Duck and Cover all you want, It won't do any good

duck and cover.jpg

Time sure flies doesn't it? It seems like just yesterday when the neocon/Zionist think tank, Project for a New American Century (PNAC), published it's world domination manifesto in September of 2000. They said America was King/Queen of the World and to keep it that way, it must "rebuild it's defenses", i.e., it's military, so it could remain the Super Supremo Superpower. Any and all challengers and impediments to world domination would be handled through military and economic strength.

I also remember clearly when General Wesley "I'm one of them" Clark, back in 2006, told the world about the neocon/Zionist plan to take down "seven countries in five years". The same neocons/Zionists from the think tank PNAC who infested the Bush administration.

I remember warning people during Obama's war in Libya that the powers that be weren't stopping there, they still had Syria, Iran, then Russia and China. Then Ukraine happened, the Winter Olympics in Sochi, the alliances between China, Russia, Iran and others, and here we are today on the brink of a nuclear war.

People better believe that, to paraphrase the Orange President Dude. There is a very real possibility of war with China and Russia which could very well go nuclear. I've read a number of "alternative news" commentators who've suggested that the most pressing issue for left leaning activists is to revive the antiwar movement, or fucking create one for that matter. I agree. I think we ain't seen nothing yet. These people at the top of our food chain, they're serious about this American domination thing. Don't doubt those in power won't do whatever it takes to get the job done.

A nuclear war is the wild card. That's where we're at.

I have to pimp this article, "The New (Cold?) War with China" by Alan Nassar. It is an excellent summation of the current situation regarding China and why we are at Danger Level Five. He pulls it all together. I can't recommend it enough. I had previously written an essay referencing John Pilger's article, "The Coming War with China". (John Pilger, “The Coming War on China”, CounterPunch, December 2, 2016.) This is serious stuff.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/27/the-new-cold-war-with-china/

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snoopydawg's picture

I think before they take on China they are going to take on Russia first. We know that they have troops in at least 20 countries that surround Russia and they are practicing war games in the seas around Russia.
They have put missle defense shields in 3-4 countries surrounding Russia and are ramping up their anti Russia propaganda by accusing Russia of interfering with the election.
And the American sheep are buying it.
There is a diary on DK about how Putin has been using Trump as a puppet for at least 5 years or more.
I think one source says it goes back 16 years when Trump might have been thinking about running for president.
Does it matter that China holds so much of our debt? If it does then why can't it call it in and bankrupt the USA?
One thing is for sure though. Our leaders are fucking nuts if they truly believe that they can survive a first strike against Russia.
Yep, remember your duck and cover drills kids. I'm sure that those desks will protect you from nuclear radiation.

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Big Al's picture

from a number of sources is they'll first try to break or damage the alliance that's formed between Russia and China, i.e., a divide and conquer strategy, which entails overtures toward Russia/Putin and increased hostility toward China. That's how the Trump admin is lining up. China is the number one economic power now, strategies changes according to the situation. The debt doesn't matter like people think it does, not when one side is willing to go all the way and the other isn't.

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Lily O Lady's picture

"New Tricks," dealt with fallout shelters that people could construct for themselves in case of a nuclear blast. A character speculates that most that people could afford to construct were meant to be a place where people would die, essentially tombs to keep bodies off the streets. I was just a kid during the whole build-a-bomb-shelter era. That more chilling intent didn't occur to me, even when they showed sketches of a "shelter" made with a door laid like a lean-to against a house foundation with dirt on top of it. It seems pretty creepy now.

Of course President Reagan reportedly wanted to see where the "war room" that he saw in Doctor Strangelove (which of course doesn't exist). Because the overlords should never face the risks that the rest of us would face as a result of their reckless behavior.

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

jorogo's picture

I was just a kid, too, when home fallout shelters distinguished the haves from the have-nots (my family) in the neighborhood. But I'd never heard the "duck and cover" routine until later in life.

In our St. Leo Catholic School, we didn't duck under our desks, we drilled to line up in the hallways as quickly, and of course, as orderly as possible. ("No talking in line" was a mantra that applied to all line-up situations) The idea was that this was the most structurally-sound area, and away from all the glass in the very tall windows in every classroom. But us kids secretly shared a dark inside joke about it, and one maybe not so crazy....it would be an easier task to collect all of our dead, irradiated bodies if a bulldozer could just run down the hallway and scoop the lot of us up in one pass. Don't die harder....die smarter!

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"If I sit silently, I have sinned." - Mossadegh

Lily O Lady's picture

Elementary was across the road from St. Leo's Catholic School, although probably not your St. Leo's. We did use the hallways for "cover," but it was all bs anyway. We started our Civil Defense "training" in Pennsylvania before moving south.

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

Article was written way way back when. It looked at what would happen if one Soviet MIRV hit Detroit, and nothing more. Fall out shelters would become no more than a quick cook oven as the oxygen would be pulled out to feed the gigantic fireball, then followed with a massive heat wave. And if you were in Chicago expect to die shortly of radiation sickness.

Just recently read where some experts speculated that nuke exchange between India and Pakistan would be enough to trigger a nuclear winter.

From what I have been reading now and then, the super rich are looking to buy extremely durable fall out shelters or looking to run away to remote spots like New Zealand.

I don't think there is anywhere one can hide and survive a full on nuclear war. It would be more a matter of how many more weeks would one survive compared to those who died instantly.

And the insane neocons in the Pentagon are gaming a limited nuclear war with Russia and concluding that we could win one.

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Lily O Lady's picture

remote areas like Australia were safe from fallout. TPTB are delusional.

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

I remember thinking they showed the horror of nuclear war without showing the wreckage.

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asterisk's picture

Is it worth trying to start an antinuclear movement?
So many countries have nukes. The rich folk think they are above the peasants and that they can somehow control weather, earthquakes, and entire ecosystems. They probably can be among the few who survive serious global warming, but they could not survive a nuclear war.

Economic justice will give us more power to demand an end to nuclear brinksmanship. What is the best focus of our efforts?

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gulfgal98's picture

This article from CNN money shows that the vast majority of US debt is held by US citizens, including various banks, pension funds, individuals, state and local governments. The single greatest holder of US debt is the Social Security Trust Fund.

Of the $12.9 trillion chunk of debt owned by Americans, $5.3 trillion is held by government trust funds such as Social Security, $5.1 trillion is held by individuals, pension funds and state and local governments and the remaining $2.5 trillion is held by the Federal Reserve.

Outside the U.S., China is the largest foreign holder of the debt, with $1.25 trillion. It is followed closely by Japan, which holds $1.13 trillion.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Why do they got to borrow from Social Security?

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Beware the bullshit factories.

edg's picture

Two reasons. First, it's a great way to fleece the middle class that have been pumping money into the system for 80 years. Second, it's a great way to fleece the middle class by declaring that Social Security is broke and those 80 years of pumping ain't gonna be paid back.

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that FDR levied to fund our participation in WW II. I mean, a war tax only makes war even more unpopular; and we can't risk that the populace finally rebels against the insane institution of war, can we?

The OT had the right idea. Forget armies. Choose one person from each side (preferably the one most responsible for war); let them fight each other (David and Goliath).

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solublefish's picture

All those voting for war will be required to go and fight: no upper age limit.

Or better: all those voting FOR war in congressional districts whose Congressperson voted FOR war will be required to fight - and the Congressperson voting for war will be required to surrender his/her seat and enlist as their commander.

All those voting for war in congressional districts whose Congressperson voted against war will be allowed to volunteer for service, and will be liable for war taxes.

No service shall be required, and no taxes shall be collected, from those voting against war.

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Yellerdog's picture

The Social Security trust fund takes in more money than it spends each month at least for now. So what to do with the extra cash. Sorry not enough mattresses too much cash. They buy US Treasury Notes and bonds which at least used to pay interest and they are backed by the full faith and credit of the US. So Social Security makes one of if not the safest investments in the world with the excess funds and they are totally commission free.

T-bills and bonds are forms of loans. They are loaning the government money in exchange for notes that can be cashed in later. So from the Treasury side it is a debt that as to be re-payed. But it's also an asset in that they have the money available to spend so long as they keep enough funds on hand to meet daily demands just like a bank does.

The money is then available to the General Fund and can be spent by Congress anyway it chooses. They are in the same position as a bank is when you deposit funds in a savings account or buy a certificate of deposit. The bank can loan it out to people to buy cars and houses or they can build new bank buildings or as they often do also buy short term T-bills to park their excess cash just like Social Security. Congress doesn't just go raid the Social Security Trust Fund the way most people make it seem.

The only catch is that at least in theory they could pass a law under which they would default on the debt similar to what corporations have done with their retirement funds though bankruptcy proceedings. However defaulting on trillions in SS debt would mess with the economy worldwide. it has always been possible but not probable.

Now the alternative is the Ryan plan. The GOP would prefer that the Trust Fund invest in the private stock and bond market. Why? Because they would be subject to the same brokerage fees as any other transaction and it would pump trillions into the casino known as Wall Street. Bankers would have the holiday to end all holidays and there would be billion dollar CEO bonuses rather than puny hundreds of millions.
When all the high fives were done old people would be back to starving to death or ending their life in some "poor house". Catfood would be a luxury. If you don't believe it read your history. In fact I can recommend a book called Square Meals that is written about Depression era feeding programs and the history of how they came about.

What they haven't come to grips with is that it would also drain an equal amount from the General Fund or maybe they have since drown the government is their mantra.

So rather than thinking of the Government borrowing from or raiding Social Security. Which would you rather have you retirement invested in Government securities that are no more or less safe than the money in your pocket or investment bankers, or in mattresses to stuff? Money doesn't just sit around. It is either spent or invested somewhere.

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Lenzabi's picture

Well, they only held off the nuke fight for so long. Looks like they want it back on the table as an option. Why do you think Putin had prepped his people for a warmongering Hillary with shelters set back up and drills to get folks to head to shelters? they are more ready for a nuke fight than we are. America and China would be likely to let folks go to Nuclear Ashes so they could have the wealth left for the top class, and screw all others, but they forget, w/o a way to fix things and have food production again, nuke fights are pretty much a final option .

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So long, and thanks for all the fish

janis b's picture

there's nuclear disaster to also consider.

Even though this thesis is relevant to New Zealand’s future security in the Asia-Pacific region, there are many points that support the projected transition from the US’s place of power to China.

Even though China is not setting out to change the behaviour of the developing countries with which it engages, it is in fact creating an environment in which they can plot a new path, one that takes them away from the templates prescribed for them by the United States and Europe. Many of the developing nations have chafed under what they perceive to be the patronising and self- serving advice of developed countries, in some cases their former colonial masters.

China’s growth
Western perceptions of China were for many years coloured by images of a country in conflict, politically weak and economically backward. It is helpful to recall that China has existed as a state on the basis of the same core boundaries for more than 3000 years, and that for most of that time it has been the wealthiest country in the world. Its aggregate wealth has been a function of its very large population, but even in per capita terms its people were better off than those of any country in Europe until at least the 15th century. In the long sweep of the country’s history, it is not a prosperous and confident China that is atypical, but rather the impoverished and divided state that existed towards the end of the Qing dynasty and in the turbulent years that followed the dynasty’s downfall in the early years of the twentieth century.

There's lots more in this long thesis.

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CB's picture

the more sane? Obama has become a joke in international affairs.

In phone call, China's Xi tells Trump cooperation is only choice
...
In their first interaction since the U.S. election, Chinese state media said Xi told Trump in a telephone call on Monday that as the world's largest developing and developed economies, there were many areas where China and the United States could cooperate.

"The facts prove that cooperation is the only correct choice for China and the United States," China Central Television (CCTV) cited Xi as saying.
...
The two sides must "promote the two countries' economic development and global economic growth" and "push for better development going forward in China-U.S. relations", Xi said.

Vladimir Putin says Russia hopes to 'normalise' relations with the United States
...
In an address to government ministers, MPs, and top Kremlin officials, Mr Putin said Russia and the United States are “jointly responsible for international stability and security” and that a good relationship was in the interests of the “whole world.”

"We are ready for cooperation with the new American administration,"Mr Putin said in the Kremlin on Thursday.

"It's important to normalise and develop our bilateral ties on an equal and mutually beneficial basis. We share responsibility for ensuring global security and stability and strengthening the non-proliferation regime," he added.

"We hope to join efforts with the United States in the fight against a real rather than dreamt-up threat - global terrorism," Mr Putin said. "Our servicemen in Syria are fulfilling that task," he said in the Kremlin on Thursday.

The following is an excellent read. (All the cartoons are priceless.)

A Loser's Malice: What's Behind Obama's Attacks On Putin
Relations between Russian president Vladimir Putin and US president Barack Obama are poisoned and irretrievably damaged. It’s therefore a good thing that Obama is leaving office on 20 January. Bad US-Russian relations are of course nothing new. Since the Anglo-American war against Iraq in 2003, the US-Russian relationship has been headed downhill. For Obama, it appears that everything has gotten personal. The US president often acts like a petulant adolescent, jealous of a high school rival. You know, the kid who does everything better than he does. The lad takes it badly and won’t let it go. He challenges his nemesis to some new contest at every opportunity only to lose again and again. That’s got to be hard on the ego. Between Obama and Putin there have been many such encounters. Nor can it help that western cartoonists so often ridicule Obama as out of his depth in comparison to Putin.
Let’s consider Obama’s remarks at his last press conference on Friday, 16 December. «The Russians can’t change us or significantly weaken us», said Obama: «They are a smaller country. They are a weaker country. Their economy doesn’t produce anything that anybody wants to buy, except oil and gas and arms. They don’t innovate». This was insulting both Putin and his country, but not enough apparently for Obama. «They [the Russians] can impact us if we lose track of who we are. They can impact us if we abandon our values. Mr. Putin can weaken us, just like he’s trying to weaken Europe, if we start buying into notions that it’s okay to intimidate the press, or lock up dissidents, or discriminate against people because of their faith or what they look like».
http://www.strategic-culture.org/images/myfls/dec2016/1-usa-obama-bingo.jpg

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snoopydawg's picture

In Moscow, an angry Putin challenged Obama to put up or shut up. This is a hard thing for Obama to do. The Russians, he says, «counter American efforts to expand freedom at every turn». One wonders where that would be. In the Ukraine where the United States and European Union backed and guided the coup d’état against the democratically elected Ukrainian government? Or in Syria where the United States and its NATO and regional vassals are waging a war of aggression against the legitimate government in Damascus, backing jihadist terrorists? How many democratic governments or popularly supported political movements has the United States plotted against or destroyed since 1945? The list is long, including the 1996 Russian presidential election.

As many people have written, it's the USA and its allies that are creating the terrorists in Syria to help overthrow Assad.
They were the ones who used the sarin gas on the Syrian people, but Obama used it as an excuse for overthrowing Assad. How callous and cowardice was that?

What Obama must hate most of all is Putin’s exposure of US support for Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Who indeed is responsible for the «slaughter» in Syria? Obama calls it fighting for democracy. «Airstrike democracy», Putin once derisively replied. «Do you realise what you have done?» Putin asked at the UN in 2015, shocking the MSM.

And Putin also shamed him into finally attacking the ISIS convoys that were miles long that were taking oil into Turkey to sell to Israel and coming out with supplies.
Obama dropped a few bombs on them, but not enough to damage them because he said that he didn't want to hurt innocent civilians. Now that was rich coming from the drone king who had no problem bombing weddings or the people that came to help them.
Then there's the coup in Ukraine where they are funding the same group of neo Nazis that they fought against during WWII, just like they are funding the same group of terrorists who they fought against during the Iraq war.
The soldiers who fought in both of those wars should be in the streets over this. That is the very definition of hypocrisy.
And it's going to be another one of Obamas's legacies.
But, hey there's Lily Ledbetter, right?

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solublefish's picture

In the Reagan Era, a.k.a. the Second Cold War, the theoretical basis of US nuclear policy shifted from MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) to NUTS (Nuclear Utilization Target Selection). In plain English, that means we went from a policy of having nukes to AVOID war to having nukes to MAKE war. In plainer English, we went from just plain MAD to totally NUTS...as some of the following quotations from the era reveal.

"The probability of nuclear war is 40 percent...and our strategy is winnable nuclear war."
_Richard Pipes, Top Reagan adviser, 1982

The advice of Pipes and others like him was taken seriously by Reagan, who in late 1981 approved a National Security Decision Document committing the United States to fight and win a global nuclear war.
The kind of nuke war they were planning was not like in the movies or popular books - a single reciprocal exchange of 'massive retaliation' then done. No, this was to be a long, drawn out affair - "a protracted struggle lasting up to 6 months", as the NYT put it, for which we would have to stockpile a LOT of nukes. US Secretary of State George Schultz was asked at the time, how many?

"You need enough warheads to be capable of supporting controlled nuclear counterattacks over a protracted period while maintaining a reserve of nuclear forces sufficient for trans- and post-attack protection and coercion."
___Secretary of State Schultz, 1982

Needless to say, all this talk of protracted nuclear war was worrisome to ordinary people, who wondered how we could survive. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, T.K. Jones helpfully explained:

"The United States could recover form an all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union in just two to four years...Nuclear war is not nearly as devastating as we have been led to believe. If there are enough shovels to go around, everybody's going to make it. Dig a hole in the ground, cover it with a couple of doors, and then cover the doors with three feet of dirt. It's the dirt that does it."
__Interview with Robert Scheer, Fall 1981

Got that, boys and girls? No more 'duck and cover': it's the dirt that does it. The USG created civil defense plans to evacuate major US cities in the even of nuclear war, called 'Crisis Relocation Planning'. Of course, the top brass understood very well this was just to calm the population, since in real life there is no way you are evacuating a city... So in a real nuclear war, the likelihood was that we would lose a significant portion of the population. But Reagan admin officials were still sanguine:

When asked if he thought the human race could survive a full-scale nuclear war, Arms Control Agency head Eugene Rostow said: "The human race is very resilient. Some estimates predict that in a limited nuclear war as many as 10 million people might perish on one side and 100 million on the other. But that is not the whole of the population."
__Arms Control Agency head, Rostow, 1981

I feel better already.

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Big Al's picture

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Lily O Lady's picture

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

jorogo's picture

Typical utopian short-sightedness, denial and rationalization, then and today....
After crawling into a hole under 3 feet of dirt....then what?
After evacuating millions into the countryside....then what?
After deposing/assassinating a demonized leadership....then what?

In all cases, mostly just death of mostly ordinary people....that's what.

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"If I sit silently, I have sinned." - Mossadegh

Pluto's Republic's picture

In all cases, mostly just death of mostly ordinary people....that's what.

We have entered the time of the Great Depopulation.

You'll notice the "serious people" aren't squawking about climate change. They're mum or they brush it off. They know what needs to be done. If you look at the science, they are right, I am sorry to say.

Look around. Who ever heard of fighting nuclear wars over such minor side issues? This normalization of nuclear conflict is clearly the set up for what's to come.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
asterisk's picture

more bombs just make the rubble bounce. Nuclear war would devastate the planet to the point where even the cockroaches would have a difficult time surviving.

Global warming will cause serious problems, but we can still mitigate the damage. I am mostly worried about the release of methane clathrates in the Arctic. The rate of release will make a big difference.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/features/200409_methane/

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Daenerys's picture

If depopulation is their end game, why are so many so anti-birth control and anti-abortion and anti-sex education for so long? Why do they encourage people to keep having so many babies, only for them to die miserably or fight and be killed in wars? That's just about the cruelest, evilest thing imaginable.

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This shit is bananas.

jorogo's picture

"for them to die miserably or fight and be killed in wars", which simultaneously keeps them dis-engaged from any viable political power.

I love your sig line...I once had it put on a tee-shirt for a good friend of mine, and I and the world do miss her dearly.

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"If I sit silently, I have sinned." - Mossadegh

riverlover's picture

shelters have been re-purposed or buried. I guess that means the Plan B (or C, or D, or E or Z) is to "let" the peons die off, instantly or miserably later in the cold and dark.

One downtown here was in the sub-basement of the old High School (now apartments and shops above and one story under). My husband was an architect for the "new" high school. He scored an old metal can with a metal lid that stored water, with directions on how when empty it could be used as a "latrine". It now holds dog food here. Mouse-proof, you know.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

SparkyGump's picture

but they will emerge from their shelters to a devastated ecosystem.

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The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.

snoopydawg's picture

to serve them while they were waiting for the air and ground to clear.
Look up understand bunkers at Denver airport.
CT or what? I've read that the elites are building underground bunkers in many states and countries.
Who knows if it's true or not, but I'm reminded of the movie 2012 Smile

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Made and then banned in the UK. It was considered too horrific to show and as I read somewhere, it might convince people to be against nuclear weapons. Made in the 1960s. After watching it felt like somebody threw a basketball in my face. It starts positing conflict between America and China, spreading to Europe. It uses a kind of docu-drame format.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game

Here is site to view it which I have not tried yet..

https://archive.org/details/thewargamereel2

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Bollox Ref's picture

much to Thatcher's chagrin, dealt with a nuclear exchange and the resultant 'nuclear winter'. Not good for the citizens of Sheffield.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Sima's picture

I was a just turned 20 something moved to the UK from America when that came out. Watched it and it immediately and irrevocably changed my view on myself, my country, my other country (UK), and the world. Maybe a kitschy series, I dunno, but it changed me forever and made me the hippie dippie, farmer/archaeologist, anti-war protester, socialist that I am. Born to late to be a protester in the 60's, I joined in the 80's and have never left.

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If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so

The Aspie Corner's picture

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

PriceRip's picture

          To dispose of bombs containing various nasty chemicals, the personal of the Umatilla Army Depot would stack several at a time in a pit and burn them. The resulting explosions would cause the windows to shake in "Sandstone School" about 5 miles to the East.

          That classroom looked very similar to the one pictured above.

          Thanks for the memories · · · I think · · ·

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