This Atheist Begs You to Read the Pope’s New Book, by David Swanson
This book is a passionate warning that World War III is underway in scattered pieces and escalating, that nuclear catastrophe is almost inevitable if we do not change course.
This book is a passionate warning that World War III is underway in scattered pieces and escalating, that nuclear catastrophe is almost inevitable if we do not change course.
THE ABSOLUTE IMPERATIVE OF PARTNERSHIP NOW. We have the need the opportunity to reduce carbon emissions as a global mobilization. But to do that we need some dialogue serious dialogue, we need partnership. We can't have this rhetoric, what I call a Manichaean rhetoric, that we're good and they're bad. We have to accept the world: It's not pretty and we all have flaws, and we can argue about who is worse or who is better but that's not the point. The point is we have to partner with China, with Russia, with India, with Brazil, with a lot of countries we have massive disagreements with, but whatever those disagreements are the climate continues to warm as it is. We're putting more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere every day, and it's going to last in many cases for hundreds of years. This is another disaster and we've got to mobilize. We can have more than a million people in Central Park again: We need people all over the world, and we need to wake people up to the problem substantively but with the absolute imperative of partnership now. Jerry Brown, Executive Chair of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
We talk about Orwell, Animal Farm, Newspeak and the ministry of information. How Orwell's writings are still relevant for today. Chomsky's book Manufacturing Consent is accurate to this day. We briefly discuss the propaganda model and how the media is used in order to manufacture public consent for wars.
Ecological effects of war in Ukraine and war in general: The overweening and unconscionable plodding response of industry will take years! We have the tools with solar panels and wind energy, but the war and gas and oil industries with inexcusable help from Washington/Congress are blocking the swift action needed. Nor is nuclear power a solution.
What are the implications for humanity as a whole?
NATO should stop expanding and should be ended forever.
Snowden talks about why he decided to whistleblow and how he landed in Moscow where he now lives. Ellsberg talks about the Pentagon Papers and along the way the courage and necessity of whistleblowers.
"For example, buried in the DOD 2020 budget is $150 million for research into putting missile defense assets in space to attack enemy nuclear missiles in the boost phase. If the U.S. or another nation does deploy weapons in space, it would be the first country to do so and likely would be a disaster for strategic stability."
The Peace Report: Fighting One Empire at a Time
"The late political scientist Kenneth Waltz argued that nuclear weapons can generally be a good thing because fear of the cataclysmic consequences of a war breaking out can make resort to war less likely. But that always has been a minority view."