McCain and Nuclear Disarmament
This week John McCain gave a speech on nuclear disarmament.
"Russia and the United States are no longer mortal enemies," McCain said in a speech that was interrupted at least four times by hecklers opposed to the Iraq war. "As our two countries possess the overwhelming majority of the world's nuclear weapons, we have a special responsibility to reduce their number. I believe we should reduce our nuclear forces to the lowest level we judge necessary, and we should be prepared to enter into a new arms control agreement with Russia reflecting the nuclear reductions I will seek."
This is one of the biggest issues that nobody talks about. Humanity collectively holds a gun to its own head year after year and yet we do nothing. We just get used to it, even though the longer we go on like this, the more countries acquire nuclear weapons... the more dangerous it gets. And our luck will run out eventually.
I was pleasantly surprised by the spirit of McCain's speech, though I doubt his commitment. Still, this is the kind of thing we need to be talking about, and to hear a hawkish Republican admitting that our nuclear arsenal is too big is a good thing. I'd like to see Barack Obama one-up him on this issue.
Here's part 1 of the video...
If it puts you to sleep, when you wake up here's a transcript.
I love serendipity. I just
I love serendipity. I just got back from an exhibition at the Red Cross Museum, "Insecurity, The Nuclear Dillemma".
Much of the exhibit was photographs, and one of the series that most affected me was of the results of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks. It showed many of the effects, immediate and long term, of the bombs. It showed glass bottles, melted and deformed by the heat of the blast. It showed the sandals, shirts, and ID cards left behind as the only evidence that many of the occupants of those cities ever existed. And, most crushing to me, it showed a survivor of the bombings. There were two pictures of the man, an older business man. The first showed him in a shirt and tie, sitting in Japanese formal style. In the second he sat in the exact same position, but without his shirt. His left side was covered in scarring, from wounds that must have practically killed the man. The injuries must have cut so deep at the time that they laid bare his bones. The most devastating scars, however, were on his ribs. The heat of the blast must have melted the flesh of his left side so seriously that even today, you can see the bones of his ribcage and deep pits between them, healed, but still an angry red.
The exhibit called the attacks genocide, a crime against humanity and a war crime, and having seen those photos, I am inclined to agree. I have to question the humanity, the morality, of any human being who could do that to another human being.
Watching a test of the weapons one scientist thought of scripture Shiva, to prove his power takes on his divine and multiarmed form, saying "Behold, I have become death, destroyer of worlds" a military man put it more simply, "We're all sons of bitches now"
I pray that one day, we can see a world free of this type of weapon, and all of its terrible power.
Paix et amour,
Joe!
amen. I can't even imagine
amen. I can't even imagine how intense that tour must have felt. I almost cried when I went on the tour at Manzanar Relocation Camp in the Sierras... these Japanese were 'just' interned... not incinerated. I do think it's debatable as for the merits of doing it, but what it did to people proves beyond any doubt that this weapon just can't be an acceptable part of warfare. not like any brand of war is acceptable, but nuclear weapons are just in a class of their own.
I wrote a verse about the line you cited. Robert Oppenheimer is the scientist you're thinking of. He said, "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." it goes--
^^^^^^^^^^
"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."
-Robert F. Kennedy
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