Caitlin Johnstone says it should disturb everyone in the nuclear age that writers at influential publications frame the rise of a multipolar world as something that must inevitably bring on unspeakable violence and human suffering.
World map with WMD hazard symbols. (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com
Listen to a reading of this article.
Mainstream punditry in the latter half of 2022 is rife with op-eds arguing that the U.S. needs to vastly increase military spending because a world war is about to erupt, and they frame it as something that happens to the U.S. as though its own actions would have nothing to do with it.
As though it would not be the direct result of the U.S.-centralized empire continually accelerating towards that horrific event while refusing every possible diplomatic off-ramp due to its inability to relinquish its goal of total unipolar, planetary domination.
The latest example of this trend is an article titled “Could America Win a New World War? — What It Would Take to Defeat Both China and Russia” published by Foreign Affairs, a magazine that is owned and operated by the supremely influential think tank the Council on Foreign Relations.
“The United States and its allies must plan for how to simultaneously win wars in Asia and Europe, as unpalatable as the prospect may seem,” writes Thomas G. Mahnken, adding that in some ways “the United States and its allies will have an advantage in any simultaneous war” on those two continents.
Western arms systems are among the best in the world—but to win a potential conflict against both China and Russia, the United States will also need to develop new fighting techniques, writes Thomas Mahnken.https://t.co/1xLExCQx5D
— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) October 27, 2022
Mahnken doesn’t claim a world war against Russia and China would be a walk in the park; he also argues that in order to win such a war the U.S. will need to — you guessed it — drastically increase its military spending.
“The United States clearly needs to increase its defense manufacturing capacity and speed,” Mahnken writes. “In the short term, that involves adding shifts to existing factories. With more time, it involves expanding factories and opening new production lines. To do both, Congress will have to act now to allocate more money to increase manufacturing.”
But exploding U.S. weapons spending is still inadequate, Mahnken argues, saying that “the United States should work with its allies to increase their military production and the size of their weapons and munitions stockpiles” as well.
Mahnken says this world war could be sparked “if China initiated a military operation to take Taiwan, forcing the United States and its allies to respond,” as though there would be no other options on the table besides launching into nuclear-age World War Three to defend an island next to the Chinese mainland that calls itself the Republic of China.
He writes that “Moscow, meanwhile, could decide that with the United States bogged down in the western Pacific, it could get away with invading more of Europe,” demonstrating the bizarre Schrödinger’s cat Western propaganda paradox that Putin is always simultaneously (A) getting destroyed and humiliated in Ukraine and (B) on the cusp of waging hot war with NATO.
It's crazy how many people are making entire careers out of advocating the worst thing that could possibly happen. pic.twitter.com/GfmBrNDEDg
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) October 27, 2022
Again, this is just the latest in an increasingly common genre of mainstream Western punditry.
In “The skeptics are wrong: The U.S. can confront both China and Russia,” The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin wags his finger at Democrats who think aggressions against Russia should be prioritized and Republicans who think that military and financial attention should be devoted to China, arguing por que no los dos? (Why not both?}
New: The skeptics are wrong: The U.S. can confront both China and Russia https://t.co/raxePmSa0T by me @PostOpinions
— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) August 4, 2022
In “Could The U.S. Military Fight Russia And China At The Same Time?“, 19FortyFive’s Robert Farley answers in the affirmative, writing that “the immense fighting power of the U.S. armed forces would not be inordinately strained by the need to wage war in both theaters” concluding that “the United States can fight both Russia and China at once… for a while, and with the help of some friends.”
In “Can the U.S. Take on China, Iran and Russia All at Once?” Bloomberg’s Hal Brands answers that it would be very difficult and recommends escalating in Ukraine and Taiwan and selling Israel more advanced weaponry to get a step ahead of Russia, China and Iran respectively.
In “International Relations Theory Suggests Great-Power War Is Coming,” the Atlantic Council’s Matthew Kroenig writes for Foreign Policy that a global democracies-versus-autocracies showdown is coming “with the United States and its status quo-oriented democratic allies in NATO, Japan, South Korea, and Australia on one side and the revisionist autocracies of China, Russia, and Iran on the other,” and that aspiring foreign policy experts should adjust their expectations accordingly.
When they’re not arguing that World War Three is coming and we must all prepare to fight it and win, they’re arguing that a global conflict is already upon us and we must begin acting like it, as in last month’s New Yorker piece “What if We’re Already Fighting the Third World War with Russia?”
These Beltway swamp monster pontifications are directed not just at the general public but at government policymakers and strategists as well, and it should disturb us all that their audiences are being encouraged to view a global conflict of unspeakable horror like it’s some kind of natural disaster that people don’t have any control over.
Every measure should be taken to avoid a world war in the nuclear age. If it looks like that’s where we’re headed, the answer is not to ramp up weapons production and create entire industries dedicated to making it happen, the answer is diplomacy, de-escalation and detente.
These pundits frame the rise of a multipolar world as something that must inevitably be accompanied by an explosion of violence and human suffering, when in reality we’d only wind up there as a result of decisions that were made by thinking human beings on both sides.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s no omnipotent deity decreeing from on high that we must live in a world where governments brandish Armageddon weapons at each other and humanity must either submit to Washington or resign itself to cataclysmic violence of planetary consequence. We could just have a world where the peoples of all nations get along with each other and work together toward the common good rather than working to dominate and subjugate each other.
As Jeffrey Sachs recently put it, “The single biggest mistake of President Biden was to say ‘the greatest struggle of the world is between democracies and autocracies’. The real struggle of the world is to live together and overcome our common crises of environment and inequality.”
MUST WATCH: The brilliant Professor Sachs speaks the truth and offers his wisdom and advice for humanity.
"The real struggle of the world is to live together and overcome our common crises of environment and inequality."
Original video: https://t.co/WFZAbS1cPG pic.twitter.com/zhW3IIOXQ6
— Kimmee Lee (@KimmeeLee2) October 22, 2022
We could have a world where our energy and resources go toward increasing human thriving and learning to collaborate with this fragile biosphere we evolved in. Where all our scientific innovation is directed toward making this planet a better place to live instead of channeling it into getting rich and finding new ways to explode human bodies.
Where our old models of competition and exploitation give way to systems of collaboration and care. Where poverty, toil and misery gradually move from accepted norms of human existence to dimly remembered historical record.
Instead we’re getting a world where we’re being hammered harder and harder with propaganda encouraging us to accept global conflict as an unavoidable reality, where politicians who voice even the mildest support for diplomacy are shouted down and demonized until they bow to the gods of war, where nuclear brinkmanship is framed as safety and de-escalation is branded as reckless endangerment.
We don’t have to submit to this. We don’t have to keep sleepwalking into dystopia and Armageddon to the beat of manipulative sociopaths. There are a whole lot more of us than there are of them, and we’ve got a whole lot more at stake here than they do.
We can have a healthy world. We’ve just got to want it badly enough. They work so hard to manufacture our consent because, ultimately, they absolutely do require it.
Caitlin Johnstone’s work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following her on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into her tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy her books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff she publishes is to subscribe to the mailing list at her website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything she publishes. For more info on who she is, where she stands and what she’s trying to do with her platform, click here. All works are co-authored with her American husband Tim Foley.
This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
To those of the CN crew.
I have more than once tried get a point across in my comments and with little or now success.
It goes all the way back to before GI Joe ” the neocon ” democrat managed to get himself elected POTUS.
Then Caitlin gives me an opportunity. Hers three lines + one word at her masthead for this article and she continues to write about the “Mainstream Pundits” and I’m all in with her. Her observations as well as large numbers of others correctly categorize these institutions as being bought off by the “Big Money” folks who own the media. I’m with her 100% again.
That said can anyone explain to me why the democrats do not play the role of the paid opposition of the right? Hell it’s not as if anyone besides me can see through this thinly veiled bull shit. Or maybe they don’t
All politics might be local but the money that funds them sure as hell isn’t. We have lived this political terror ever since the death of JFK. In my personal opinions that is.
This reality came into the spot lite with the terms of Jimmy Carter never given a chance and Slick Willy who I firmly believe got an offer he could not turn down. Again this is in my humble opinion, but the cannot for the life of me understand why others either can’t see this reality for what it is.
The Democrats last great chance to affect change and put an end to this charade was the two terms of Obama but allowed themselves to be out wrangled by an unhelpful media and an even worse support from the democratic party.
We the People now find ourselves in “Quite the fix” as the crazy Curtis LeMay quipped to JFK.
Now even after the disastrous term of the Orange Mussolini the neocons , the muck, rises to the top of the caldron to steal attention from the overheated “melting pot’, affectionately known as the Us of A.
By the way seems the Elon may be in the “Only the Loony” category where I placed Kanye West
For the Democrats this next presidential election very well might be their last hurrah.
Any body got any better ideas?
Thanks CN
What does it mean to win?
We beat the crap out of Iraq, but we didn’t win anything. We beat the crap out of Afghanistan, but we didn’t win anything. We beat the crap out of Libya but we didn’t win anything. With our marvelous military machine, we beat the crap out of nation after nation, but never win anything. But we get deeper and deeper in debt.
So what if we beat the crap out of both Russia and China, what will we win? NOTHING!
What will we lose? EVERYTHING!
All the comments made of Caitlin’s article are made by thinking intelligent people who care. They are all stating and re-stating the obvious. It’s like chewing the sweetness out of chewing gum; one continues to chew. The question is: What do we do?
The collective West refuses to acknowledge the reality that our “500 Reich” is finally ending and giving way to a multi-polar world. No longer will we in the West be free to murder, plunder and exploit the rest of the planet under the banner of “saving souls,” “bringing civilization,” or now more recently promoting equally fatuous justifications such as our beloved devotion to – “human rights & democracy” – as the world has seen through such nonsense and has had enough. So what is the response of Western elites to these new developments toward a multi-polar world? In homage to the classic ‘spoiled child on the playground’ scenario where the kid says “if I can’t be the pitcher I’ll take my ball and go home” – we get Western elites throwing a nuclear tantrum and clearly proclaiming to the rest of humanity – “If you don’t do what we say we’ll just blow up the whole world!”
A very good interview with Denis Kucinich appears on the Grayzone website.
Those in the press and government pushing for more war are acting in coordinated unison to omit crucial information, such as the West’s violent overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government in 2014. And that is merely the tip of the iceberg in their massive campaign of lying to the American public. They also lied for 20 years about their war in Afghanistan, and lied Americans into their Iraq war.
It’s clear to me that the corporate press and government have been captured by a group that is intent on acting against the interests of Americans. Simply put, they are enemies of America who need to be rooted out.
Here is an excellent interview with a courageous, truth-telling candidate for the Senate from NY, Diane Sare. Very worth amplifying.
Taking on the Deep State candidate w/Diane Sare
hXXps://rumble.com/v1q66zv-taking-on-the-deep-state-candidate-wdiane-sare-live.html
There is no plan for nuclear war, no matter how insidious, no matter how it might plan for the survival of some sacred elite, that one who understands the destructive power of hydrogen bombs can imagine as having a positive outcome for anyone. First in the West to face this doom will be London, New York, Washington DC, Brussels, Taiwan, bases in Japan, western intel centers, all the large strategic cities and centers in Canada, Australia, Israel,…and who knows who else. Even after a massive first strike by the west ,the power centers of the west will be destroyed within days. Global communications will be gone, the world will be in shock and many missiles and nuclear subs and hidden nuclear facilities will remain with who knows what orders and who knows what willingness to follow them. Money will be paper, gold will be heavy and dangerous, and worth its weight in food. Even countries not targeted will be the scene of wars for food until most are dead from radiation sickness. Most of the planet will smell of rotting and burnt flesh and burnt plastic and burnt everything. Will the western powers send messages about their planned attacks to the chosen rich with luxury bunkers? Will they take armed guards and their wives or girl friends into the bunkers. Will it be safe for anyone anywhere for long enough to enjoy their brief span of post apocalyptic life? Or is all this a bluff before the Anglo central command loses another war and new power arrangements form?
Ok, I’m trying as a non military nuclear strategist to imagine such a war and doubtless getting much wrong . Because Europe and its NATO bases are the first line of assault on Russia, I assume they would be targeted by conventional and nuclear weapons. Are there weapons designed to target communication satellites? If so they will be targets. Won’t China’s only option be full scale war on the west’s Pacific nations, particularly Japan and Australia, with the possibility of land based assaults after the big cities are nuked. The ecological devastation would be enormous and unpredictable and it is impossible for me to imagine any nation including the US to retain the ability or will or motive to project military or economic power.
It looks to me that the best chance of survival of global nucllear devastation will be Africa, South America, south and Southeast Asia , northern parts of North America, basically the regions of low strategic value in such a battle. This would be a set-up for the very multi-polar world these mainstream strategists of WW3 fear.
Will Jesus or Allah or the aliens interfere and save us from ourselves? Will we be any wiser after such a war? Will the neo-cons finally get the jobs they have always dreamed of? How do the people selling these articles manage to ignore the US long history of military failure or the role of Russia in defeating at great loss the German War machine. Are these not the same people with the same bullshit who sold the war in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Vietnam.
The pundits seem to assume war is a video game, and that they personally will not suffer.
Have we already forgot Afghanistan?
Just wait an hour or two after the mushroom cloud and then go about your day as normal.
Note the glaring contradictions in the same article by Thomas Mahnken.
“Washington knows that the conflict in Ukraine is likely to be protracted, thanks to the ability of Kyiv and Moscow to keep fighting and the irreconcilability of their aims, and could escalate in ways that bring the United States more directly into the war…”
“It will likely take years to replenish many of the munitions that the United States has provided to Ukraine”.
“For example, the United States has not produced Stinger antiaircraft missiles in 18 years, and restarting production will take time and money. So far, the United States has given Ukraine over 1,400 of these munitions”
The author has the audacity to state that the prolongation of war is because of Ukrain and Russia’s inability to reconcile their differences and not because of fuelling the war with supply of weapons.
I wish a massive protest movement could be arranged to peaceful demonstrate outside the offices of these dangerous, anti-humanity ‘think tanks’ to shun them on their satanic ideas of total destruction of this planet.
The neural networks of these pundits, so called, are so cauterised that it is difficult to conclude that they are not insane. America’s record of losing wars is, after all fairly impressive against seemingly inferior opponents. Are sane people really that slow to learn? As usual, those who make the decisions to sanction and go to war will be impacted the least or not at all. This debacle, engineered by the ‘International Community’ (a classic oxymoron) is hurting ordinary everyday Americans, Ukrainians and Europeans at the hands of what seems to me to be the mob in Washington and its lackeys in the UK, France, Germany et al. I am sure none of the gods who profess to govern this world will suffer the pangs of hunger or shiver from cold instigated by their seemingly mindless adventurism.
“..at influential publications frame the rise of a multipolar world as something that must inevitably bring on unspeakable violence and human suffering. ”
As ever they are singing the apres nous le deluge song to ward of evil spirits.
It is fortunate that that they are influential only in limited congregations, rational congregations hearing noises of dissonance and switching off.
Such are among the powers of “US propaganda” – they should be thanked for their service.
The arrogant USA with the wonderful weapons they make which cannot even keep up with the demand in puppet Ukraine and with which they have not won a war in living memory, now wants to expand. What threats are there???? NONE. China includes Taiwan-keep out and fix up your own decaying “nation” full of crime, homelessness and failing infrastructure.
Russia has asked for respect and cooperation for 15 years and you refused, so you cross an important red line and arm and support its neighbor which you have made an enemy of Russia and a potential NATO member. You blame Russia for reacting, after 8 years of trying UN negotiations which you and the puppet refuse?
All of the “dangers” as well as the other interventions since WW2 have been YOUR inventions. More weapons and violence ARE NOT defense.
This country is filled with people who are in essence insane. Psychosis runs rampant and is encouraged by those in power. This is what I’ve been afraid of, the mentality of someone like Joe Biden. “You all didn’t exist when I was born and you’re not going to exist when I’m dead.” The U.S. would rather destroy the entire world than let its hegemonic power go.
Both Russia and China have made the point that they do not intend to replace the US as a unipolar hegemon of the entire world. They both have full plates when it comes to territory, resources and populations to feed and do not seek to expand their own sovereignty. They are inviting every other nation within the Eurasian landmass, including formidable powers such as India, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey to integrate into the operation and leadership of this new commercial and financial operation called the BRI and the Shanghai Cooperative. They are organizing similar initiatives, such as the Brics, which will encompass and unify the whole world. The United States could join, it simply cannot run the whole show as it would desire. Moreover, it would not be rejected the way Russia was rejected by Nato and the Eu. The Wunderwaffen these countries feel compelled to develop are absolutely necessary defenses against the always aggressive US, not to “enslave” the world as the American propaganda would have you believe. This constant song and dance by Washington as to why the entire rest of the world must have its development delayed or suppressed to protect freedom and democracy gets a bit tedious and is nothing but suspicious.
“Russia has asked for respect and cooperation for 15 years and you refused..”
The framing of Russia as supplicant to “The United States of America” has been a default position in “The United States of America” since at least 1922.
Its presentations have included, but have not been restricted to – famine relief after the “Russian Civil War” in 1922, Lend Lease in 1942, and the notices of intent sent to “The United States of America” and “NATO” in December 2021, which were “misinterpreted” as invitations to negotiate and/or ultimata, all as a function of the interaction of “American exceptionalism” and “We the people hold these truths to be self-evident”.
Vastly overpaid, bought pundits. The dregs of humanity.
In a world with nuclear weapons, it really does not matter what line they stand in. No one here gets out alive.
We learned in the 1970’s that many influential columnists of the Cold War 1.0 in the 50’s and 60’s were on the CIA and FBI payrolls. Since then, the Cheneys, have declared that ‘the gloves are off’, so it should not be a big surprise that this is highly likely to be true once again.
The easy way to defeat them is the way it was done before. Turn them off.
Back then, the slogan was “Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out”, and it included dropping out of the establishment’s society to the point where the New York Times could no longer tell you that World War III was a really great idea for Wall Street.
They can say it and write it all they want, but you don’t have to listen to them. They are only ‘influential’ because you give them that power and influence. You can take it away as well. Turn them off. Seriously. If you had people telling you to commit suicide, would perhaps you figure out that you don’t have to waste your life listening to them? Turn them off.
If you are close enough to experience a nuclear blast, don’t expect your living quarters and showering facilities to have remained standing, or for city water or electricity to still be connected. Even duct tape won’t help with this one. There is not an app for every problem in life.
Why does the simple existence of so many countries, basically just trying to develop their economies, infrastructure and technological bases, often in conjunction with other countries of some common commercial, political, cultural or regional interest (like the BRI that China and numerous other states are pursuing), so offend the regime in Washington that it plots intricate avenues to a world war III in order to exterminate these countries, or at least to radically suppress their development?
Why does it maintain a standing army posted in nearly a thousand bases around the entire planet? Why does it maintain an armory including in excess of 6,000 nuclear warheads with every conceivable mechanism (artillery, jet aircraft, short-range, medium-range and long-range mirved missiles, some housed in silos, others on mobile platforms, others on ships and most notably deep diving submarines that ceaselessly patrol the entire globe) deliver these warheads to targets around the entire globe within mere minutes in most cases? Why is the government that both controls and exploits this country to the absolute maximum degree, extracting more treasure from the taxpayers to spend on these mechanisms of total devastation than we could even dream of spending upon our own necessities and priorities, which gives us NO SAY in these matters whatsoever, maintaining a never-ending posture of literally being at constant war with the entire rest of the planet.
The only reason that this universal and forever war does not constantly rage (although it is manifested FAR too often to be trivialised or ignored) is that most other nations are hopelessly below peer level to the American military juggernaut and rarely, even when seriously provoked, do they dare fire a shot at our monstrously huge assets. Usually what WE call a war, which is more like a war crime or colloquially called a “turkey shoot,” only erupts upon Washington’s choice, with the butchery inevitably proving to be so one-sided that it truly IS a war crime. Lulls between such events are more the exceptions than the rules, as this country’s government relentlessly insists upon waging this continuous war against the entire rest of the planet.
Now they are actively provoking the two countries (Russia and China) with the largest and most advanced militaries, behind only ours, in what our people brazenly threaten as a fight to the finish, where the deployment of nuclear weaponry is actively threatened by the United States. Even trade and commerce have been weaponized to the most absurd extent by the American side, to the point where our hapless “allies” are extensively subjected to massive economic collateral damage. So, Washington cannot truthfully contend not to have been fighting an incipient world war for the better part of a decade already.
When will the madness end, and what can we Americans long massively affected by it do? When you consider the dollar amounts wasted on the great American forever war, the civilian population could be living in a golden age if the same resources were spent on them! We’d have wonderful advancements in education, medical care, emergency services, infrastructure, housing, transportation, space exploration, scientific advancement and a myriad of other necessities ALL woefully neglected to feed the monsters of war living large in Arlington, Langley, Capitol Hill, Foggy Bottom and Silicon Valley. And don’t tell the lie that it’s necessary to keep up with military spending by Russia and China who both invest a pittance compared to the billions of pounds of flesh harvested from the American taxpayer. It is NOT Russia or China that is a threat to the American public, the threat is nearly all domestic and concentrated where I just said. If we can’t rein it in, we are doomed to SELF-destruct.
Amen and right on, Realist. It seems there must be a lot of people in the US government and elsewhere in Freelandia who actually believe the war hawks and think along the lines of the old tune by Randy Newman that goes “they all hate us anyhow, so let’s drop the big one now”. Only without the satire. Sad, the madness might end by way of a nuclear holocaust.
At bottom, all of these cheerleaders for world war are in the arms of weapons manufacturers. The amount of money that would be spent preparing to bring about the most ruinous calamity in human history is staggering. My position has long been that people of influence who advocate for wars of aggression should be stationed at the very front of the front lines. It should be written into law.
Agree – they should be the first ones into battle – to prove to the world how committed they are to their cause!
I second your wise comment whole-heartedly, yes the psycopathic war-mongering elites in the West and their equally brainless patsy allies in the “west” in the Rest must be roped in and dumped at the forefront of the frontiers if WW III were to break out. This time they should not be allowed to profit at the background while irresponsibly launching their clueless innocent masses into needless unjust wars ! By the way, I love and fully go with Caitlin’s beautiful second last paragraph as well.
Don’t forget the bankers, sir. Bankers are always there to profit, no matter what tragedy and/or atrocity is going on.
In the end, wars are money squabbles. The US and their vassals in Europe are in debt and desperately trying to find ways to steal more money or dynamite the whole edifice. It is such a pity to realize that “this” is what we made of this world. Of course Pres. Putin is right: this end of hegemony – installed after WWII – will make the coming 10 years incredibly difficult. If you add that Europe has produced brain dead leaders for several years now, the Americans may try the ultimate in “mass murder”.
I completely agree. But regarding leaders, it’s not that Europe only produces braindead leaders, it’s that only the braindead are allowed to become leaders. There are brilliant minds like German politician Sahra Wagenknecht, but she would never be allowed to rise to the top. It’s a rigged system.
“It’s a rigged system.”
Indeed!
The reality is that if this country is hellbent on war, war III as it is, there will undoubtedly be a war waged internally. Not a philosophical war, but one of the people against the government. Its pretty simple.
Apparently insanity prevails while reason dies…
To passively listen to the ignorant drivel that corporate media spews shows how deeply the psychopathy of Washington and war has settled in American society. As if we can engage in nuclear war on this planet and simply go about our daily-lives. Seriously? How about no internet, no tv, no power, no medical care, no shelter, no food, and nowhere to run, no matter who you are? And did I mention, forever? Truly, is this the rehash of “Better dead than red”? Do people even know what they are choosing? Americans seem to love slogans so they can hide from reality. And all this when there is not even a threat. No one is attacking us. Just the goblins of big egos, small people and banal, self-serving ignorance in the political elite that American culture has produced.
Well said. I agree with you.
A recent online article on ‘how to survive a nuclear attack’ in Business Insider illustrates
exactly what you say about the expectation that we can go on with our daily lives :
First, run away from the blast
Second, be sure to take a warm shower within 24 hours to wash away ‘any radiation’.
(Use mild soap and cover any abrasions, but avoid using conditioner or lotions as
radioactive particles may cling to them).
Third, contact your loved ones to let them know you’re ok.
That’s it. So Simple !
Just one concern – where will those radioactive particles end up once they go down the drain? And how will it affect the local water supply?
“A recent online article on ‘how to survive a nuclear attack’ in Business Insider illustrates
exactly what you say about the expectation that we can go on with our daily lives ”
A reprise of “Duck and cover” in the hope that “We the people hold these truths to be self-evident”.
It is as if these parties, and so many comments in answer to stories, actually wished WW 3 would get going. These ‘freedom lovers’ might think differently if they resided in Europe. The US has never experience a war on its own territory – time it did and experience the horrors, the same horrors the US has been inflicting all over the world.
The U.S. did experience a war on its own territory. It was called the Civil War and it was devastating, even back in the 1860s. With modern weapons it will be worse. With nuclear weapons the world will cease to exist,
I think part of the difference involves WWII being within living memory, whereas those who have lived in the Civil War era are now (mostly if not all) dead. Also, if this is another difference one can think of, was civilian infrastructure in Civil War-era USA targeted as was that of WWII Europe?
The last Civil War veteran died in 1959. The staggering death toll was largely due to the primitive state of medicine at that time. The great majority of casualties died of wounds or disease rather than in action.
US General Sherman undertook the Georgia campaign to break the cycle of battles between armies so evenly matched that they achieved nothing but slaughter and maim tens of thousands of innocent young men. He was the first to realize that breaking civilian morale was key to forcing the insurgent regime’s surrender. This he did by targeting the assets of the elite who had initiated the conflict and by destroying civilian infrastructure vital to the insurgency. The march through Georgia was nearly bloodless but it broke the back of the faltering rebel economy and hastened the return of peace.
In World War II, the so-called “good war,” this strategy was taken to its logical next step, the deliberate slaughter of civilian populations. As a state’s ability to defend itself rests on its industrial and agricultural productivity and the morale of its servicemen, in the relentless logic of modern total war, a primary objective must be to kill farmers and industrial workers and to demoralize front line soldiers by murdering their families and destroying their homes.
Excuse me, Joey, the US Civil War ended about 157 years ago. Do you seriously think there are people above ground who are at least that old? It so happens that my Great Grandfather was from that era, in fact he witnessed Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, but he died in 1958. at age 107.
Caitlen – you are so right, as always, except for your conclusion that: “They work so hard to manufacture our consent because, ultimately, they absolutely do require it.” I wish you were right about that, but I think and fear that they do not require our consent.
Why not? The same internationalist Marxist Capitalists/Warmongers/Profiteers/Parasites pulled off WWI and WWII.
What are you talking about? Marxists are the opposite of capitalists. The capitalists are the criminal warmongering parasites of the world, not Marxists. Marxism is the only cause to fight for, against capitslism.
I know! People have been so brainwashed they don’t even know what they are saying! And I’m getting tired of liberals, especially academics, who call themselves Marxists and give Marx a bad name when they have never seriously read Marx and certainly don’t subscribe to his beliefs. Number one requirement if you want to call yourself a socialist, Marxist, communist: You do not live on unearned income!
Thank you.
I completely agree.
Well, they are mad, aren’t they.
And the only way they’ll learn is a harsh, visceral experience.
In which God favours Russia . . .
hxxps://les7eb.substack.com/p/ukraine-long-proxy-war-vi-god-favours
Everyone wants to avoid WW3: but everyone eventually gets the war they are trying to avoid. History is clear. That is the daunting challenge.
A free ebook: The Pattern Of History and Fate of Humanity
If you have the material and financial privilege to own or have access to a luxury bunker, why not? You believe that you’re part of a small group who have evolved beyond the masses of your species so a good culling of the herd just leaves that much more for you.
A bunker will not save you if the planet is toast. That includes no breathable air, no water, no plants, no animals. Nothing but charcoal. Forever.
You took the comment as though it were the material structure of the bunker, concretely. I was describing the beliefs of the materially and financially privileged egos who are the very small minority who benefit from the algorithms of the System. Is your fear dictating your re-action?
Human beings, as awful as we are, cannot destroy life. I saw a good TV program about the massive volcano in Siberia 250 million years ago. It killed nearly everything on Earth due to high concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere, hydrogen sulfide, lack of oxygen in the water and air. It sat atop a vast coal deposit and consequently burned for a million years!
They think it took about eight to 10 million years for the Earth to begin to recover. Nothing in geologic time.
Bonjour !
Les USA n’ont jamais gagné une guerre, ils laissent derrière eux une désolation “humanitaire”, bien pire que quand ils envahissent le pays !!!! mais le principal pour eux est le fric et ils en gagnent des tas ! pas l’américain moyen, qui lui vit dans la tente mais les trust (qu’en est-il de la loi contre eux???), la parano yankee est une vraie maladie, il faut être malade pour se croire sans cesse attaqués ! Plus d’armes e changera rien, cette fois, les USA qui n’ont m^me pas le courage de dire qu’ils combattent la Russie en ukraine par nazis interposés, ( comme en 40 ?), c’est foutu pour l’hégémonie imméritée des USA, fini leur racket avec le dollar, et, je l’espère, fini d’imposer leur droit arbitraire, (extraterritorialité ! ben tiens je viens, je m’installe chez toi et tu la fermes ! les Russes ne sont pas des Amérindiens ! ;O)) sur le reste du monde, ils doivent l’avaler, c’est comme ça. Aujourd’hui, 80% du monde rejettent ce pays voyou et une guerre avec ses allés est perdue d’avance, totalement perdue. Le pire, les yankee le savent, ils ont fait 16 simulations contre la Russie seule et ont perdu 16 fois ! Mais ces tarés vivent sur les profits espérés, sachant que ni eux ni leurs descendants consanguins n’iront à la guerre ! ils sont près à tuer des millions de gens, ( ce qu’ils ont fait en toute impunité depuis l’après-guerre). On en comprend pas comment ces gens gèrent votre pays. Votre racket dollar vous a enrichi au-delà de l(imagination et même avec ça, vous avez été incapables de payer pour vos besoins allant toujours voler, piler, massacrer à 10 000 kilomètres de vos côtes !et votre dette (QE) est irremboursable, on ne comprend même pas ce qi reste de confiance dans votre dollar ! Si la Russie enfreignait comme les USA le droit international, si elle coupait ses exportations de pétrole ver les USA, en à peine un mois, les USA vivraient 1990, en pire, vous avez plein de fous furieux armés ! finalement, c’est tout ce que l’Amérique mérite : vivre ce qu’elle a fait subir à tous depuis ses à peine trois siècles d’existence ! l’enfant roi, le tyran doit partir a queue entre les jambes, espérons qu’il aura autant d’honneur que l’URSS et que ça se fera sans un coup de feu mais, vu leur maladie génétique paranoïaque, j’ai des doutes…..
Captain América est un assassin, il faut être aveugle pour ne pas le voir.
” il faut être aveugle pour ne pas le voir.”
C’est ne pas vrai.
They look in the mirror and see themselves.
Note the glaring contradictions in the same article by Thomas Mahnken.
“Washington knows that the conflict in Ukraine is likely to be protracted, thanks to the ability of Kyiv and Moscow to keep fighting and the irreconcilability of their aims, and could escalate in ways that bring the United States more directly into the war…”
“It will likely take years to replenish many of the munitions that the United States has provided to Ukraine”.
“For example, the United States has not produced Stinger antiaircraft missiles in 18 years, and restarting production will take time and money. So far, the United States has given Ukraine over 1,400 of these munitions”
The author has the audacity to state that the prolongation of war is because of Ukrain and Russia’s inability to reconcile their differences and not because of fuelling the war with supply of weapons.
For some 23 years, here in California, I have this recurring feeling that I am in Hamburg in 1938.