Half of the responders to an innovative new survey of 3,000 Americans conducted by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the British research firm YouGov reported that they would support a nuclear strike against North Korea if it tested a long-range missile capable of reaching the continental United States. A third said they’d actually prefer such a strike over other hypothetical responses.
“For example, while ‘only’ 33 percent of the US public prefer a US preventive nuclear strike that would kill 15,000 North Koreans, 50 percent approve,” the report reads.
The study found little change in preference for a preemptive nuclear strike whether the hypothetical scenario offered to respondents entailed the death of 15,000 North Korean civilians or one million. Preferences for a preemptive strike only dropped when the hypothetical scenario reduced the probability of success (meaning elimination of North Korea’s nuclear retaliatory capabilities) was reduced from ninety to fifty percent.
The survey found a large knowledge deficit in responders regarding nuclear weapons, with a majority reporting an unrealistic amount of confidence in both the US military’s ability to eliminate all of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal in a preemptive strike and in its ability to shoot down North Korean missiles using current missile defense systems. This inaccurate perspective was significantly higher among Trump supporters.
While the study found that a majority of Americans would prefer to de-escalate against North Korea if given the choice, a jarring number of them would be willing to use nuclear weapons at the drop of a hat, and believe it’s possible to do so at relatively little risk to Americans.
“As we have previously found, the US public exhibits only limited aversion to nuclear weapons use and a shocking willingness to support the killing of enemy civilians,” write the report’s authors.
“As we have previously found, the U.S. public exhibits only limited aversion to nuclear weapons use and a shocking willingness to support the killing of enemy civilians.” https://t.co/B5ufHNmFyX
— Jeffrey Kaye (@jeff_kaye) June 25, 2019
And really, why would we expect anything else? After all, Americans are taught the lie since they are children that their nation, the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons, did so with the goal of bringing a quick and painless end to a horrible world war. Like so much else, this ultimately boils down to the effects of propaganda.
“Most Americans have been taught that using atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 was justified because the bombings ended the war in the Pacific, thereby averting a costly U.S. invasion of Japan,” reads an excellent 2016 LA Times article on this subject by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznik. “This erroneous contention finds its way into high school history texts still today.”
In reality, the sole purpose of dropping nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was not to end the war, but to show the rest of the world in general and the Soviets in particular that the United States had both the capability and the savagery to wipe out any city in the world with a single bomb. The war, in fact, had already been won, and the Japanese were already on the brink of surrender as the fearsome Soviet forces entered into the war in the Pacific. The narrative that the use of nuclear bombs was a tragic but necessary means to end World War II is a lie that the US has used its cultural hegemony to circulate around the world, much like the lie that America was mostly responsible for Germany’s defeat and not the USSR.
I always get a lot of pushback from Americans when I point to this, not because I don’t have facts on my side but because it’s so glaringly different from the dominant narratives that Americans are spoon fed in school. If you don’t believe me, read the aforementioned LA Times article titled “Bombing Hiroshima changed the world, but it didn’t end WWII“, or this article from The Nation, or this one from Mises Institute.
Seriously, read the articles if this is upsetting you. This is an established fact to which contemporary generals at the time have attested. The uncomfortable feeling you’re experiencing upon reading this is called cognitive dissonance. It’s what learning you’ve been lied to your whole life feels like.
"Using nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability" said new DoD doctrine before it was taken offline https://t.co/eRzUAnTOBu
— Steven Aftergood (@saftergood) June 19, 2019
This report on the American public’s widespread ignorance of and indifference to the consequences of nuclear weapons use comes shortly after the US Joint Chiefs of Staff briefly published and then removed from public access an update on their position on the use of nukes which contains the alarming line, “Using nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability. Specifically, the use of a nuclear weapon will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and create conditions that affect how commanders will prevail in conflict.”
So the people responsible for forming America’s nuclear strategies believe using nuclear weapons is not just acceptable, but potentially beneficial. The mass media have been completely ignoring this horrifying revelation, and the public are too awash in disinformation to do anything about it themselves.
Anyone who believes it’s acceptable to use nuclear weapons for any other reason than retaliation against another nuclear attack shouldn’t be allowed to operate heavy machinery, much less participate in the formation of nuclear strategy for the most powerful military force in the history of civilization. The correct response to North Korea having nuclear retaliatory capabilities is the same as the response to any other nuclear power: leave them alone. The narrative that North Korea’s leadership is likely to launch an unprovoked attack is exactly as baseless and moronic as the narratives about Iraq or Iran launching an unprovoked attack. It’s not a thing.
Accounts of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima should compel any reasonable person to support the UN #nuclearban treaty https://t.co/t9akpVsrSe pic.twitter.com/iRpk67CjbU
— Tim Wright (@TimMilesWright) August 7, 2017
As tensions continue to escalate between nuclear powers around the world while the faltering US empire becomes increasingly desperate to maintain its global hegemony, human extinction via nuclear annihilation is just as real a possibility as it was at the height of the last Cold War.
But it isn’t just the use of nuclear weapons which threatens us. Their very existence warps us as a species. Arundhati Roy writes the following in her book The Algebra of Infinite Justice:
“It is such supreme folly to believe that nuclear weapons are deadly only if they are used. The fact that they exist at all, their very presence in our lives, will wreak more havoc than we can begin to fathom. Nuclear weapons pervade our thinking. Control our behaviour. Administer our societies. Inform our dreams. They bury themselves like meathooks deep in the base of our brains… The nuclear bomb is the most anti-democratic, anti-national, anti-human, outright evil thing that man has ever made. Through it, man now has the power to destroy God’s creation.”
This needs to change. And it won’t be changed by those in power who benefit from the status quo. Humanity itself must awaken from the propaganda cages which have been built around our minds so that the people can use the power of their numbers to force a change. The time to wake up is now.
________________________
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74 responses to “Survey: Americans Have Remarkably Ignorant Attitude Toward Nukes And North Korea”
” Humanity itself must awaken from the propaganda cages which have been built around our minds …” I suspect that what makes those cages strong is that they are built around more primitive (and far stronger) cages of fear, anger, power, greed, etc.
Propaganda cages have huge inertia, like a big dynamic chaotic system. Innumerable messages comprising the cage are driven into hurricanes of narrative flow that can persist through positive feedback.
Many people subconsciously accept propaganda while others consciously accept it being willfully ignorant as protection against destroying some deeply held personal belief system. Nonbelievers have a huge challenge standing up against that hurricane’s brutal wind.
I would hazard a guess that many of those willing to nuke North Korea would be those too stupid to find it on a map. And those educated enough but still wanting to nuke North Korea would be amoral psychopaths.
UK Pollsters YouGov have a base of people who have signed up to take polls for rewards, incentives, pay. How representative of any population would that be? Most people do not sit around taking polls, but those 3000 respondents to this poll, from a pool of people came to them hoping it would be worth something to them to take polls, aren’t a representative sample of a general population who isn’t sitting around taking polls everyday online for reward. Just imagine ‘who it is’ (political party influencers, basement dwellers?) has time to join an online polling site. Trust them to answer thoughtfully & not to have some fun with the answers? I’m sure the responses are about as trustworthy as the majority of polls- not very. Studies show most pollsters ask very leading questions and responders try to ‘give the right answer’, or what the questioner leads them to say.
Must have been only Americans who got all worked up and commented here, since they’re the only people dumb enough (right?) to believe online polls (or any polls) are honest & accurate (not designed to achieve very specific results for the client who has paid many thousands of dollars to the pollsters to get those results that are then used in favor of or against a candidate, company or cause. The client usually has a reason to buy poll results; it’s not that they’re just curious. They use them to shape, frame, lead, promote or undermine, sell people, ideas and things. Just like articles, advertising and blogs.
The answer is, clearly, that any sample of respondents that is not completely random cannot be extrapolated to the general population. This is Statistics 101.
Concession, The can be a revolution in “consciousness” people can “wake up” to a new reality but you have to have the Horse before the Cart. Right now it is all backwards. The idea is that this change will occur in people and that this will change the environment we live in,. Which will be brighter. Won’t happen.
It you changed the environment first though then anything is possible. What do I mean by environment? I mean the way that people reach conclusions that they trust and which they form beliefs upon.
Get the programmers of the world to write open source code upon a shared platform. Code that will enable humans to reason and logically work out their ideas and perspectives, anonymously. A sort of super powered human based A.I. Then we will have something. Politicians, media darlings will not be able to promote some false narrative with out being slammed to the ground like a rag doll by 5 million anonymous users within 40 seconds of speaking lies. Then what will they do? Who do we believe the Human powered A.I. – very advanced or the well dressed snake-oil salesman who now looks really rather silly.
That world is a different world, a different environment with a different consciousness and viewpoint.
https://medium.com/@whmilk/the-value-of-anonymity-in-a-collective-intelligence-c0a003f481b6
https://medium.com/@whmilk/here-is-a-book-i-have-placed-on-amazon-and-smashwords-e864cc0e2c60
Here is the last para. From the latest article by Michael Krieger. I see so many authors who see the issues and frame the parameters so well. Then they just throw it all off onto some fix that will never be a fix. Patching is not going to work. Doing the same thing differently is not going to work. More of the same thing is not going to work. hope is not a solution.
https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2019/06/26/the-next-revolution-by-murray-bookchin/#more-58094
Here is the para. The last paragraph mind you; “Consciousness is another huge factor, and one I’ve written about in the past. Human civilization can only truly take a giant leap forward if enough people experience a profound leap in consciousness. I’m certain this can happen, I just don’t know how long it’ll take”
Same thing, “Consciousness” “Wake up”. This seems to be the theme these days. I think it smack of desperation. So what is plan B?
Why do people really think this is viable?
Caitlin says what matters most when it matters most. Great, great journalism. Just that last sentence; “The time to wake up is now” Kind of very depressing when the insanity and the stakes are so very high and our hope is, “The time to wake up is now” Our well thought our and analyzed plan of action is; “The time to wake up is now”
Is that really the best we can do, cling to some magical hope that somehow people doing what they do day after day after day are all of a sudden going to “wake up” What does that mean? The article itself speaks of the indoctrination of Americans from an early age.
This is about the self-serving delusions that the everyday Joe and Jane live by, what gets them through the day. This is about long held and beliefs/attitudes formed over decades. This is about Sociology, having friends, sex and success.
There is not going to be any large scale “Wake-up” of the general public. After the terrible war maybe, for a time a generation or two. Yes for some, Enough never. Perhaps if the Aliens make their appearance known. It is all just Hope thought. I am not really sure what that hope is based on..
The only one thing that I can conceive truly making a difference is this.
https://medium.com/@whmilk/save-the-world-collective-vs-individual-intelligence-69e1353ea9b5
https://medium.com/@whmilk/here-is-a-book-i-have-placed-on-amazon-and-smashwords-e864cc0e2c60
We have to change the environment humans subsist in. Humans for basic purposes are just like they were a thousand years ago. Why would they do any different now than they did then? The world must transition from a world were logic is moderated and modified by the individual to suit his or her needs and wants to a world where logic is the moderator.
Please consider if your hope in the “awakening” is realistic, rationa
In 2019, people are completely lost and confused. And they are believing lies again and again. Many politicians are clownish characters and they get elected anyway.
It is because we are in the days of Noah as it was written it would be towards the end.
The Second Coming of Jesus is near. We have to pray more than ever the Holy Rosary.
I take surveys with a grain of salt, but this one sounds fairly accurate. From personal experience and observation I know it is not wise to underestimate the stupidity and the lust for war of a lot of Americans. There is a long list of U.S. patents on mind control but I still think that only explains so much of it. Right and wrong is written on our hearts. I guess some people just can’t read. A Turtle Islander.
Beautiful and true statement on right and wrong. And like most, if not all heavily propagandistic societies, the vast majority of the U.S. population has been conditioned to participate in its own mental incarceration.
Long time ago, there was a general shock when ABC aired “The Day After” (1983), on US–Russia nuclear war. This awakened many people, but the new generations don’t know how it would be:
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The Day After (1983 Full, Original)
And this was the introduction before the broadcast:
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11/20/1983 The Day After intro and disclaimer ABC
During my 14 years of exile in self-proclaimed “Middle America” or “Heartland America” (Ft. Worth & Oklahoma City) it was like visiting another country for somebody raised in liberal Chicago who had previously survived two combat tours in Vietnam. If I had a dollar for every time I heard some yahoo with a Bud Light in his hand exclaim “We should just nuke ’em!?” or plead “Why doesn’t the President just nuke ’em?” I could buy the bar a round.
The vast majority of armchair nuclear warriors never saw a day of combat in their entire lives, and lack the intellect to appreciate the moral gravity of nuclear genocide. Public education in the US has created a population of people ignorant of history and incapable of appreciating the most obvious of logical fallacies when read on Twitter or Facebook. Like their president, nuking a country is a simple solution to a complex problem – one that usually, the US created for itself.
There is a deep cultural/economic/political divide between rural and urban America. Just witness the latest insanity in Oregon where armed white terrorists are threatening the capital and law enforcement officers over cowardly Republicans scooting away and hiding from doing their duty to vote on a Carbon Tax.
Just to be real though, there aren’t enough DEMOCRATS (really moderate Republicans anyway) to pass the bill anyway, so it’s just more corrupt bipartisan dog and pony show.
Trisha, you are right about the stark differences between urban and rural. However I think you are swallowing too much mainstream fake news about “armed white terrorists” threatening the capital. I live near Salem, Oregon.
Here is the real story:
https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/ORLEG/bulletins/24d9385
I live just south of Salem, Oregon, and it’s NOT fake news, just google “militia threat oregon” there are lots of different reports and serious concern expressed by state police officials over the safety of legislature workers, staff, and legislators. Like Bundy and his crew, these folks are armed white terrorists, full stop.
YOU ARE FULL OF BS!!!!!
That is a excellent link, anyone who does not read it is a totally biased liberal progressive. The state police could and would if a threat was made would and should make arrest for threats of violence. It would be just if the authorities would go after hooded Antifa-fascist .the way tey go after the hooded KKK.
I agree 100%, but with one qualification. When my wife and I had a winter home in Melbourne, FL, we were told by some locals that if middle eastern countries decided to no longer sell oil to the US, the US military should just go there and “take it”. “That’s what the US military is for”, they said. I think that this is the attitude of the vast majority of Americans, all over America, not just rural.
Yup! I live in Ky and that would be the attitude of most denizens outside the two university towns, Louisville and Lexington. The general level of ignorance is appalling….AND most of them do not even consider what would be the fate of the entire nation of South Korea – I don’t think it occurs to them how closely situated these two countries are. Seoul would be getting a lot of the fallout, literally and figuratively, from such an exchange…
Caitlin: My God, I had the same reaction that you did (and that we all should have had) when I read the headline about the percentage of Americans who would support a preemptive nuclear strike on NK. These Americans are woefully ignorant of history and devoid of empathy. What a shameful way to go through life!
Caitlin, those of us in the US who studied history past junior high school all know that the story of the nuclear bombing of Japan to end the war is a lie. Harry Truman (a Democrat) ordered it anyway. It was absolutely intended as a display for the Soviet Union. That’s the thanks the USSR got for saving the Allies’ asses in WWII. In fact, we know more than this. We also know that the U.S. deliberately goaded Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor so that the U.S. public would support entry into WWII. Gulf of Tonkin 2 decades later was not a new tactic by any means.
U.S. children are taught this pack of lies to make them little patriots who will not ever challenge or question what the government does, even if the government is using its power against THEM.
Thank you for writing this Caitlin. This article deserves a extra monetary contribution on top of my normal support monthly contribution. I have been thinking the monthly Patrion was good; but then how do you know I like this article more then perhaps your article saying American’s are just plain stupid, sheep, but has kind hearts and that they have to be lied to for going to war article (that one was fluff, feel good and rather worthless). Anyway I will see if Patrion will allow a extra one time contribution, or I will just mail you a check (hard to do).
Perhaps you could write more about nuclear weapons? #1. We here in America have stopped reporting on the number of our nuclear weapons; which is a worm hole that is worth investigating? #2. Donald Trump has said he would use nuclear weapons and all options are on the table. He does not need any other input to launch a first strike nuclear attack on any country anywhere. That is insane!
No MOre War.
You think that America must have reached Peak Stupidity, and then the bar gets raised some more. The notion that North Korea somehow threatens us on the other side of the globe is an affront to anyone possessing a brain. If every American citizen who indicated they would support nuking North Korea were taken over there and swapped, one-for-one with North Koreans, we would be better off. That small, impoverished, beleaguered nation has developed a long-range missile for the obvious reason that that is the only way to keep the US from invading and destroying your country. Iran needs one, too, right about now.
Another provocative essay with excellent reader comments. Since Caitlin is one of the few journalists willing to challenge conventional wisdom, I have a request for future investigations/inquiry. The request? “Follow the money” in an effort to learn the core motivation for virtually all the events/developments that trouble so many of us.
In my view, everything “wrong” that is happening relates to the desire of the “powers that be” to protect the “Status Quo.” To do this, our rulers of course have to have money (more of it every day due to real inflation). Money = power and control. So: Where exactly does all this “money” come from? It comes from a printing press. That is, America can “print” as much money as it needs to perpetuate/protect the Status Quo.
This money – actually computer digits – is available only as long as the U.S. dollar remains the world’s reserve currency.
The No. 1 imperative of the Powers that Be is protecting this printing press. One of the ways they do this is by “rigging” “markets” for fiat currencies’ kryptonite – gold (and to a less extent silver). This, in my opinion, is the real “story of the century” – and one that is off-limits to any investigation by the mainstream media.
America uses this printing press (that can print infinite amounts of money) to fund its massive military industrial intelligence complexes. The military, in turn, is used to bully and intimidate any country that threatens the fiat/dollar system. The printing press also makes possible all of the welfare and social security payments – and “work programs” – that keep the masses passive. If nothing else, these payments keep people from “rising up” and mounting serious protests. The “crony capitalists” are kept happy by getting their cuts off the top.
All excess “money” is steered into the stock market, the one barometer of the economy that MUST remain positive. This “market” is probably rigged and manipulated just as much as the gold and silver markets are rigged. If gold and silver suddenly became popular with the masses, this would tell the world that the masses are no longer buying (literally) the bogus economic narrative.
The whole “game” these days is to make sure this signal is NEVER sent. If it was, the entire Status Quo – and all those who benefit from it – would be in peril.
These wars – or interventions or regime changes – are being waged for many reasons. But be sure that one of them is to protect the U.S. Dollar as the world’s reserve currency, which in turn protects that vital “printing press.”
Until this story is exposed, I don’t think anything will change. And I don’t know who can or will expose it. The government is behind this program, the press has proven that such an expose is “off limits” as an area of serious inquiry.
Anyway, given all of the mind-boggling money printing and debt creation and annual deficits – and given the increasingly scary geopolitical realities – how in the world is it possible that the prices of gold and silver have plunged over the last five years? This would not be possible unless said “markets” were controlled.
Why are they being “controlled?” Why is this so important? Investigation 101 tells us to always follow the money. And ask, “Who benefits (from preserving the Status Quo)?
Talk about propaganda. The few of us who have this “theory” are dismissed as “kooks” or “conspiracy theorists.” Even auditing the Fed, the most secretive body in the world, is now considered a “radical” idea that is instantly dismissed. The notion of approving an independent audit of America’s (alleged) gold depositories is also instantly dismissed.
As far as I can tell, the “real” story is not even being investigated.
Hi Deacon; Yes you are correct in looking at the Federal Reserve & the rigging of all markets with derivatives. Your statement that no one knows what is going wrong with the world’s fiat money system is wrong since anyone that is following world money can see it. What is amazing is it has lasted this long. We here in america are protected from “Fake News” that hurts our oligarchs. Our DOD is out of civilian control and can not pass a audit. We have misplaced at least 22 trillion dollars at the DOD & HUD alone.
Just out–the majority of the of the global citizens would approve a preventive nuclear [or equivalent] strike on the United States of America–citing the actual evidence of the highest international crimes of the government and the insouciance of many of the American people.
If you think that the other nuclear-powered nations of the world have not been seriously considering this option, you’d be wrong. The US does not own secrecy. In necesary, other nations of the world can use couriers to communicate with each other for ultimate secrecy, just like in the good old days.
Caitlin, you wrote an excellent piece about propaganda recently and, as is fairly obvious, and many others here have mentioned, this is the substrate for the U.S. nuclear policies and attitudes in this one too. I live in the U.S. and there are several aspects of propaganda here I’d like to note.
1) It’s intense enough – 24/7/365 from every source imaginable – that it affects every last one of us, even those who, like myself, consider themselves independent, critical thinkers. To imagine it doesn’t means one is overly influenced. If you know how powerful it is and that your thinking is inevitably affected, you are better equipped to counter it.
2) Getting outside U.S. borders provides amazing benefits to clarity. It’s almost literally like a fog lifts, even upon just driving over the Mexican border, which I’ve done frequently. And the further one gets away the clearer it gets what is really going on here. It’s actually rather astonishing how limited the viewpoints and criticisms of even the best journalists are in the U.S., compared to the more penetrating critiques, like yours, from elsewhere.
3) Having said that, even you Caitlin, who have a very good handle on the nature of the U.S. and how it influences its own people and the rest of the world, do not know how bad it is. You have to experience it directly, in situ, to fully feel its evil.
HELLLLLLLP!!!!
Indeed, their narrative management system is one of the wonders of the modern world. I think you have to have lived here to really understand.
Never, ever underestimate the power of propaganda on an intentionally dumbed down population. Thank the Dept. of Education, and the very complicit MSM.
When I was in elementary school in the 1950s, we still had “duck and cover” drills. As though your desk would save you from atomization by a nuclear blast.
I got sent to the principles office for being ” insubordinate ” because I believed that getting under a desk when the ” siren ” went off was stupid. If the entire school building, and everything else, was blown up by ” the bomb ” nothing and nobody was going to survive.
The failure of surveys to include any discussion of religious beliefs with the variables studied indicates something…not sure what. Maybe fear of the topic or ignorance or maybe even blindness to what makes Americans so gullible.
Two additional points. First, even if the US propaganda story about American motivations in Hiroshima were true, the bombing would still be unconscionable. Newsflash – atrocities are atrocities; it does not suddenly become OK to commit them just because you think they will help you win! The enormous and proverbial atrocities of Genghis Khan, Tamerlane or any other similar leader were committed with the same objective in mind – terrifying the enemy into submission – not because the perpetrators were innnately malevolent or possessed by the devil. *Every* atrocity could be justified in this way as potentially useful; accepting such an argument means renouncing any moral inhibitions in a conflict.
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In particular, a basic and widely accepted minimal principle of decency dictates that in war, only soldiers should be targetted, not civilians. The idea that it is acceptable to deliberately kill innocent foreign children, women and other civilians as long as this somehow potentially allows you to spare the lives of some of your own soldiers is utterly barbaric.
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Second, even if the US propaganda narrative about Hiroshima made any moral sense, which it absolutely doesn’t, it still wouldn’t make a preemptive nuclear strike against North Korea justifiable. A land invasion of Japan with the concomitant loss of life was, according to the propaganda narrative, certain in the absence of the Hiroshima bombing; a nuclear first strike by the North Koreans against the US not only isn’t certain, but it is in fact extremely unlikely.
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The thing that does connect the two arguments is savage American supremacism – the refusal to recognise that American and non-American lives have equal value. In the case of Hiroshima, the lives of Japanese civilians have less value than those of American soldiers; in the case of North Korea, even the *infinitesimal* chance of American civilians being killed is worth the *certain* killing of millions of Korean civilians – a kind of calculation that is usually only applied to animals. Some would be tempted to speak of racism here, but a really accurate designation would be ‘American supremacism’, since the real chasm is between Americans and everybody else. Even Americans who expend a lot of energy on showing that they care about *American* racial minorities do not generally object to the imperial treatment of *non-Americans*, including those who are technically ‘white’, as subhuman.
Look Caitlin, I admire your energy, your intelligence and your discernment, but for christ’s sake, the US is a deluded fantasyland on which you should be wasting less energy, less intelligence and less discernment. How can you hope to squeeze sense from people who by and large believe that God, having wasted (his) time on the rest of the world, got down to tintacks in order to stop birth control? People who believe that the US is divinely ordained to fuck us all over, that the Donald is leading us to Utopia, that Iran is satanically evil. The US has overthrown one democratically elected leader of Iran, poked a monster in his place and now can’t accept the idea that they aren’t the boss of everyone on the planet. And Scummo agrees with them. They ARE the boss of everyone on the planet and their taste in junk food, in culture, in the environment will prevail as we sink beneath the waves. Cheers.
My gods tell me you are not going to be saved from the god that makes the USA so great again!
That is a VERY accurate description of most Americans – DELUSIONAL. Mean spirited also.
Pandora’s box is open, the genie is out of the bottle, Atlas is still shrugging, the gates of Heaven and Hell are wide open and the chief concern is whether we’re gonna run out of popcorn before the grand finale. Stay tuned folks, there’s more to come.
I wonder how many people are aware that Pearl Harbour happened because the US had put an oil embargo on Japan, and demanded unconditional withdrawal for China, a situation which the US knew Japan would not comply with. So this means the US deliberately started the war in the Pacific, not Japan.
Who fired the first shots between the US and Japan? That is, who attacked whom FIRST?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ward_(DD-139)
The US wasn’t strictly at war then. The attack was at 6:37 on 7th December, over an hour before the main Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. US’s war wasn’t declared until 8 December. The UK actually declared war before the US did
What about the moon landing? 50ys ago next month.
The flags will be out for that one.
We should see how many lies they spin around that.
Not much being said so far.
I watched it supposedly live on TV.
I even went to see the astronaut parade.
Now people are saying it was staged.
No it was true! Michael Jackson was there
The moon landings were legit. Not that these cretins wouldn’t make it up if they thought they could get away with it and saw enough value in doing so, but they didn’t.
I’ve heard all the conspiracy theories about the moon landings. The reason I believe that the moon landings actually took place is that the USSR would have blown the lid off any attempt the US would have made to fake the landings.
Hundreds of pounds of moon rocks have also been distributed to scientists all over the world, and nobody has ever noticed anything amiss. They’re quite distinct from terrestrial rocks — no aqueous alteration or hydrated minerals at all, weird enrichments like KREEP basalts, almost no volatiles at all, etc.
Again, it’s not that anyone should trust these fuckers as far as you can throw them, but the science is clear on this one.
This is why I don’t think Americans are as inherently good as some believe, nor optimistic about a majority escaping from the Matrix
If the poll is correct 33% of Americans are psychopaths or have been sufficiently brainwashed by our military worshipping society.
Go over to Breitbarts and read the comments. Ouch.
As for the remaining 67%. Some of them may be good people, perhaps even the majority, but pretty much everything people are told is a lie from birth to grave. From Santa Clause to , well, almost Everything. As former CIA Director Bill Casey once said, supposedly , “when everything people believe is a lie, we will have accomplished our goal”. Something like that.
Here are the reasons the vast majority will never escape the matrix and/or will willingly stay in the matrix. No order of importance
1. Intelligence. The average IQ is 100. IQ has been declining starting with children born in 1975 due to environmental toxins.
2. Energy. Most people are in a battle for survival contrary to the massaged economic figures which lie about the true state of the economy (campaigning Trump spoke truth on that) There is no time or energy to research until they are retired or unemployed for long periods. Not to mention doing something about it.
3. Cost. Many of the more intelligent and/or successful people realize the dangers of opposing the consensus. They have too much to lose to engage in career limiting behavior or speech. In the most totalitarian regime there are still people who can thrive. Revolutionaries are mostly forgotten except when successful, and then remembered mostly posthumously .
4. Denial. As one lady on a you tube video indignantly said about events at the turn of the century , when she was told what probably happened : “I wouldn’t want to believe it even if it were true”
5. Choices. People are not given a single set menu of beliefs. They have been given an À la carte menu of approved beliefs containing a mix of truths and lies . Something for everybody. People might catch onto a few of the lies and substitute with the truth, and think they have it figured out, but most don’t have the capacity to catch enough of them to see the Big Picture , or even the same picture as each person orders something a bit different from the menu. The different pictures that are drawn by various groups are a minority picture with no unifying potential. A population with a heterogeneous set of beliefs cant unite. Divide and Rule
6. Consequences. People are aware the tools given to their masters to combat terrorism can just as easily be applied to them. They know there are no rights left that are worth more than tissue paper. Everything they do or say is digitized and subject to Big Data Analysis. IP addresses are logged. Drones at the ready. Nowhere to hide. Internet Kill Switch flipped as needed.
This is the reality we live in. Thinking otherwise is good fiction. A cheap high that is healthier than recreational pot or booze, and cheaper. So enjoy it if you chose.
Perhaps there was a time change was possible, maybe the 60’s , but the drugs, music and sex were too hard to resist. Once Cable TV, Disco and AIDS were unleashed on us that was the ball game. Its been game over since then. Tavistock and the Illuminated Elites have won. Not just in the US if it makes you feel better.
Perhaps I’ve swallowed some propaganda along the way too, but I am pretty sure that the US is a predominantly Christian country and that the Golden Rule of that religion is ‘do unto others as you would be done by’ or a variant thereof. (Actually it’s an old Jewish maxim, but that’s another topic.) So how about these US nuke-lovers stop for a second and consider how they would feel if they and their country were ‘done by’ as the US does or threatens to do all around the world. Could be a game-changer (but I won’t hold my breath).
Sorry to report that “predominantly Christian” and “substantial majority CALL themselves Christian” are quite different.
they are deeply racist as they are incorrigibly stupid. they didn’t nuke the germans, they nuked the japanese and they still feel justified. they were more than willing to nuke the chinese back in the 50s, and they are more than willing to nuke the north koreans now. no matter how many south koreans would die as well. what they think of the africans is no better.
At the heart of American warmongering lies the fact that for them wars happen only in the countries of others. They will have less acceptance of it when the bombs and bloodshed are in their neighborhood.
Hiroshima Nagasaki by Aust author Paul Ham is an enlightning read on the events and the various players involved.
Love your work, C.
On June 24, 1944 the Japanese I-52 submarine was sunk off the coast at Lorient, France attempting to load 550 kg of Uranium Oxide. On May 15, 1945 the German U-234 submarine surrendered to US Navy in the North Atlantic, onboard was 550 kg of Uranium Oxide. Had Japan received this material they intended to dirty bomb US troop formations and LA, DC & NYC. The over 2500 nuclear weapon tests since Trinity in 1945 are insane and unforgivable.
“The Vacuum Under the Soetoro Sombrero”
“Housebreaking Your New Euro-snob”
both at CanadaFreePress
Although we gotta sh*t-ton of toxic macho war boy crap here, I’m with Caitlin that this doesn’t contradict her previous article about Americans. For one thing, there’s a lot of people here in Murika. As I posted over at Moon of Alabama:
“A poll of 3000 people
In a country of 328,915,700
where 33% want to nuke a far country [given a few hypothetical situations]
comes to 3.0098897681077552698153356619949e-6 % of the population”.
So it ain’t 33% of Americans, it’s 33% of 3000 Americans.
For another thing, we are indeed heavily influenced by the militaristic messages everywhere and it usually pops out of our pie holes without really engaging our deeper selves. But show the average American a picture of people suffering from some disaster and like any other people they will open homes, wallets, and hearts.
We can do no good by using broad brushes to paint any group of people all one color. That’s the same playbook bigots use.
And in my lifetime I have come to the opinion that regardless of how we categorize, group, divide, or slice-n-dice the human race, every group will end up with its share of jerks.
https://www.xwidep.me.uk/post/29399630141/and-just-to-make-it-interesting-the-far-side-by
The characteristics your article attributes to Americans are present in all populations to a greater or lesser extent. Very many people assume that the secret of success is to be cynical and amoral. The attitude Caitlin Johnstone finds among Americans in relation to nuclear weapons is also present in American attitudes to possession of guns. The Swiss have the same attitude, in a way, but more organized and less anarchistic. But the anti-nuclear movements must take their share of the responsibility for the perpetuation of ignorance concerning nuclear weapons because they persist in relying too much on moral arguments and not enough on arguments that would be respected by people with military training and/or military attitudes. There are writers: John Mueller is an example, who have written well-documented books outlining the military uselessness of nuclear weapons and the element of fraud in nuclear-weapons based scenarios, that are really motivated by pork-barrel logic plus an atavistic attraction to hellfire scenarios. Read his books or articles on the subject: e.g.https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538971? There are much other material, by him and other writers. John Mueller speaks exclusively to “conservative” audiences who like to imagine themselves superior to the ignorant plebs who are afraid of nuclear weapons and fantasise about them rather than being indifferent or contemptous. I don’t know whether this is his fault, or whether he just doesn’t get invitations to speak to peace-loving anti-nuclear audiences.
And in other American Survey news:
Joe Biden has a double digit lead over the President…
While your criticism of my country is valid, regarding Nukes, Julian Assange is Not a citizen of the U.S.
Why is your Australian Government not defending it’s own Australian Citizen- currently in prison in England?
Because they’re a bunch of soulless, spineless sycophants and Australia is not a real country.
terra nullius
/ˌtɛrə ˈnʌlɪəs/
One of the myths about the nuclear bombing of Japan that was spoon-fed to my generation was that the two bombs “shocked the Japanese government into sanity” that they couldn’t win. I believe, on the other hand, it was the US govenment that was jarred into the reality that their “toys” weren’t working as planned.
As the articles you cite note, the two A-bombs were just more of the same terror bombing that had already been falling on Japanese cities. On the other hand the really shocking development for Tokyo was the entry into the war of the Soviets on the side of the Americans. Japan had the (largely delusional) idea that Stalin was neutral and might even be an honest broker in peace negotiations. Stalin’s invasion of Manchukuo demolished that fantasy.
The Japanese, however, continued to dither and this is where things got really interesting for Truman and his “unconditional surrender clique”. The Soviets swept through Manchukuo in days and then captured Sakhalin Island and started down through Hokkaido. At the rate they were going, in a few days they could be well into the main island, if not completely overruning it. That certainly wasn’t according to the Washington playbook.
And things could get a lot worse. If Japan was overrun (by either the Americans or Soviets) that would terminate–possibly with extreme prejudice–imperial control over the armed forces. And Japanese miltary formations generally fought to the death unless ordered otherwise by a superior officer. Contrary to virtually everything I’ve read about speculation over what would have happened if we hadn’t dropped the bomb, the main Japanese fighting forces weren’t all dead on the Pacific islands, or waiting with bamboo spears on Japan. They were in a very large and still quite functional army in China.
So, faced with a permanent Soviet presence in Japan and a continent-sized Battle of Iwo Jima still to be fought, Washington finally accepted the ‘unconditional surrender’ Japan had been offering for months.
The ignorance of the general public of these United States is way beyond astounding; it is astronomical. This survey and any others would show that the ignorance is pervasive and very deep. Calling us grossly stupid is more to the point. Our government and our media know just how stupid we are by shoving their bulls-it into our completely asleep brains every day and night. I get upset at how dumb I was when I was younger and just accepted all of the hogwash I was constantly fed. At least I am wiser now and know that I live in the very vile belly of the unholy beast!
What ElkoJohn said. And it’s nothing new: ignorance (often willful), greed, deceit in all forms including fake news/broken treaties/outright lying, racism, intolerance, have all been defining traits of both American leadership, and as far as I can tell, a majority of white Americans (especially men) since the founding of the country.
I’m a Vietnam veteran, have done what I could to change things, and failed. And like we used to say: same shit, different day. Only now, shit is much much much worse with at least two existential threats looming large. Frankly, I’ve reached the conclusion that the planet will be much better off minus the human species.
I was a business traveler before and after 9/11. At the time, I came to the conclusion that something like 20% of Americans were strongly encouraging war crimes. It wasn’t uncommon to reach a hotel at night after traveling. You don’t know the area and you don’t have the energy to go wandering, but some beer and hard liquor sounds wonderful, so you go into the hotel bar. It wasn’t all that uncommon to meet people talking about nuking cities and countries back to the Stone Age or to Glass. I remember drunken businessmen telling me that the war would only be one after wiping out several generations of ‘terrorists’. Not just the current terrorists, but their children and grand-children. They were never quite clear on what would precisely would end this, but apparently believed that after several generations children would emerge who would love and adore the people who’d killed their parents, great-grand-parents and so on.
.. . — …
These sorts of conversations with drunken businessmen definitely convinced me that there is a sizeable percentage of Americans who support horrible and awful atrocities. I would have guessed 20%, but perhaps it was indeed really 33%. Or maybe more Americans have become even more radicalized by the corporate was narrative since the days when I was walking past 18 year old National Guardsmen with loaded machine guns which were supposed to make me feel safe.
… – – – …
I’d still say more Americans are decent human beings, but there is definitely a crowd that is very, very scary. And we aren’t even talking about the ones who actively try to bring upon Armageddon because they believe that they’ll then fly to heaven among the mushroom clouds and biological weapons and get to meet Jesus.
There is decreasingly little difference between our mentality and the Nazis every decade. They have become our secret role model. It’s not an accident. That did not turn out so well for the Germans or the rest of the world. We defeated them because we didn’t want to live in such a world. Well, here we are anyway.
Your statement that we defeated them because we didn’t want to live in such a world is inaccurate. The model for Nazi Germany’s racist and murderous eugenics policies was the US eugenics movement. In California, eugenicists began producing literature promoting eugenics and sterilization and sending it overseas to German scientists and medical professionals. Sterilization in California continued until 1963.
In regards to immigration, the U.S. tightly restricted Jewish immigration from Germany resulting in denial of entry to Anne Frank’s family. The U.S. population has long supported racist immigration policies, the earliest example being the Chinese Exclusion Act passed in 1882 and not officially repealed until 1943! Can you imagine, basically NO ONE in the U.S. had ever met a Chinese person until after WWII.
At the end of WWII the U.S. covertly brought over German Nazi scientists in “Operation Paperclip”. These are the monsters that gave us MK Ultra…
*CJ*, I knew when you were bragging on US Americans not being in favor of going to war with Iran, that sooner or later, the other shoe would drop. Very few US Americans give a sh*t about anything other than themselves. That’s the way we are programed: we are constantly told that we are ‘ ‘exceptional’ ‘ – that we ‘ ‘deserve’ ‘ the very latest version of any gadget. At least that’s what the commercials keep telling us hundreds of times each day. Even the homeless people living on the streets have American flags waving from their push-carts.
Go figure.
I worked a call center job before the 2012 election. What amazed me is that for the people who work in call centers, things like politics and foreign affairs or even ‘news’ don’t exist. You could hear all about the latest Reality TV show, Hip Hop Wives of Atlanta or whatever. I remember one guy who wanted to be an MMA fighter, so guess what he liked to talk about. But politics? Never heard a word of it. Foreign countries, foriegn crisis, they don’t exist. Shifts of people, hundreds at a time, working low pay jobs, and there is no awareness of politics or who America kills. To the extent that political campaign slogans reach them, its the very simplest of messages that get through. The women who support Hillary because she’s a woman, or the people who supported Obama because his skin color was more coffee-with-cream instead of lily white. Nice people. If your car breaks down and you need a ride home, someone will be nice and give you a ride. But zero political awareness. The main narratives they hear are the ones that divert them entirely away from politics or foreign affairs or why the bankers are rich and they work two jobs.
I live in a community where four apartment complexes are all next to each other on a street. Each complex houses approximately 50 people/families. Based on my interactions with all of the people around me over the years, I believe I would not be far off if I were to say that maybe 1 in a hundred are politically aware. I can’t think of a single person in my apartment complex that would understand a single thing I read about and discuss on a daily basis. The reasons for this are many; this is a poor neighborhood, therefore, a great number of my neighbors work long, hard jobs. Also, though most may have a cell phone, I’d say that most do not have a desktop computer at their disposal. Lastly, there seems to be no incentive for them to become aware. This last reason is the most important one. If there is no ‘drive’ or incentive to motivate them to reach out for information or to become involved politically, they wont.
Obviously, ensuring better political representation is an incentive that the readers here can count as an incentive for them, however, that incentive does not become clear until AFTER one has taken the time to get ‘woke’. So the question is: how can we incentivize the average working-class and/or poor American to start reading, researching and engaging until they’ve opened their own eyes?
This article doesn’t conflict in any way with my previous one. In both I argue that Americans cheer for war because they are propagandized and deceived.
….and willfully ignorant. Most of the 60% who haven’t bailed out of politics entirely will refuse to even consider the possibility that anything they prefer not to believe is true.
As they have been for at least 10,000 years and, under the present arrangement, will continue to be until the nukes inevitably start dropping from the sky.