The Day After, the film and its effect on weapons policy
The 1983 film, The Day After, had a strong and lasting effect on nuclear weapons policy until the recent return to fascist death wish by the political leadership of the United States. I hope we can read and think about the importance of this film in the coming new year. Global Research has published an interesting piece on the effect of the film on Gorbachev and Reagan. Happy New Year.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/facing-nuclear-reality-35-years-after-the-...
Facing Nuclear Reality: 35 Years after “The Day After”
By Dawn Stover
Global Research, December 28, 2018
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists… The television movie The Day After depicted a full-scale nuclear war and its impacts on people living in and around Kansas City. It became something of a community project in picturesque Lawrence, 40 miles west of Kansas City, where much of the movie was filmed.
… ABC broadcast The Day After on November 20, 1983, with no commercial breaks during the final hour. More than 100 million people saw it—nearly two-thirds of the total viewing audience. It remains one of the most-watched television programs of all time. Brandon Stoddard, then-president of ABC’s motion picture division, called it “the most important movie we’ve ever done.” The Washington Post later described it as “a profound TV moment.” It was arguably the most effective public service announcement in history.
“For those of us who live in Lawrence, it was personal… and it didn’t have a happy ending.”
It was also a turning point for foreign policy. Thirty-five years ago, the United States and the Soviet Union were in a nuclear arms race that had taken them to the brink of war. The Day After was a piercing wakeup shriek, not just for the general public but also for then-President Ronald Reagan. Shortly after he saw the film, Reagan gave a speech saying that he, too, had a dream: that nuclear weapons would be “banished from the face of the Earth.” A few years later, Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the first agreement that provided for the elimination of an entire category of nuclear weapons. By the late 1990s, American and Russian leaders had created a stable, treaty-based arms-control infrastructure and expected it to continue improving over time.
Now, however, a long era of nuclear restraint appears to be nearing an end...
Comments
I disagree with one premise.
Nuclear weapons are absolutely on the front burner in entertainment.
Primarily touting how wonderful it will be after the apocalypse.
Of course, I find it fitting that the public seems to be rejecting that message, FINALLY. (The most recent "Fallout" game was a commercial, artistic and moral flop, and I've noticed similar distaste for other apocalyptic literature among my acquaintances.)
Of course, I've also seen "Grave of the Fireflies" about the Japanese experience of Nuclear war. Which is possibly one of the most depressing films I've ever seen. Beautiful, but gods it was sad. Seriously, If you want first hand knowledge of the horror that is nuclear war, Japan is the expert on it.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
One Second After is an excellent book
It's about what happens after an EMP goes off over a small town in NC when everything run by computers are fried. Freeways become parking lots and cars paperweights. Medications run out and... good book. And Newt Grinwich has been trying to get congress to take the threat seriously.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Wouldn't even take a nuclear war to fry our gizmos
Suppose the Sun spits out an energy burst that actually hits the Earth instead of missing it? (This actually happened on September 1-2 1859. It played hell with the telegraph system, which was the most sophisticated technology of the day.)
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
And EMF attack will wipe out every electronic device.
Long time ago read an article in Scientific American how some "enemy" could wipe out something like half of America's electronic devices (not just computers). Any thing with a wire would experience a massive electrical surge that would burn it out. That includes portable generators, older cars, power transmission lines, etc. All of this would happen if a Hirshoma sized A-bomb were denonated slightly above the atmosphere along the Eastern seaboard.
So what would happen we would go technologically backward to horse and buggies. In some ways, back to the proverbial stone ages.
Bipartisan march toward nuclear war.
The political and media elites have joined in a daily propaganda campaign against Russia that makes the possiblity of war more and more likely. All for political advantage gain. Not even counting the money that is being made by miiliary contractors, pundits, academics, media outlets, etc. who push anti-Russian narratives. In this group I would even put various progressive pundits who mouth Russian conspiracy accusations such as the Young Turks who supposedly are anti-war, but use the language of war, aggression, conspiracy, and insult against Putin and the Russians.
What has made what some call a new Cold War particularily heinous and dangerous is that in both Europe and the US the conflict is being fueled by racial and ethnic hatred of the Russians. In the previous Cold War, the conflict was mainly over idealogy. There is no great war of ideas going on. This is what fueled Nazi Germany in large part against Jews and Russians.