They're Committed To Killing Us

Before you decide that I should either be medicated or locked up, give me a minute to explain. I'm old enough to have actually hidden under a desk in school in the 50's to escape a nuclear attack. I'm old enough to remember people like Dorothy Day, Ammon Hennacy and others picketing and being arrested for refusing to go to public shelters in NYC during Civil Defense Drills. The whole point of their arrests was to let people know how useless and ineffective it would be to try and hide underground in subway stations during a nuclear attack. They were correct by the way. Just do a quick search of the internet on the results of a nuclear blast in your own geographic area and then contemplate your survival. Pax Christi also has an important piece on The Reality of Nuclear War. Take a minute to read it.

So here we are, years later, with foreign leaders and our generals and president talking about the actual use of nuclear weapons. Crazy, yes. Stupid, yes. Irresponsible, yes. All of those things and probably more. People have spent years educating the general pubic about the reality and the dangers of nuclear war. Some of us thought humanity had actually gotten it and understood how futile it was for people to even conceive of the use of nuclear weapons. But corporations, generals and politicians have really never changed. They are committed to killing us, and not enough of us realize it. Not enough of us are willing to call fools fools and stand up to the forces that would easily kill us.

No one should miss or downplay the most recent news that the government of South Korea is more interested in discussions with North Korea as opposed to joining the threats of war. There certainly are no easy answers relative to North Korea or other states who currently have or who are developing nuclear weapons, but threats of preemptive attacks aren't going to help. Worse yet, such talk and  actions could lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and eventually lead to the destruction of the world as we know it. Pointing out whose arsenal is bigger and which leader is crazier than the other does little in this nuclear age. Building more real weapons of mass destruction helps no one but the profiteers. You only need a finite number of nuclear warheads to destroy the world as we know it.

So speaking up and taking action is critical. We can't let despots at home or abroad lead us into catastrophic war. Remember, these people really are committed to killing us.