Nuclear War! Trump's a Mad Man! OMG We're All Gonna Die!
No doubt you've seen the headlines by now, or heard the news that Trump boasted North Korea "will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen," and North Korea's threat to nuke Guam. The usual anonymous sources are claiming that North Korea has far more sophisticated nukes then we used to believe. Well to those crisis mongers, all I can say is Chill the Fu#k Out.
North Korea has a history of failed nuclear and missile tests. They have had only two or three successful ballistics missile tests depending on who one talks to. Yet now out of the blue we are told they have an arsenal of 60 nukes and also the technology to put one on a ballistic missile accurate enough to strike US territories. Does anyone feel as if we're being lied to about all this, because I certainly do.
North Korea has only conducted five nuclear weapons tests in total since 2006. None of these tests demonstrated that they have the capability to put a nuclear device of any kind on a ballistic missile capable of accurately hitting a target such as Guam. Yet just yesterday CIA mouthpiece, The Washington Post, disclosed that US intelligence, specifically the Defense Intelligence Agency, now believes the Koreans are capable of producing intercontinental missiles with miniaturized nuclear warheads on them.
North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded in a confidential assessment.
The analysis, completed last month by the Defense Intelligence Agency, comes on the heels of another intelligence assessment that sharply raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country’s atomic arsenal. The United States calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Some independent experts think the number is much smaller.
The findings are likely to deepen concerns about an evolving North Korean military threat that appears to be advancing far more rapidly than many experts had predicted. U.S. officials concluded last month that Pyongyang is also outpacing expectations in its effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the American mainland.
Note that last sentence in the second paragraph above: "Some independent experts think the number is much smaller." That's a classic propaganda tactic. Make a brief disclaimer that a small number of other "experts" disagree with you, but do not name them. After the harrowing info that the DIA supposedly revealed in its analysis, it makes these experts seem insignificant and likely ill informed. After all, how could they know everything that the DIA knows, right? And that is the only information included in the article that presents any opinion opposing US intelligence. So we have the appearance of "fair and balanced" reporting, when in fact this is a completely one-sided psy-ops piece designed to scare the shit out of people.
The Post reveals later on in its report that the reporters have not seen the DIA analysis, only had an excerpt of it read to them. However, this analysis was "verified" by two anonymous "US Officials." Later on we're told North Korea is conducting it's own "Manhattan Project" that is outpacing past expectations of their technical abilities. The Post report even quotes a guy who is pushing a book on the North Korean nuclear threat, a "think tank" scholar and former Clinton official named Robert Litwak. A few other people who all agree we have underestimated the North Korean threat until now are also named and cited. No one is quoted directly who disagrees with these speculations about the Korean nuclear program. Only individuals who have stated that North Korea is on the verge of blowing the USA sky high with the nukes are named and quoted by the reporters.
I lived through the Cuban Missile crisis. Do you know why we had a Cuban missile crisis? Because the US intelligence services had inflated the threat of Russia's ICBM program. Indeed, at the time, Russia had no missiles that could reach America, which was why they put intermediate range missiles in Cuba in the first place, as a means to gain leverage over the US, which had a far more advanced and sophisticated intercontinental ballistic missile force, as well as better bombers and submarine delivery systems. JFK, who ran for President on the position that there was a "missile gap" in favor of the Soviet Union was shocked when he assumed office to discover that all the intelligence leaked to the public about Russia's nuclear capabilities was flat out wrong.
So don't get too excited or concerned about this ginned up crisis. I don't know what the US intelligence community has been telling Trump, but I can only assume they have exaggerated North Korea's capabilities to bring about a military confrontation with this small little nation. And of course the mainstream media is running with it because "fear sells" and that goes double when the fear is one of "Weapons of Mass Destruction." Or has anyone forgot how we were all duped by the CIA in the run-up to the Iraq war? I haven't and that's why I am highly skeptical of the claims being anonymously leaked to the press once again about another highly dangerous WMD threat posed by another economically disadvantaged third world country.
Comments
Silly Trump! You're supposed to be aiming those nukes at Russia!
Sorry, I had my translation helmet activated.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Hmm, translation helmet may have misfired.
Something else seems to be coming through now...
"People think we're going to start a nuclear war with Russia. We'd better make them think Trump is going to start a nuclear war, so they stop focusing on us. But not with Russia; we want people to think War With Russia Is Good (tm). How 'bout North Korea? Nobody likes them."
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
So tired of this shit.
Lots of Hillary dems shouting "see, we told you!" And conveniently ignoring the fact that their favourite pols are eating the propaganda up with a spoon.
I still say anybody who even jokes about dropping the bomb when they have the power to do so is the equivalent of a drunk man with a machine gun on a busy street. Yeah, maybe they won't indiscriminately massacre people, but that's not where the safe money is.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
@detroitmechworks Like Reagan?
That was fun.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
"See, we told you!"
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
I shit you not
Easy for that well off white 60-year-old male to say. I swear, he's on the talking-point distribution list.
It IS part of the plan,
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
During the Cuban missle crisis, JFK was smart enough to
conclude that he was in the midst of a war-mongering government and therefore should trust no one but his own kid brother. Bobby was also smart. Between the two of them, they sorted out a way of proceeding that avoided a confrontation, rather than precipitating something horrible.
Unlike Lloyd Bentsen, I did not serve with Jack Kennedy. I did not know Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was not a friend of mine. (Damn! Don't I wish!) Nonetheless, I know that Trump is no Jack Kennedy and Ivanka Trump is no Bobby Kennedy.
I get the uneasy feeling that, if anyone tells Trump that Kim Jong-un is making the POTUS look weak or look like a fool, or that Kim Jong-Un called Trump a poopyhead, Trump might do something I'd much rather he did not do.
During the Presidential Campaign
During the crisis
Lloyd Bentsen
Thanks! I fixed it. Much appreciated.
@HenryAWallace Well, that was when
It's strange to remember that I grew up with those assumptions.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
We were all brainwashed from kindergarten on.
I never attended nursery school. Could even start there. Pledging allegiance to the flag, struggling to sing an unsing-able song about the flag surviving a single battle in 1814 that doesn't mean a thing to anyone today, babbling about a democracy the Framers decided against. Disinformation and silence about American history, the nature of our country, wars, imperialism, etc. Our brains were scrambled into naive. patriotic omelettes from the off.
Shirley a man of Gawd will tell Trump to cool the f*ck down
right? I mean doesn't Gawd tell the ministers of his flock to teach love, forgiveness and turn the other cheek? If Gawd didn't say any of those things, then his Son did if I remember the New Testament right?
God Is Totally Cool With Nuking North Korea
Well alrighty then, if Gawd is cool with nuking a million people because a snake oil minister said that he is, then I down with it too.
On a side note, isn't it funny how the Obama neoliberals now have more in common with John McCain?
We sure have come a long way from the days of opposing the wars in the Middle East, haven't we?
Sigh.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
McCain
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Thousands of wars around the world, since
homo sapiens began. Also evil. The can and do flourish side by side and one feeding the other.
An even nuttier article here
This guy is totally off his rocker!
I suppose that this is how Obama was able to clarify to himself when he found out that he was "good at killing" when his drones continued to kill civilians during his terrorist whack a mole hunts. But then what do I know? It must be hard work keeping a country safe from the terrorist that it created in the first place.
Sigh, again.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
snoopy, you must get a copy of the New American Annotated Bible
Bible
Is that the one where the entire seventh chapter of Matthew has been deleted?
On a more serious note, The New American Bible is the current Roman Catholic translation into modern American English. If you want to read certain books (Maccabees, Tobit, etc.) in reasonable American English, it's pretty much the only game in town.
And, needless to say, it emphatically does NOT support nuclear war with North Korea!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
I am shocked, I tell you!
LOL.
It's my understanding that once Gawd sent his only Son
down here to address what the Old Testament got wrong, then people are supposed to stop picking and choosing from the part of it to justify their actions and start believing what the New Testament says instead. Especially the part where His Son said "love one another" and "turn the other cheek".
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
@snoopydawg
That New Testament would have been provided when the oligarchs of the time realized that primitive and bloodthirsty societies weren't sustainable and decided to try civilization and cooperation instead?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@snoopydawg Wait a minute..but why
Not only an evil, noxious, web of beliefs, but one that doesn't even hold together.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
From what I understand about saying what Gawd is down with
depends on what religion one is.
Bush said that Gawd told him to invade Iraq and many of Christians were okay with that.
In fact, one Domonistic Christian was hired to help with the war and made buco bucks from all the warring.
But people aren't willing to give Mohamed's Gawd the same benefit of doubt. They don't think that anyone whose country was invaded by the Christians should be allowed to fight back against them and they are called terrorists and insurgents while the Christian soldiers are called heroes, especially if they die doing Gawd's bidding.
This is where it gets tricky. How are we supposed to know which Gawd is the real deal and the other Gawd isn't because He tells his followers to kill the innocents, including women and children?
This is easy because when our citizens are killed by Mohamed's Gawd they are called Victims, but when they are killed by Bush's Gawd, they are called Collateral Damage.
I think it would make more sense to stop the killing and negotiate for the resources that the corporations want, and if that doesn't work, then the people who say that Gawd told them to invade other people's land, they should have to be at the front. No exceptions.
So yeah, you are right that Kim's Gawd could be telling him to keep trying to build nuclear weapons just in case our Gawd tells him to use nukes on North Korea.
This really gets complicated when there are so many Gawds, except they are supposed to be the same one.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Gawd is Tinkerbelle or a sprite
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.
@snoopydawg I don't even know
Whoa-oh. Just looked it up. He's an atheist in an atheist country (probably something to do with Communism.) Bad bad bad! No wonder he's an evildoer.
It's so much easier to be an evildoer when you're neither Christian nor Jewish.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
LOL!
I can't begin to imagine how this changes the Game of Gawds. Hopefully someone smarter than me can figure this out.
Nice catch.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
@snoopydawg
I suppose that 'Thou shalt not steal' was excised along with 'Thou shalt not kill' which I've seen described as a mistranslation of ''Thou shalt not murder'?
Edited because I cleverly used bolding instead of block-quoting. Going to get that 2nd coffee started...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@snoopydawg
So, he's saying that the government cannot contain any Christians, enjoined by the Christian god to not repay evil for evil,
in which case, they also do not have that 'exemption from the Christian god' to fall back on
should the Christian equivalent of 'Sharia law' be (edit: ever) claimed legal in America?
Edited to remove a misleading comma and to add, regarding:
Doubly hard, since it seems that the FBI typically has to convince what appear too-often to be mentally handicapped/psychologically vulnerable people to 'become terrorists' and supply them with weapons to 'catch them with' in order to have any 'terrorist arrests' in America, something they've been doing for years.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-fbi-entrapment-is-inventin...
https://www.rt.com/usa/fbi-terror-report-plot-365-899/
That they know of...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
See how complicated it gets when they play Game of Gawds?
With so many Gawds in the picture it is very difficult to determine which Gawd is right or wrong.
Therefore, I think that people should follow these two Commandants that people keep overlooking so that they can do whatever the voices in their heads tell them to do.
I strongly agree with Detroitmechworks' sigline:
I don't Blame Christians. I Blame Stupid. Which Sadly, is a much more popular religion these days.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
@snoopydawg
And as usual, I couldn't agree more with you.
Good people use what they have to do good or, rather, what they perceive as doing good, and the reverse seems even more true - or at least noticeable.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
We would get this sort of thing under any President.
The fact that a reality-TV star is in the White House just makes it extra fun for them.
“The Democrats and Republicans want you to believe they are mortal enemies engaged in a desperate struggle when all the time, they are partners with a power-sharing agreement.” - Richard Moser
So true.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
I was so
looking forward to being raptured along with president Pence. Now I'm supposed end a piece of smoking charcoal. I hate that trump
we will all go together
Tom Lehrer thinks we should take comfort in that last bit of total equality for everyone:
[video:https://youtu.be/TIoBrob3bjI]
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
@thanatokephaloides Thanks for that vid. I
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
LMAO, good one
I nominate this for ToP comment!
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Don't get concerned? With the crazy fuckers running this
country? The issue isn't what North Korea can do, it's what our government and those who control it can do. That should have everyone concerned, especially when the propaganda hits the fan.
Agreed!
We are not human beings but only collateral damage. We are not of concern.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
@Big Al Agreed also, too.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Media war propaganda
is reaching one of its highest peaks ever, approaching those of the Iraq and the Vietnam War eras. Now we've got both Russia and North Korea to be terrified of. These two "evil regimes" have chased poor Bashar Assad, and even ISIS right off the front pages.
It's amazing how smoothly American media can shift their fear-mongering focus from one scary threat to the next. You'd think people might catch on to the trick one of these days. It has certainly been played often enough.
native
@native
On the plus side, more Americans probably know or are learning which government really is a hazard to itself and others...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
I'm not so sure if this is true
I realize that DK is only a small segment of our population, but look at how easily they were sold on this Russian propaganda scheme. I wonder how many of them would have believed this if it was Trump making this claim that Russia interfered with the election and that was the reason why he lost to Herheinous.
I'm pretty sure that most of them would say that he is just being a sore loser.
But since it was Herheinous that lost to Trump of all people, they can't accept that she lost because of who and what she is. And that is why they have swallowed the Russian propaganda. It lets them blame others instead of Herheinous.
The other question that they should be asking, is why Obama didn't do anything about it while his agencies found out about it? The only thing I have heard him say about this was that he didn't want to look like he was giving Herheinous an excuse if she lost.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
I found it interesting
that the gains made by our military in cooperation with the Russians and the Kurdish SDF in Syria, combined with the VIPS intelligence report that there was no hacking of the DNC emails, suddenly resulted in the fact that North Korea could reach Guam with a missile. I have long suspected that North Korea is a CIA black site, and I am more aware of that possibility as this soap opera plays out. We have to have a nuclear armed ENEMY in order to have a nuclear weapons industry. And Russia can't be that enemy if we are succeeding in a war along with their military and if their government didn't hack Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Looks to me like Russia is still
very much being portrayed as an enemy, in spite of the lack of solid evidence. Who needs solid evidence, when you can convince the public without it? Anti-Putinism has been a long-term project, pre-dating the current (Dem-inspired) media frenzy.
I don't know about North Korea. I don't see any CIA footprints there, though that doesn't mean there aren't any.
native
It's the Russians.
Shillary and Podesta and Rhodes said so.
It's not Pyongyang. It's Moscow. It's Beijing. It's Tehran, It's Mogadishu. It's Canada!
Yeah, that's it, Canada!
Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!
Firesign Theater
Stop the War!
The mouse in the bottle story
was supposedly actually a can of Genesee beer. The story I heard was that it happened in a bar in Syracuse, NY, in 1974 and the lucky drinker was underage. Of course, it could have been just a high school kid claiming to be the protagonist of an urban myth.
On to Biden since 1973
Many years ago
Ordered a Tecate in a can. In the can? A 2 inch long dead roach.
Good times.
Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!
Firesign Theater
Stop the War!
yum
@EdMass
The Canadian government is already controlled by US (and European) 'interests', the Koch brothers being one notable example. TBTB probably won't invade/bomb us until we manage to get an actual Canadian government in. If ever. (Personally, I'd rather be invaded/bombed than give in/up, though.)
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Truthfully,
what bothers me more than the exaggeration of the threat is the lack of understanding of the effect of nuclear weapons. I feel like the younger generations (plural, younger than 60) don't seem to understand at all what nuclear weapons do.
Here's what's on my San Francisco Chronicle front page today. Part of it describes lying on the ground face down and then getting into a windowless room.
My Trump voting co-worker
Her husband used to work for electric utilities. I'm sure he knows what happens to the grid with an EMP. Lose the grid and all hell breaks loose, rapidly. Very depressing few days it's been.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
One Second After is a book about a small town
after an EMP went off and all the problems that created for just one town out of millions.
Then there's the movie On the Beach from decades ago which is still popular.
The chances of our country deciding to use a nuclear weapon is just as close as it was during the Cuban missile crisis. If not closer because of who's in charge of it.
One Russian submarine was given orders to launch one and they would have. Fortunately, one officer disobeyed the order.
Sorry, I can't find the article on this.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
I remember that article.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
I read On the beach years ago
and if you have to pick one book, I recommend One second after.
I have listened to it more than 3 times, it's that good. And with my memory problems, sometimes it's like reading books for the first time.
I will try to find the article on the Russian submarine officer.
ETA Are you able to access your online library and download books to your kindle? I have downloaded close to 100 audio books from mine and transfer them to my iPod.
I can keep a book for 3 weeks and read it on my iPad through my kindle app.
You need to get the overdrive app to be able to read them on your kindle.
Besides, since it's an older book, Amazon might be selling it for a low price.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
I am going to have to replace my Kindle
I'll look for One Second After. Do you remember the TV movie The Day After? I still remember that movie and felt like it made an impression then with people realizing a bit that a nuclear war as survivable is not so. At least, who would want to?
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
@Linda Wood raises questions?
Gets my vote for understatement of the year.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
give her a break, man
@Linda Wood“The survivors would envy
When I went to Japan a few years ago, I made sure to take in every single thing I could at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I know how light the bombings are discussed here in America and I knew more about the horrors. But actually seeing it in person--hearing the personal stories, seeing the pictures of people, seeing the melted pieces--that is something I believe every single American needs to see.
You have brought up a great point saying that you tried
to see what happened through the eyes of the Japanese in order to understand what it would have been like to live after the bombing.
I have been reading this article about how out of touch Americans are to the reality of people in other countries and how American exceptionalism has skewed our world view.
Unlearning the myth of American innocence
I can't recommend this article enough.
ETA: Americans should also have to see the pictures of what our military is doing to people in war zones.
They have used white phosphorus in numerous countries, along with other banned biological weapons.
We should also have to see the bodies that our bombs do to the Collateral civilians, when our government blows the number of people who were killed.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
But snoop, then they wouldn't be so
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
@Linda Wood
It's an automatic political response; give the victims something useless to do and the impression that it's potentially helpful, so that they'll stay out of the faces of those who might be expected to do something and die quietly, well out of the way of Those Who Matter. Covers just about anything, doesn't it?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
It's pretty obvious to me
that this is simple misdirection. Look over here at my lovely assistant while I stuff a rabbit into this hat and silk scarves up my sleeves.
What are they directing our attention away from? Are they simply trying to pump up El Trumpo's sagging poll numbers? Give the people something to obsess over during the August recess instead of reminding them about the failure to repeal Obamacare? Tax cuts? Who knows?
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
Rattling their sabres
is the stock and trade of both Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump. They both specialize in bombast and braggadocio, in order to project a fearsome front to the world. However I doubt that either one of them is crazy enough to actually "push the button"... simply because to do so would be politically, if not literally suicidal. And I don't see either man as being that.
On the other hand, even coming as close to the edge as they have come, is terribly reckless and irresponsible behavior. They are playing a deadly game of brinkmanship, where a single misstep by either of them could make it could all go boom.
native
Or even less than that...
... Huffpost reports:
Trump Probably Made Up That ‘Fire And Fury’ Quote On His Own
“Don’t read too much into it.”
Just drunk grandpa Trumpo yelling at
cloudsworld leaders again."The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
He does not drink
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.
The Madman With Nuclear Weapons is Donald Trump, Not Kim Jong-un
More: https://theintercept.com/2017/08/09/the-madman-with-nuclear-weapons-is-donald-trump-not-kim-jong-un/
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020
@ZimInSeattle
Would '...Bill Clinton’s defense secretary William Perry ...' like to explain what's '...“ruthless and … reckless”...' about the leader of another country being '...bent on preserving his regime and preventing a U.S. attack. Nuclear weapons are a defensive, not an offensive, tool for the North Korean leadership ...'?
The purpose of having a nuclear defense is that this is supposed to act as a deterrent to other nuclear-armed countries wishing to bully/invade/yet again flatten a previously victimized country and its people, only more so and with radiation and the strong potential for global dimming killing off life on the planet as other allied/targeted countries also finally strike back at the murderous bully - although it only seems to deter the at least somewhat sane and even vaguely informed of the pathologically greedy and power-hungry warmongers.
The Psychopaths That Be might survive for some time, isolated in their luxury bunkers with the electrical power grid fried and no internet communications, although power supplies might be a problem, but they'll wind up just as miserably dead as the rest of us, whatever delusions they may hold about buying/creating their own reality - and making it somehow real. There are no 'exceptional' exceptions made for the wealthiest with the power grid down, when the oxygen (edit: producers) globally die off across the dark and radioactive globe and their hoarded money becomes worthless for those trapped in their bunkers within the hell they've made of Earth.
Schadenfreud - where would we be without it?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
hey! look!
SQUIRREL...
In the meantime, Extinction Event Gains Momentum
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/08/the-extinction-event-gains-momen...
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Wow! That's a scary article
and TPTB thinks they are going to ride this out in their bunkers. I doubt that they will ever get out of their bunkers if this happens. Unless the plankton are able to regenerate somehow.
Thanks for the link to the article.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
The Russians did
have ICBMs capable of reaching the US in 1962. They were big, primitive, liquid fueled monstrosities. They were fueled as part of preparations for launch. A sniper with a rifle could have destroyed one. The time they could remain on alert was limited because their gyroscopes would burn out. The US could have taken out most of the missiles in a first strike with the solid fueled, always ready, Minuteman system. (They could have turned western Europe into a radioactive wasteland in response.)
The Soviets used their early successes in putting satellites in orbit to inflate the number of ICBMs they had. Khrushchev said they were rolling off assembly lines like sausages. The US had put up its first generation spy satellite. An American quietly gave his Soviet counterpart the number of ICBMs they had actually deployed. If we could count them, it meant we could target them. This uncomfortable situation is likely to have been a significant factor in the decision to place medium and intermediate missiles in Cuba.
Robert McNamara was terrified by arguments made by some in the military that we'd never have a better chance to prevail. Following the crisis, he devoted tremendous effort to get the Soviets to put their missiles underground, which they did.
Do you mean that MacNamara
was an advocate for establishing nuclear parity? I'd never heard that before.
native
MAD
McNamara was an advocate of Mutual Assured Destruction. The logic is that if each side can destroy the other no matter which strikes first and they both know it, neither side is likely to strike. Unfortunately, there are advocates on both sides for nuclear war fighting capability. In such an environment the side that strikes first has a huge advantage assuming the nuclear war can be stopped short of Mutual Assured Destruction.
Under MAD parity is not really a relevant concept. Once you can destroy the other side even if struck first additional capability is just "bouncing the rubble." With plans for nuclear war fighting there is no logical stopping place in the buildup because each side is trying to get an advantage.