Nuclear Nightmare

Nuclear nightmare is more immanent now as low-yield weapons roll off the assembly line, as James Carroll writes at Tom Dispatch, and the as the Nuclear Clock ticks closer to Midnight, as Scott Ritter writes at Truthdig. I am alarmed to learn from RT that Putin believes the Russian people will die as martyrs while the aggressors will simply die. But I am glad to see all this writing. Here is an essay speaking to legal challenges to our government's madness along with links to the other articles to learn from.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176526/tomgram%3A_james_carroll%2C_how_m...

How Many Minutes to Midnight?
February 12, 2019.
Doomsday Redux
The Most Dangerous Weapon Ever Rolls Off the Nuclear Assembly Line
By James Carroll

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/one-minute-to-midnight/

Truthdig February 12, 2019
Scott Ritter
One Minute to Midnight

https://www.rt.com/news/441631-putin-nuclear-holocaust-heaven/

After nuclear holocaust, we’ll go to heaven as martyrs; attackers will die as sinners – Putin
19 Oct, 2018 07:56

If any nation decides to attack Russia with nuclear weapons, it may end life on Earth; but unlike the aggressors, the Russians are sure to go to heaven, President Vladimir Putin has said.
“Any aggressor should know that retribution will be inevitable and he will be destroyed. And since we will be the victims of his aggression, we will be going to heaven as martyrs. They will simply drop dead, won’t even have time to repent,” Putin said during a session of the Valdai Club in Sochi.

https://truthout.org/articles/trump-moves-the-world-closer-to-doomsday/

Trump Moves the World Closer to “Doomsday”
Marjorie Cohn, Truthout
February 15, 2019

… Trump’s Nuclear Posture Review of 2018 would allow the United States to use nuclear weapons in response to non-nuclear attacks. This new U.S. policy opens the door to first-use of nuclear weapons, which is prohibited by international law.

… Although U.S. nuclear weapons have been on hair trigger alert for 73 years, “nuclear weapons have become normal,” Patrick O’Neill told Truthout. He and six other Catholic activists are facing up to 25 years in prison for their symbolic action to disarm the nuclear weapons on Kings Bay Naval Base in Georgia. They chose April 4, 2018, the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to mount their protest.

In May 2018, the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 were charged with conspiracy, destruction of property on a naval station, depredation of government property, and trespass, stemming from their action at the Kings Bay Naval Base. The base is homeport to six nuclear ballistic missile submarines each armed with 16 Trident II missiles.

… The defendants, who will likely go to trial this spring, maintain that any use or threat to use nuclear weapons of mass destruction is illegal, Kings Bay Plowshares 7 spokesperson Bill Ofenloch told Truthout… Finally, the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 are claiming that Trump’s repeated threats to use nuclear weapons and his illegal conduct have not been prosecuted, so the government’s decision to prosecute only those who protest against nuclear weapons constitutes unlawful selective prosecution.

Co-defendant Martha Hennessy is the granddaughter of Catholic Worker Movement co-founder Dorothy Day… Hennessy told Truthout, “The U.S. withdrawal from the INF treaty is designed to ensnare Russia and the world in a new nuclear arms race.” She warns, “This is empire run amok, we have lost our democracy, let us pray we don’t lose our world and each other.”

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In 2020 democrats and the media will have gone through four years of intensive xenophobic campaign against the Russian people that went way beyond what we saw before the Iraq invasion. The level of xenophobia is much like the German Nazis toward the Soviets and Jews--it is plain out at a gut level an ethnic and racial hatred. It is the same in Europe with worst being the UK.

If a dem wins in 2020 (assuming both Tulsi and Bernie will not be the candidates), they will be under enormous political and emotional pressure to attack Russia somewhere and somehow. Not sanctions, but actually a shooting conflict.

There was a lecture by an American historian (which I am trying to locate) who asked the question: why did European antisemitism become racial genocide with the Germans. His answer was that the Nazis believed that the Jews were engaged in actual warfare with them. Not metaphorical warfare but real killing war. And they the Nazis should respond in kind.

How many American and European politicians and pundits have with great vigor and emotion and belief have stated that the Russians have committed actual acts of war against America and Europe. The rhetoric has gone from "national mischief" to WAR.

As for Putin, Stephen Cohen has stated the Russian defense posture is that they will never again tolerate an invasion of Russia. And if that happens, they will go to nukes. What I see NATO/US doing in their build up along Russian borders is getting prep'ed for another Operation Barbarossa.

I am not advocating voting for Trump who is controlled by now warmongering neocons, but that a dem victory will ensure a nuclear war.

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snoopydawg's picture

@MrWebster

and Pearl Harbor. When I ask a Russia Gater how many people have died I'm told that people will die because Trump signed the bill that killed the mandate for the ACA. Seriously? Not that people were dying anyway because they still couldn't afford to buy insurance or because states didn't expand Medicaid? Or they died because they couldn't afford to buy their meds because Obama didn't put price controls in the ACA? Or because congress hasn't done a damn thing about companies jacking up the price of the medication from under $10 to $3,7000?

Russia didn't do those things. Russia didn't let the war and bank criminals off or any of the other things that is making this country a third world banana republic.

People really need to take Vlad seriously when he says this:

"They will simply drop dead, won’t even have time to repent,”

We may be building mini nukes, but if we dare to use one on Russia they will hit us back with a full blown one. We can count on this.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg a Russian bot will not kill Americans!!

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg

what would the US Gov do if Russia hit the U.S. with a mini-nuke? Wouldn't they retaliate?

They seem pretty het up about defending our country from Russia when Russia hasn't killed a single U.S. citizen that I know of. Are we supposed to believe that if Russia actually attacked us with nukes they'd roll over? Or is this simply one more case of what's good for the goose is not good for the gander?

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"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

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@MrWebster

The level of xenophobia is much like the German Nazis toward the Soviets and Jews-

Funny thing about that. The Nazis hated Russians, Jews, and socialists. The people running this country hate Russians and socialists. The Nazis wanted domination of at least half the world (I'm assuming Japan would have gotten a slice had they won). The people running this country want domination of more than half the world. The Nazis were willing to risk world war with weapons of mass destruction to achieve their goal. The people running this country are willing to risk world war with weapons of mass destruction to achieve their goal. The Nazis wedded the goals of industry with the goals of government, essentially enmeshing the two to the point that they were practically indistinguishable. The people running this country have wedded the goals of corporations with the goals of government, essentially enmeshing the two to the point that they are practically indistinguishable. The Nazis found it necessary to institute a police state, complete with surveillance, mass imprisonment, and abrogation of individual freedoms to keep the home front in line. The people running this country instituted a police state, complete with surveillance, mass imprisonment, and abrogation of individual freedoms to keep the home front in line. The Nazis often decided who should be imprisoned, tortured, or killed based on character assassinations which were often derived from little but hearsay or political convenience. The people running this country have not only adopted that custom, but enshrined it in the law (take a close look at the 2011 NDAA). The Nazis instituted a vast censorship and propaganda program. The people running this country have outdone them to the point that Goebbels is probably weeping with envy from beyond the grave.

There are a few differences. The people running this country are not honest about their racial policies. Where it is useful, they discriminate against, steal from, imprison, torture, and murder racial and cultural minorities. Up until 2008 that was, indeed, their policy as regards most of the country. Since then, they've discovered that it benefits them greatly to offer some pretense of anti-racism, and even a few actual (though minor) concessions to anti-racist movements. They use this pretense to both cover up the racist nature of the system they run and rule, and to destroy their critics by calling them racist. They do the same with other forms of bigotry, denuding all fights against bigotry of any aspect that will threaten those currently in power, and then deploying those movements as puppets for their own ends. The Nazis didn't do that. Also, the Nazis invented their own currency and created their own bank, because they didn't want the bankers running the show. Here, while industry, finance, and government are welded together, it is not government that has the upper hand, but industry and finance. Thus, we do not have a true nationalized currency, nor a national banking system, but are dominated by private banks both foreign and domestic. Also, we have not yet instituted concentration and extermination camps, though we have flirted with the concept in our prisons, detention centers like the one in Chicago, and black sites outside our borders.

That's why I don't get het up about how I must support Democrats to oppose neo-Nazis. The Democrats are themselves supporting neo-Nazis, sometimes literally, as in the Ukraine, sometimes more loosely, as in the United States.

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"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

travelerxxx's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Also, we have not yet instituted concentration and extermination camps, though we have flirted with the concept in our prisons, detention centers like the one in Chicago, and black sites outside our borders.

I maintain we do indeed have concentration camps, which are our prisons. The only reason we don't have extermination camps is that they haven't yet figured out a way to make a buck from their existence.

After all, as you stated:

...it is not government that has the upper hand, but industry and finance.
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Hawkfish's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Choose your enemies carefully 'cause they will define you
Make them interesting 'cause in some ways they will mind you
They're not there in the beginning but when your story ends
Gonna last with you longer than your friends
- U2, Cedars of Lebanon

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Hawkfish

and integrate them deep into one's own intelligence service and military in exchange for their secrets scientific and political.

That sort of behavior tends to speed up the process of becoming one's enemies considerably.

Almost makes me think there were some very powerful people here who never had a problem with the brutalities of fascism.

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"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

Below is a link of a Democracy Now segment between Glenn Greenwald and Joe Cirincione of the Ploughshare Fund. Even an organization like Ploughshares which purports to work at reducing and eliminating nukes went basically full Russiagate/xenophobic/neocon over Donald Trump. I had to ask what is the purpose of Ploughshares Fund again??

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/07/19/greenwald_vs_cirincio...

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@MrWebster

Like most of the non-profit sector, it's been taken over, directly or indirectly, by those defending the status quo.

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"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

CB's picture

but it certainly is not going to roll over and capitulate.

They proved their mettle with the lives of 10,700,000 soldiers and 14,154,000 civilians in WWII. Compare this to 416,800 US soldiers and 1,700 US civilians. Comparatively, these numbers amount to 14.5% of total Russian population and 0.3% of the US population. The US domestic populace has never greatly suffered during times of foreign wars or conflicts in it's entire history as a nation. On the contrary, the nation has been greatly enriched for the most part.

We can be assured that Putin speaks for all Russian citizens here:

‘Why would we want a world without Russia?’ Putin on Moscow’s nuclear doctrine

President Vladimir Putin, who recently startled the world by unveiling Russia’s advanced nuclear arsenal, has again spoken of nuclear arms, clarifying the circumstances in which Moscow is prepared to enter a nuclear war.

“Certainly, it would be a global disaster for humanity; a disaster for the entire world,” Putin said, in an interview for a Russian documentary “The World Order 2018,” adding that “as a citizen of Russia and the head of the Russian state I must ask myself: Why would we want a world without Russia?”
...
Putin told NBC’s “Megyn Kelly Today” that a new arms race has been started by Washington when it decided to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) back in 2002. The US then proceeded with a massive arms build-up right on Russia’s doorstep. In the following years, the US has virtually encircled Russia with its missile defense installations, in particular by stationing them in Romania and Poland. It also, for the first time, deployed a battery of Patriot long-range anti-aircraft systems to Lithuania for war games.
...

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Lily O Lady's picture

Quitcherbitchin. Snark

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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"

WWdeuce, I believe it was Stalin(?) that said the next World War would NOT be fought on Roosya soil.

They haven’t changed their mind on that.

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Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

hell, it follows that anyone who starts a nuclear war is a sinner. Whether such go to hell or not is a matter for whatever theology you follow, but the people starting the nuclear war are mightily in the wrong, and those who die as a result of their aggression could be conceived of as dying as martyrs, or at least as dying not at fault.

Most Americans have no say in this shit, so most Americans will likely die not at fault too. Cold comfort.

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"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

Hawkfish's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

It is not certain that some wicked one of your race will not find out a secret as evil as the Deplorable Word and use it to destroy all living things. And soon, very soon, before you are an old man and an old woman, great nations of your world will be ruled by tyrants who care no more for joy and justice and mercy than the Empress Jadis. Let your world beware. That is the warning.

— C S Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Hawkfish

and one I'd forgotten. Thank you.

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"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