomorrow lets start all over and do it again.”
The above I absolutely agree with. Caitlin and Tim and probably all the commenters here write versions of the same thing, over and over and over again. Nothing ever gets argued down to a kernel that everyone can agree with and, even if it did, the kernel could never be elevated to reality because reality is controlled by an Elite who only care about one thing — remaining the Elite.
Later today or tomorrow, Caitlin and Tim will publish another article and the comments on this article will soon be Gone With The Wind or sent down the memory hole. Like Groundhog Day, we’ll all be required to once again type or copy and paste stuff we’ve said maybe a hundred or a thousand times before. Unlike the movie, however, this pattern will likely never change; this day will never end.
Speaking of movies, IMO the movie “Tomorrowland” is one of the most important attempts made so far at “waking up” both the bewildered herd AND its Elite to the ongoing, worsening human crisis. Here’s Governor Nix’s complete speech near the end of the movie.
“Let’s imagine….. if you glimpsed the future; you were frightened by what you saw; what would you DO with that information? You would go to…….the politicians, captains of industry?
And how would you convince them? Data? Facts? Good luck. The only facts they WON’T challenge are the ones that keep the wheels greased and the dollars rolling in.
But what if… what if there was a way of skipping the middle man and putting the critical news directly into everyone’s head?
The probability of wide-spread annihilation kept going up. The only way to stop it was to show it—to scare people straight ……….because what reasonable human being wouldn’t be galvanized by the potential destruction of everything they’ve ever known or loved?
To save civilization, I would show its collapse.
But how do you think this vision was received? How do you think people RESPONDED to the prospect of imminent doom?
They gobbled it up like a chocolate eclair! They didn’t fear their demise, they re-packaged it. It could be enjoyed as video-games, as TV shows, books, movies. The entire world wholeheartedly embraced the apocalypse and sprinted towards it with gleeful abandon.
Meanwhile, your Earth was crumbling all around you.
You’ve got simultaneous epidemics of obesity and starvation. Explain that one!
Bees and butterflies start to disappear; the glaciers melt; algae blooms.
All around you the coal mine canaries are dropping dead and YOU WON”T TAKE THE HINT!
In every moment there’s the possibility of a better future, but you people won’t believe it. And because you won’t believe it, you won’t DO what is necessary to make it a reality. So you dwell on this, oh, terrible future. You resign yourselves to it for one reason…… because THAT future does not ask anything of you TODAY.
So yes, we saw the iceberg and warned the Titanic ……but you all just steered for it anyway, full steam ahead. Why? Because you WANT to sink! “
Thanks! Loved the quotes from the movie. Personally I don’t believe we really want it all to end. I see it as more, we know there is no other way so we embrace it. It is our reality. Why do we always wage war? Because we can’t ‘reason together’ consistently is a productive fashion to ever work things out. War is just a reset, a brutal reset. The real problem though is not the war it is the former. Why can we not ‘work it out’, because we each process the info available to us in a black box no one can see inside, housed in our ‘person’ with all it’s needs, wants and failings. Why should one person ever fully trust another, especially someone they don’t know well. Human logic and reasoning have to play the game of pass it on where you tell this person and they tell that person. All along the way errors (Fallacies) are introduced. In fact it is even worse than that. For some The errors (Fallacies) are a means to an end. That is what keeps Caitlin busy. That is why I advocate for a neutral, transparent, third party platform, which empowers all the participants equally and is moderated by human logic not a king, God, ruler, authority, expert etc. Rather than the black box to black box to black box method.
The situation has to evolve/revolve/dissolve at it’s own rate. The WOK-ers are being WOK-ed. It’s an Asian way of cooking, done slowly or quickly to a turn. The process is intensifying and accelerating.
If you shout at them they reinforce their barriers and increase their reject-ivity. It’s FEAR mostly.
It has to DAWN on them, if it’s going to happen at all.
One can but hope for a brighter day. Don’t hold your breath. Remember the maxim that ‘Cancer is a socially acceptable method of commiting suicide.
BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE YOURSELF> What the McKenna bros called ‘change agents..’
Hi Clint. I am a programmer and have published a number of open-source projects. I have been working on a very similar idea to what you are describing. The software is not the hard part. The hard part is the way such a system gets used. I think you under-estimate the effort people would need to put into populating the content, and over-estimate the benefit. The fact that so little is resolved in the current forum is an indicator of the problem. There is only so much a template can do to facilitate that. If you are truly interested in following this up, my email address is glenelgpsmith at gmail dot com, no need to wait for anyone else to start a conversation. You may as well act now.
Here’s the very first thing that consciousness-raised Americans should realize and fully acknowledge to themselves by crossing their legs and repeating the following a thousand times a day.
The US has a war-based economy that will literally collapse if world peace somehow breaks out.
In order to understand why this is true, one has to ask and answer the following question. Just exactly WHY to do warmongers get elected election after election after election; and just exactly WHY will this once again be the case in November?
The REAL answer to that question has absolutely NOTHING to do with “national defense” or brainwashing and absolutely everything to do with jobs, money and profit. I’ll use the patriotic voters of Virginia to prove that what I’m saying is true.
Population of Virginia = 8.4 million
Number of Registered Voters in Virginia = 5.7 million
Dollar Amount of Defense Contracts Awarded to Contractors in Virginia in only the year 2019 = $50.46 billion
Dollar Amount of Defense Contracts Awarded to Contractors in Virginia from 2000 to 2019 = $781.6 billion
Number of Defense Contracts Awarded to Contractors in Virginia from 2000 to 2019 = 1,291,034
Number of Defense Contractors in Virginia = 17,877
(To confirm my above statistics, Google “governmentcontractswon”, go to that site, select “contractors by state”on the right side of the page and select Virginia on the drop-down list.)
So, what do you think the likelihood is that the vast majority of voters of Virginia are going to vote for a peacenik for POTUS in November? I’ll give my answer.
Zero.
And what do you think the likelihood is that the vast majority of voters of Virginia are going to vote for an R or D warmonger for POTUS in November? I’ll give my answer.
100%.
Now, is the reason that voters in Virginia select warmongers for POTUS election after election after election, and will do so again in November, that they are brainwashed, or have not had their consciousness expanded enough, or have not smoked enough dope or taken enough LSD or ingested enough magic mushrooms or stared at the moon long enough; or is it because they vitally depend upon that yearly DoD injection of well over $50 billion dollars, literally forever, and that they do not want to lose their jobs and quite possibly their homes?
It’s the $50 billion!
The awful truth that the vast majority of Americans know, but are too afraid to say, is that Virginians know EXACTLY what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. And that as far as they’re concerned, Mr. Potato-Head or the Tangerine Jackass are both perfectly qualified to hold the title of POTUS because BOTH will increase the war budget from here to eternity. And that Virginia voters don’t give a shit how many people are killed by the weapons they help produce.
The shocking truth is that as long as the present whatever-you-want-to-cal-it “system” in the US remains the same — war-based– the voters in Virginia and the rest of the United In Warfare States of America are not going to elect a peacenik for the next thousand years!
Virginia is a microcosm of the USA. AmeriKKKans say they want peace, but what they really want is perpetual war which justifies the annual DoD money-injection (which, in turn, requires the Fed to print literally “whatever it takes” amount of drone-standard USD out of thin air which will pay for those injections from now to eternity) …………… until the bombs drop on Main Street, USA. And ONLY. AFTER. that INEVITABLY happens, will there be a very serious, nearly-instantaneous, nation-wide “consciousness expansion”…… in the heads of those still “living”, of course.
Therefore, here’s the most important question that voters who do NOT want to experience a nuclear war should ask themselves before entering the voting booth in November. Whom do I think will resist the Deep State Department and CIA’s desire/obsession/advice/orders to attack Russia, China, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran etc. — Mr. Potato-Head or the ever-more-disgusting-by-the-day Tangerine Jackass? (Not that those two morons are the only remaining candidates, but as far as the bewildered herd is concerned, they might as well be.)
Wow. Pretty harsh comments about my home state. You must be from Maryland. 😉
I can state with confidence it isn’t quite 100% though. I’m a native and current resident and I won’t be voting D or R. Haven’t in almost 30 years. There may be a few more out there too.
I pretty much agree with the rest of it though.
Glad we’ve got an expert on Virginia here. What is the % chance that you think that Virginia’s voters are going to elect a warmonger for president in November? (Not the percentage of Virginians that are going to vote for a warmonger; the percent chance that Virginians AS A WHOLE are going to vote for a warmonger as opposed to an anti-war candidate. Big difference between the two. I’m saying that there is a 100% chance that at least 50% of the votes cast by Virginians are going to be for either Mr. Potato-Head or Donito Assolini. More likely it will be 95% of Virginia’s voters who do that, but, either way, it’s 100% certain that Virginians are going to choose either of those morons for POTUS.)
FWIW, thanks for NOT voting for an R or a D for almost 30 years. I’m sure that there are maybe a few thousand other wise Virginians who’ve done the same. I just wish you’d all breed a lot faster in the near future.
Yeah. I missed the “vast majority” part. Thanks for the detailed correction.
I don’t remember claiming expertise. Maybe I missed that too …
Of the two of us you seem to be the expert.
Thanks for your approval of my voting.
Peace.
Your analysis assumes that the weapons industry and MIC cannot be transformed to create products and provide services that value life over death. It’s the same assumption that locks us into killing the planet by depletion and pollution. The coal miners and others like them need their extractive jobs, and they’re not going to vote themselves out of their employment by electing a “green” candidate, etc. One initial answer to this quandary is MMT’s Job Guarantee, which, among other socioeconomic benefits, would allow for the necessary transformation of destructive industries without affecting individual livelihoods. In other words, the universal guarantee of a secure and decent job would create immense political space for voters to do the right thing. This is one of the principal reasons why it’s so opposed by the PTB.
Newton, how many R and D candidates proposed either outright cutting or converting say 75% of the MIC budget to pay people to build useful stuff that would benefit society? AFAIK, none. If at least ONE had at least proposed that, that would IMO have represented a big step forward. But it did not happen. Therefore, look forward to more and more and more of the same intensifying foreign policy until the bombs drop on Main Street , USA. The People of the USA apparently want to invest more and more “money” in war and that is exactly what they’re going to experience.
If that’s your final, unshakable conclusion, then why are you spending time on this blog?
I’m 70, retired, have lots of spare time, a wife of approximately the same age, and two grand children I love dearly. Just maybe something I write will have an effect on someone’s voting behavior.
If it were not for the grand children, I would not type a word.
Agree with you 100%.
And now, with NATO nuclear weapons on Russia’s doorstep, the reaction time is almost nil. Russia would not have time to make a well considered decision. Since their introduction and proliferation, there has been no choice but to continue development. For the simple reason that psychopaths are in charge of all such powers, and could easily step off the cliff, if not for fear of retaliation. The truly scary part is, being insane, its quite possible one of them will jump off anyway.
That is why Russia announced recently that ANY rocket attack on its territory will be answered immediately with a nuclear counter strike, as there simply insufficient time to confirm the missiles carry nuclear or conventional warheads.
One hopes that this clear message will get into some heads, although it seems it will do nothing to stop further NATO encroachment – see the Belarus situation where NATO hopes to get a foothold.
So True! Thank You! “ON” Going UNIVERSE!
Those of us alive in 1950s and 60s Britain became very aware of the threat of nuclear war as we grew up. Footage of the nuclear bombing of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki played constantly on our telly screens. Headlines of the arms race and photos of hydrogen bomb tests were splashed across the front pages of newspapers. There was genuine fear through my early school years and into art college accompanying each potential crisis that threatened to break out int nuclear conflagration. Events like the Cuba crisis and the Six-day war in the Middle East had us imagining what we would do in the four minutes warning we were told we would have before being shrivelled beyond recognition. As an art student in the late 60s I hadn’t even had my first sexual adventure, so I exaclty knew what I’d try to do if I could find anyone willing enough. I didn’t realise that I’d probably be left with three minutes to spare afterwards. The thing is that we were much more aware of the potential consequences, something far fewer people seem to be nowadays, in this ostrich head-in-the-sand world we Westerners inhabit. We need to make ourselves aware that we are ruled by a dangerous clique of psychopaths, who already have their luxury bunkers waiting, though I doubt the world they will have to emerge into when the firestorms die down will be quite what they expected.
“Unequivocal 9/11 Nukes” > “Breathtaking: Solving Nuclear 9/11” >
“Exposing NIST Jenga Game” > VeteransToday(.)com
miniaturization leads to proliferation and DETONATION
Americans assume that only select nations can legally build and stockpile nuclear weapons. Corporate media and the US Government constantly warn of grave danger if nations like Iran illegally develop nuclear weapons. They cite the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the NPT. This is an international treaty to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and to achieve worldwide nuclear disarmament. This treaty means that Iran and the United States should not have nuclear weapons. Nearly every nation in the world signed the NPT because it promised to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide. The core purpose of the NPT is to eliminate nuclear arms, not to perpetuate the nuclear monopoly of a few countries.
You make a good point, though I personally believe that every man, woman and child in the world should be given their own nuclear device to do with however they please; only by threat of retaliation will the psychopaths of the world stop trying ceaselessly to kill us all.
Thank you Caitlin for writing about things we all want to put aside but shouldn’t. If nothing else it made me, and I believe many other people, more thoughtful about how we want to spend our time – making it something to be proud of – or another excuse to hide in a hole and be ashamed of ourselves.
That is why I imagined every church bell in America ringing all at once
when WWIII Hillary lost in 2016.
And now when I hear a Democrat complain about something I think to myself,
“you don’t even realize, nor would you ever even admit to yourself, what you almost did to humanity”.
I can’t see Ms Clinton embarking on any course of action which had a fair chance of leading to her personal extinction. This is the great thing about nuclear weapons: should a war break out in which they were widely used, all the great leaders are quite likely to be vaporized along with their subjects. In fact, more likely, as they would be primary targets. In their hesitation about blowing themselves up, they appear to be a lot more rational than the people who support them. Which is strange, given their obvious mental deficiencies like ignorance, sociopathy and narcissism.
You are being a poster child for
Normal But Insane
I get your point, but now we American voters face a similar quandary. We have in office a bumbling narcissist, a belligerent bully unable to govern, yet his opponent, with personal issues of his own, has been in bed with the same warmongers that Hillary loved to sleep with. All sensible American voters should vote third party in this untenable situation, but relentless MSM conditioning has reduced the numbers of such voters to marginal significance. This is not even to mention the pandemic still raging in the U.S., which seems to have handled it far less effectively than any other so-called developed nation. Christ, I hope that the old saying is true, that it’s always darkest before the dawn. Meanwhile, we can each live our lives as Caitlin urges, and perhaps that will help trigger once again a sudden, unexpected shift in the zeitgeist, similar to “the great inversion” I experienced as a young man.
On top of which Biden probably banged Hillary while they all were together in bed
Here is another thought experiment…
What if the gubermints that are lying to us all the time… are also lying about nuclear weapons?
What if the ‘science’ behind smashing two lumps of radioactive material together is false?
What if these nuclear bombs do not actually work?
Mushroom clouds are produced by conventional explosions as well as supposed nuclear explosions.
Footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki post bombing shows no difference with the 60 or so other Japanese cities (of wooden buildings) leveled to ashes by ‘ordinary’ bombs. A concrete building at the ‘epicentre’ stood barely damaged. Maybe those two bombs were seeded with a bit of radioactive material?
The footage of ‘tests’ is generally shoddy. Don’t believe everything you watch.
Why would they lie to us about this? Divide and rule. You need us to protect you from a world full of threats.
Its a miracle that nuclear weapons haven’t been used since 1945 🙂 or, they just don’t work.
This is quite a good read – not perfect but some good thought experiments…
Fake Aliens and The Phony Nuke World Order Amazon Kindle Edition by Simon Charles Smith
If you actually study the science you may be enlightened.
You’re not too far off the mark; that has actually already happened, but for slightly different reasons. In addition, new and improved methods of building explosive nuclear devices have come on line so that almost anyone with an extra million to play with can build there own.
If its that easy to build a nuclear bomb then it is an even more wondrous miracle that one hasn’t gone off in anger, or even accidentally.
How lucky we are.
Just a thought experiment 🙂
Have you heard that nuclear power plants are not actually fueled by nuclear fission, but instead by “secret” (prabably subterranean) deliveries of millions of tons of coal and super-submarines carrying hundreds of millions of gallons of Iranian oil? I can can swallow that theory, but what can’t wash it down with is why a power company would do it, just as I cannot undertand why a country would claim to have dropped a nuke on Japan when that lie could have been, and certainly would have been, so easily disproven. The proof of a nuclear expolsion would have been found blowing in the wind……….. and not just by the one nation that caused it.
Yes, a slow release of energy works in nuclear power stations.
Big nuclear explosions have supposedly happened in tests and in Japan.
Japan’s emperor and army got an honourable way of surrendering to the US – the technology beat us.
It is not in the interests of the powers’ that be to blow the whistle.
The corporate media would not rock the boat.
How could a whistle blower get their information to we the publc without losing everything? Maybe its not so easy to go against the lies, even if you wanted to.
Just a thought experiment 🙂
Ms Johnstone your articles and the articles of other great Internet writers help me retain my sanity.
The greatest peril to a state occurs when its people no longer believe that it represents them. When that faith fails, as it did in Periclean Athens, in late imperial Rome, Republican Spain, and Weimar Germany, state machinery seizes up, its authority dissolves, and there is war in the streets. That we are nearing such a point is made obvious by the bitter polarity and violent opposition between Trump and anti-Trump factions, but also in a deeper, more dangerous division between the tyrannical, wealthy oligarchy that owns the country and demands endless war and American hegemony, and the great majority that lives as economic victims of that insane ruling clique.
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Now, faced with by far the most ominous sociopolitical disfunction of our modern history, and with the overlay of the unknown destructive potential of Coronavirus and the certainty of inexorable climate catastrophe already evident, we are given the Presidential election of 2020, hyped to the max by solemn, phony politicians and hysterical media flacks, packaged as if it addressed, in any way, the interlocking complex of impending disasters.
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The absurdist commedia del arte of two old, ridiculously inept, and grossly impaired buffoons heading two sick cadres of leased political whores who jointly serve the .0001%, is the memento mori of America. Regardless of the outcome of this sorry farce, the end of the country in any recognizable form will be accelerated, fast tracked to implosion.
This great article can be read here:
American Recessional by Paul Edwards
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55508.htm
So how do you tell this to your children? And why the hell do people still have children in this insane and doomed world? It must be just about the most selfish thing you can do right now, bringing new life into this horror story, at least when you are actually aware of what is going on. Explain this to me, please.
The new people may be better than the old people. There’s a chance. And a chance is better than the nothing of lying down and letting yourself die.
I am mystified by the brokenness of our brains until I realize as long as there are those who will to power over us, they’ll keep breaking our bodies and brains to keep the power. We are so fragile and easy to control with pain and fear–and even more easily with pleasure and treats and sex and shame and psychology.
No, I’m not wearing a tinfoil hat. But I’m also aware that right about the time we got nuclear bombs , and we really, really needed our whole brains to deal with that scenario, we also got television. And more television and more television and then video games and internet and 24 hour “news” and now? Not one in three of us has a goddamned working brain any more.
I cannot be convinced that three–no, four–generations of nonstop exposure of our plastic brains to the radically changed neural environment of the last 80 years is not responsible for the deficits we are all noticing. Caitlin calls these deficits out all the time: inability to follow simple narratives. Dumb, oxlike incapacity to see simple truths–like criminal actions in the White House–so that they don’t even bother to hide them any more. Acceptance of truly outrageous assertions (They gerrymandered it how???). Inability to read, so that now there are only pictures on things. The death of discourse; all the things you know about.
Our evolution apparently took a long, tedious path up, what with the accidental mutation way of improvement. Our devolution seems to be happening a lot faster, as we are dumbing ourselves down as fast as we can.
And do not misunderstand: I am NOT railing against lack of intelligence or falling IQs or any of that crap. Forrest Gump’s momma had it right: Stupid is as stupid does. No, I’m talking about the hollowing out, the starving of the part of the brain that connects human to human; that learns to listen and care; that solves problems because it does care. I’m talking about the whole function of the brain, the parts that have atrophied because all we cared about for decades were profit and likes and stimulation.
All of which kept us from thinking of the war to come. Which would have made us sad. Uncontrollably sad.
Uncontrollable.
Ah, nuts, Caitlin… Thanks for a harsh truth. Not many people strong enough.
Bless you for a fool and a prophet.
Amen, Christine, Amen!
We are so fragile and easy to control with pain and fear–and even more easily with pleasure and treats and sex and shame and psychology.
This is exactly what we are required to think, Christine.
From your perspective, escape looks futile, impossible.
We are disabled before we try the limits of our strength and innovativeness.
When the world looks like this : you are receiving mudShadowRadio loud and clear.
I’m talking about the hollowing out, the starving of the part of the brain that connects human to human;
that learns to listen and care; that solves problems because it does care.
I’m talking about the whole function of the brain, the parts that have atrophied because all we cared about for decades were profit and likes and stimulation.
I’m talking about the dynamics which underlie this accurate assessment of the current disabled state of being. Enough thinkers know about our predicament ; what we need now is countermeasures for the actual cause of mankind’s blindness : the unWillingness to risk activating my own dormant faculties.
`
Most of our faculties are intact, ready for service whenever we feed them sufficient energy to fire up the machinery of expanded awareness. The faculty most people have atrophied is their ability to use Reason as a tool. Everybody uses Reason as a plaything, that’s why jokes are sometimes funny ; discontinuities of reasoning are something to laugh about, not to strain at gnats noR swallow camels.
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I think the underlying cause of universalAlienation can be solved, because it is coming from an outside cause. Once we restore an adequate defence of our sovereignty, we will get back to muddling along quite nicely.
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If one reads any holy book from outside its paradigm . . . the claims they make look grotesque.
We are the slaves of Allah, the (stupid) sheep of Jesus, useless beggars for Krishna’s divine kindness.
Yet far too many people actually believe this conceptualSabotage of our worth and sovereignty.
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We are capable of exceptional intelligence in some topics, and absurdly incompetent in others. This is not natural. We can build reliable supersonic aircraft, an impressive technology far beyond the scope of an individual ; so we are able to collaborate against excruciating technical difficulties.
Compare this with the News, an endless parade of pretenders so stupid it’s enough to make our eyes bleed with dismay.
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This is not naturalStupidity ; this is artificialStupidity, in part attributable to a cognitive virus bundled with a realtyMap so worthless they give it away to anyone. There’s idle bibles in drawers all over the planet, cognitive software specifically designed by nonHumans to bugger our ability to think properly. Meanwhile the materialists (who only pretend to be sceptics) insult our intelligence by saying nothing exists until it’s proven to them.
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Now is time for purposeful insight and whatever-it-takes ferocity to take back the meaning of Meaning, not for the defeated sadness of self-pity disguised as compassion.
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We have been robbed of our human heritage, not by a bunch of superiorArseHoles and duplicitous politicians, but by a predator that swindles our self-respect and our ability to decide . . . as offspring of a Creator who neither worships gods, noR believes in Liars.
Panasonic now has a small device that they are trying out in the dating industry, looks like a watch, kind of, that when two people touch or hold hands, can read each other’s mind and tell each of them, independently, if the other is a good fit. Works by accessing each other’s electromagnetic field that surrounds all mammals, very close to if not in fact telepathy. So, maybe we should all get one and cut out the murderous psychopaths that smile at us as we walk past them on our sidewalks.
When I was told I was scheduled to depart my home shores for the funny country, (Vietnam) I knew I might not come back home in one piece, or more than likely in a box. I was 18 years old at the time,. I had no objection to going to Vietnam, I needed to see for myself, what the truth over there was. It was the most eye opening experience of my life. I have never, ever again believed the M.S.M. or any politician since. I have also come to peace with my mortality. I don’t fear death, it’s a part of life, I believe we are on this earth to enjoy everything it has to offer and leave it as we found it. I have over the years, voiced my beliefs and opinions, trying to shine a light into the darkness that surrounds us, but people refuse to look into the light, thus I believe, what comes, will come, no matter what. If these idiots blow up the planet, the good coming from that, will be the death of humanity. From my perspective, that is not a bad thing, as I cannot recall any event that humanity has initiated, that has benefited the earth, or any of it’s life forms existing upon it. In fact I consider humanity a POX, or virus, if you will, on this planet, slowly devouring this planet all in the name of PROFIT. Bring on the nuclear event, bend over and kiss your butt goodbye, it’s the best thing to happen for this earth.
Reading this excellent article took me back to the horror of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 when I was in sixth grade. My teacher tried to be reassuring but the fear in his voice gave away the gravity of the situation. That night I asked my mom if the world was going to end. She said there were intelligent men on both sides, who would figure it out. After a fretful, uncomfortable night’s sleep, I was elated to see the sun rising over the mountain outside my bedroom window.
In 2017, I attended a lecture that was presented by Dr. Sergei Khrushchev, who was Nikita Khrushchev’s son, at the National Atomic Testing Museum (of all places) here in Las Vegas.. Nikita Khrushchev was the Soviet Premier during the Cuban crisis. Sergei said that they were as terrified during the crisis as we were. My mom was right about there being intelligent men on both sides like Nikita, Bobby, Jack, Adlai, et al. , who figured it out. Nowadays, I’m not sure men like these still exist.
Indeed we’ve been living with the threat but still, the feeling I get upon seeing the mushroom cloud on the horizon is instant and overwhelming grief, to be honest..
I guess I have succumbed to the terrible realization many many years ago that the end may come at any time. Whenever I wake up the first thought that I have is : ” well the idiots have not blown us up yet-I will have to get up “! Our species is grossly dysfunctional. Our leaders are insane as well as being completely devoid of any morals or ethics. We make guns as well as nuclear weapons and we give them to people so that they can kill one another. Someday ” the computers ” will have complete control of all of the nuclear weapons; the computers may decide that humanity does not deserve to exist and kills us all. There is no logic in remaining stupid but that is all our species knows how to do. Our ” end is inevitable ” it is only a matter of time before it happens.
LOL, As though somehow life is all that precious, if life means all that much to you then perhaps you should rethink your life. If you ever spent any time thinking about it; what’s the big deal about when you die? If you can’t live forever then even your birth and your conception was a form of murder.
More wisdom and generosity from Lynn, not.
I vomit on your disgusting mind and the filth it imparts. .
Like most predictions, I personally feel they are too pessimistic. A nuclear winter will ensue but based on prevailing winds etc, some small remnant will survive. Mankind will again be thrown into a deep dark age of bare subsistence. I have often wondered if this cycle of destruction has played out several times in the past. It is all very bleak. I personally will not survive the initial blast since I live 25 miles from a nuclear targeted area. I feel most sorry for the survivors. It is a subject few of us seldom dwell upon.
Very thought provoking, Cailtin. Thank you for the reminder, and the nudge out of our complacency. History is not on our side when it comes to mankind using the nastiest weapons available, so you’re right, it is only a matter of time before somebody starts a nuclear war. Not if, but when. And the most likely culprit is of course the cornered animal, the most aggressive one – the USA.
An almost lifelong anti nuclear crusader, Helen Caldicott,
has done her utmost to curb the death wish of our demented leaders.
https://www.helencaldicott.com/the-lessons-we-havent-learned/
It is with a BANG not a ‘virus’ that the world could end.
Caitlin, I am a retired nuclear weapons tech Warrant Officer. Why did I go into that field? I was an “Army volunteer”. I did not ask for it but was chosen by the Army after I had too much of a different field of endeavor. Everyone that I worked with, men and women were serious about their jobs. They understood they had but one mistake. But there was no paperwork after that mistake. We ALL worked on “ground zero”. There were no illusions.
I cross trained into so called non-conventional weapons. There the attitudes were different. It was a lax almost totally relaxed atmosphere because for most of these systems there is not that same “ground zero” knowledge/feeling. In the nuclear field it is said that the only thing you are promised when are born is that you will die. Live your life as every second is your last. Tell those that you love, that you love them, at every opportunity. And never trust a politician.
Thank you.
Absolutely fantastic post. I wonder If I am unusual in that I dream often of that exact scenario, have for years. I’ve had two or three experiences in “waking moments” of the same. Was born in ‘55, so never really lived without the omnipresent fear of total destruction at any time. It’s become a constant for all post-wwII people everywhere, even if they are not “aware” of it, it’s there buzzing in the background, a cancerous stressor.
Caitlin in her prime is wonderful to behold.
More content in one essay than most books.
So this teenage summer-lifeguard goes to scrub graffiti off a school after work, then goes over to help protect a garage from getting destroyed in a riot, and also to provide first aid. He does both thing, but he’s got an aR-15 when he’s giving first aid, and some of the people he kept away from the garage he was protecting recognize him and attack him in a couple of waves. He shoots the first guy rushing him from behind in the arm, and then renders first aid, until more people come after him, shouting to others to join them. He runs, stumbles, is beaten and more are gathering around him to beat him more. He shoots the closest 2 guys beating them, one who also has a firearm, shoots them dead.
Who gave the 17 year old lifeguard with a first aid kit the AR-15?
That’s the important question in war.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/08/kyle-rittenhouse-working-lifeguard-kenosha-day-shooting-went-clean-vandalism-school-work/
If he didn’t have the AR-15, would he have been beaten to death by the mob?
Exactly.
Were you there? The way your comment is written it seems that way. We have all learned not to trust media accounts of anything involving politics or economics. It seems from this and your other comments that you are very ready to believe anything that agrees with your political standpoint.
It is not yet a war, but if the Trump administration gets its way it will become one, and guess who has all the big weapons.
Maybe the real question for you is where did you get that account from, and why do you trust it so much?
Isnt everything just hearsay today. I am not sure what to believe but I do know what not to believe. Anything promoted by the MSM.
John, I think you have some blinders on. You often say, “Don’t take sides.” But then you do. I don’t think we have enough information about this travesty to make clarifying sentences of substance.That was the biggest right wing slant piece you posted that I’ve yet seen written on this still shaky subject. Kyle Rittenhouse was no Boy Scout… and he’s likely going down for a very long time. Good.
Precisely. Good post.
I think the most important question is what actually happened. Based on the charging document your description of the shootings is off a bit.
https://journaltimes.com/news/local/read-the-criminal-charges-filed-against-kyle-rittenhouse/article_58490a6a-f25d-51fc-b2d1-a7d58ac685b1.html.
Peace.
Excellent, pigpen. Thank you.
These are the charges the (cowardly, Leftist) Kenosha authorities are trying to nail the kid with.
I predict he’ll walk on everything except the misdemeanor underage count, and they’ll refuse to push that because it will be overturned by the SCOTUS if they take it that far.
Yes. They are the charges. The document includes the probable cause statement. I’m sure the defense will present any conflicting evidence they find.
With hindsight I should have written “may be off a bit”. I don’t claim to know either way and make no predictions. I have also learned a lesson about replying off topic from Caitlyn’s original post.
Peace.
This is the single most important piece of yours I have ever seen.
What is needed is not simply the abolition of nuclear weapons, but a fundamental change in the way we view conflict.
What I call the Parabellum Paradigm – the idea that empathetic negotiation is to be eschewed in favor of demonization of the enemy, in concert with an insistence in almost all cases upon unconditional surrender for conflict termination – has certainly received a fair hearing.
And it has failed.
In Crimea in 1853, in the American South in 1861, in Flanders in 1914, in Poland in 1939, across the global confrontation we call the Cold War from 1945-1990 (notably in the Falklands Islands in 1982), and in the years since then as the so-called War on Terror has taken shape, the Parabellum Paradigm has led time and again to disaster, as the take-no-prisoners approach to pre-conflict negotiations has, time and again, resulted in unnecessary bloodshed and chaos.
We need to change the way we think about conflict before it destroys us – India and Pakistan alone possess the means to end human civilization, and we cannot sit by and allow that to happen.
Finally, I have a thought experiment of my own for you:
Imagine the chagrin of a leader whose government has invested in the resources, infrastructure, and capital, human and otherwise, to build a nuclear weapon. S/he has likely been spurred on by the promise of “sitting at the nuclear high table” — only to discover on arrival that everyone sitting around that table has an explosive vest strapped on and a detonator taped to one hand.
Because the undeniable fact is that, in this era of deeper knowledge of nuclear winter and its prerequisites, the leaders of the nuclear weapons states, declared or otherwise, are morally and functionally equivalent to suicide bombers.